ABSTRACT
In the wider political context of New Labour’s neo-liberal Third Way politics, it is not just frontline services such as health and social services, which are adopting new models of working. By constructing welfare policy around the child, the government attempted to redefine the very nature of the education service. There is a fundamental shift in the key responsibilities and remit of education. Whereas traditionally education held a core responsibility for only one aspect of all children’s lives, namely teaching and learning, it was given much broader and holistic responsibility for all aspects of the lives of the most vulnerable children. This was underlined by the changes to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) which was divided into two strategic departments, one for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), the other for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS, later Business, Innovation and Skills, BIS). It was the new DCSF that was to lead in creating coherence for children, schools and families across Whitehall. Significantly, the title of ‘Education’ has been lost from these departments. This points to the constructing of a wider, more complex and all-encompassing education sector in which schools, rather than traditional understandings of ‘education’ were to play a significant yet different role.
