Government needs to recognise that its own language and action on public-sector reform can sometimes contradict its messages of integrated services.
The fact that schools have attainment targets, hospitals have waiting list targets and social services have adoption and placement targets will mean that the needs of different services do not naturally co-exist with the child at the centre.
This is not to say that professionals cannot work together in the interests of children.
In fact, the vast majority already do - like the Multi Agency Preventative project in Tower Hamlets, a joint intervention between education, health, social services and the voluntary sector to address the emotional and behavioural problems among Bangladeshi pupils in secondary schools. But it does mean that Government must accept that these challenges are deeply embedded and do all it can to avoid structures and processes that set the interests of one service against the other.
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