The idea of delivering a range of services for children, including health and social services as well as education, using schools as the hub, has been piloted in 400 schools of different types in Scotland since 1998 in the form of integrated community schools.
A joint evaluation of the initiative by HM Inspectorate of Education, the Social Work Services Inspectorate and the Scottish Executive Health Department has now been published (see news, p9) and it should be essential reading in Westminster just as much as in Edinburgh.
Their report highlights good practice and says that joint working between schools and other agencies has definitely benefited. But whatever successes there have been, they are patchy and fall short of "the major transformation of how schools and other services work together to support the learning and development of all children" that was originally envisaged.
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