Schools expertise must be protected

Judith Bennett, chair of the National Governors' Association, told CYP Now governors and teachers were worried specialist skills in areas such as human resources could be lost in the reforms.

"Working in schools is very different and before there were (local authority) HR specialists. Now it seems that expertise is being lost," she said, adding that schools feared they were being sidelined. "There is an immense amount of talk about social services, which is important, but we often feel schools have dropped off the local agenda."

John Chowcat, general secretary of children's services' union Aspect, said a lot depended on the individual director of children's services. "If the director comes from an education background then they will understand education issues," he said. "But there could be problems in a small number of local authorities if the director of children's services does not appreciate the nature of schools."