So the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) has got a thumbs-up from the Civil Service Capability Reviews. Apparently the department is mainly ‘well placed’ or ‘strong’ in each of the key areas of leadership, strategy and delivery. The latter is particularly significant, as it endorses the move towards a rather different modus operandi than that of the past….

As education communication specialists, these days Twofour Learning often finds itself working both directly and indirectly for the DCSF, delivering different aspects of the same policy initiative. The Department is now responsible for policy development, but only arms-length delivery of services: real supervision of programmes is undertaken by the nine non-departmental bodies, together with a range of contractors who tender on a project-by-project basis. So for example, in the case of the new secondary curriculum, we have been consortium partners with CfBT Education Trust supporting schools in curriculum redesign of the Foundation subjects; managed several related projects for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA); and continue to undertake longer-term curriculum innovation work for our partners the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust (SSAT).

Perhaps we are slightly unusually placed in having this multi-perspective vantage point. Having a finger in several pies can provide a wider view of the efficacy of some of these programmes, and it’s also sometimes easier to see the strengths and weaknesses of the system itself.
The biggest potential weakness is where responsibility for large programmes is divvyed-up between different agencies and contractors without a real understanding of what’s involved. There can be unnecessary overlaps, unnoticed gaps and omissions, and inconsistencies which are particularly frustrating for those whom the programmes are intended to support. So in the case of the secondary curriculum, the decision that support for core subjects should be contracted separately to a contract for all the other (foundation) subjects, makes very little sense.
However, it’s undeniable that an arms-length approach to delivery of services is really the only way of preventing a large government department from swelling into an unmanageable and inefficient bureaucracy. And with the odd exception (contracting the cheaper ETS for this year’s SATS marking, for example), broadly speaking, it seems to be working - although perhaps a blow for those civil servants whose jobs have been reduced to those of contract managers. Indeed, the Department is congratulated by the Capability Reviews on developing these ‘new collaborative’ relationships. Collaboration is certainly the key. Listening to those of us closer to the coal face, and most important of all, the schools, local authorities and Sure Start Childrens’ Centres who do the real delivery, is what will ensure whether or not the system is really working.