This is no time to scrap the DCSF

So it's heartening to hear shadow children's minister Tim Loughton's "absolute commitment" to Every Child Matters in this week's Interview. Locally, then, we can take it that children's services departments and multi-agency working overseen by children's trusts will remain intact under a Tory government.

Nationally, however, the picture looks different. In a speech to the RSA in June that has rather slipped under the radar, shadow children's secretary Michael Gove showed his true colours. He issued a clear signal that a Tory government would scrap the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), reinstating a department focused purely on education. "Under Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, schools have lost their principal purpose - and been saddled with a host of supplementary roles," Gove said. "We have one department which manages schools - and sees them as instruments to advance central government's social agenda. What we do not have - and what we desperately need - is a department at the heart of government championing the cause of education." He also lamented that Ofsted "is given 18 areas on which to judge a school and only a handful of them relate explicitly to educational attainment".

The message is clear: we should allow schools to deliver teaching and learning without the distractions of having to ensure children's wellbeing. But Gove seems unable to appreciate that educational attainment and social wellbeing go hand in hand, that only a happy, healthy child will fulfil their potential. Gove also wants the academies programme accelerated and more independent schools run by parent and voluntary groups. One wonders how the Tories' early intervention cheerleader Iain Duncan Smith would feel if schools were cut out of the loop in helping to nip problems in the bud.

The DCSF has been criticised for wastage and inefficiency in ex-WH Smith chief executive Richard Handover's report. But that is an argument for better management and use of resources, not for the department's abolition. Dismantling the DCSF and hiving off its various responsibilities back to other departments would in itself be a costly exercise.

What we desperately need, Mr Gove, is a department at the heart of government championing the cause of children and young people. To lose that would be a tragedy.