My paper Breaking the Lock was published last month. It caused quite a stir in the press, more I suspect because of the challenge to the current inspection regime than because of the real issue the paper was trying address.

I understand that Ofsted will be a significant focus of attention but that shouldn’t detract from the real purpose of the paper; which was to try and encourage a debate about the future of children’s services.

Having a bird’s eye view of the sector is a privileged position that we, in iMPOWER, are lucky to occupy. From that position it is becoming increasingly clear that the current model for children’s services is in many places failing children. It is financially unsustainable, based on our current understanding of future public expenditure, and is trapped in a cycle of dealing with the symptoms of problems but never really addressing the causes.