Accountability key to improving children's services

This responsibility was largely indirect, as almost all of them attended locally managed schools. Governing bodies and head teachers felt, and were, very directly responsible as well. From time-to-time, I discussed individual children, and met them on school visits. But on the whole, I dealt with them as a statistical group rather than individuals.

Then, on 1 April 2005, I was appointed to be director of children's services. I also became responsible for the social care of children in Dudley, and in particular the 472 children for whom I was the key corporate parent. This time, I could not share the responsibility with autonomous schools.

The social workers and their managers reported through line management to me. I was responsible for the structure through which they worked. I remain deeply grateful to the assistant director Pauline Sharratt for her tolerance of the "new boy". I could not pretend to know all the children in the care system, but the much smaller size of the cohort, and knowing some of their histories, led me to very different ways of thinking about them.

I felt a powerful emotional link to the outcomes for all children that I had not felt as an education director. Being personally accountable for the outcomes for every child in the borough was sometimes a scary place to be, but it informed all I did. When accountability lies with just one person, there is no hiding place, and there can be real clarity and focus. Children's services may be an artificial construct, but it is one which has real power and which we must not lose.

When the Department for Children, Schools and Families was rebranded the Department for Education, many feared children's services would be sidelined. I hope that, now the Secretary of State has settled in, he has been persuaded of the importance of services being integrated.

John Freeman is a former director of children's services and now a freelance consultant