In a summer speech to the Royal Society of Arts, which came to light this week, Michael Gove said "schools have lost their principal purpose and been saddled with a host of supplementary roles since the creation of the DCSF". He added: "What we do not have - and what we desperately need - is a department at the heart of government championing the cause of education."
Schools, he claimed, have become "less places of learning and more community hubs from which a host of services can be delivered".
But Kim Bromley-Derry, president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, warned that central government must reflect councils' integrated approach to children's services. He said joined-up policy-making is vital to improving outcomes for children. "Services will always have the greatest impact when they are delivered coherently, consistently and through the pursuit of shared priorities identified at the highest level," he said.
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