Kirklees has been keen to embrace the ambitions of the Children Act and the Every child matters agenda.

With support from partners, and clear political leadership, we made careful preparations for structural and managerial change.

We now have a merged department and management structure which chunks up responsibility for outward-facing services into learning, safeguarding and localities.

We have an explicit commitment to integrate early intervention and universal services at a local level. And this commitment to localise family support and prevention will radically rebalance provision over time.

The job of director of children and young people was new for us all. How would the role work? And would it matter that a director had professional roots in either education or social care, but not both? The early signs were alarming.

As a former director of social services, I was familiar with working in a multi-agency environment managing complex systems in a mixed economy, and running services for the most vulnerable, but I was looking forward to learning more about the education part of the portfolio.

So, 12 months ago, I set about getting under the skin of the education system and its culture. To the amusement of some of my colleagues, I watched teachers' television. I still do, in moments of idle channel-hopping, and still find it useful.

I spent as much time as I could with people in schools and in the local authority learning service, and I became an avid reader of every education publication I could lay my hands on.

I also asked the chief inspector of schools to arrange for me to shadow an Ofsted inspection of a primary school in another part of the country. A highly-skilled HMI kindly talked me through everything she did.

Over the two-day period, I really did gain great insight into not only how the inspection process works but also how schools help children to learn and develop. I was left with admiration for the skills and dedication of all staff in schools, as well as a lasting memory of how intensive and focused the inspection process is.

The first steps for any new organisation are always important. In the first six months, a new senior management team was put in place. We have a really healthy mix of people appointed from within, and people who are new to Kirklees. Between us, we have experience of working in almost every part of the children's system in 11 different authorities.

Each member of the team is passionate about their own area, but even more so, about the shared agenda. As a team, we are explicitly modelling collaborative working.

The head of learning is a committed champion for looked-after children, and the head of safeguarding is determined to make a difference to how behaviour issues are tackled in schools Bringing council services together with different histories, conventions and cultures is proving an interesting experience. Like the senior management team, many people are hugely enthusiastic about joining efforts together for the benefit of the wider new agenda.

We are already finding new ways of solving old problems, and the benefits of better integration are already coming within our grasp – but there are some real challenges. Universal and targeted services have a very different feel. Almost everyone has a stake in the school system and, in recent years, the status of school-based professionals has risen. Communities understand and care about education, and the education system has a high spend and a powerful voice.

In contrast, most people know little about social care services. Highly-specialised ‘safety net' services are driven by intense legal processes and, sadly, merely needing such support can still carry a great deal of stigma.

Social care services run around the clock, every day of the year, and deal with high-risk decisions which can make a life or death difference. Children's services, which combine education and social care, have new, complex rhythms, and have a much more diverse identity than their predecessor.

The complexities of differentiating and orchestrating the contributions from different council services and wider partnership is daunting. The children and young people's plan helps enormously, and the ‘five outcomes' remain a powerful touchstone. The simple challenge of asking what difference any service makes to delivering the five outcomes is genuinely transformational.

Continually returning to the question of whether our efforts are making a difference truly focuses attention.
Of course, there is still much to do. The differences in culture and history in the different parts of the children's system can make life interesting in unexpected ways. And it's easy to get it wrong, as I learned early on.

Working in social care, I got used to coming to the point of a letter in the first sentence, or people would read no further. The same style was seen as abrupt and bossy by colleagues in schools – and I have now got used to my written work being marked and returned to me!

Education staff have a culture of high expectations, while social care staff are more ‘make-do-and-mend'. Recent years have seen education spending protected but social care has grappled with increased service demand and tight budgets.

Joining these services and retaining the positives is vital, but it does mean adapting. We have to be more pragmatic than has been the habit in education, but we have to aspire more than has sometimes been the case in social care.

The biggest challenge is the extent and complexity of government expectations. Directors are bombarded by directives and exhortations – amplified by the plethora of organisations contracted to ‘help' local authorities deliver.

The second-biggest challenge for the future has to be what is expected of schools. It is clear that the contribution of schools must be and already is much wider than that of educational attainment.

But the messages from the Government remain very mixed. The relentless focus on standards is bound to make schools inward-looking, but schools are also seen as the bedrock of support to families in local communities – which requires an outward focus.
Head teachers try to square this circle but it's a tall order. They have demanding roles and are now expected to lead the way on strategic development. We will need to find ways to support this.

So will all this work? Last year, I was interviewed by a group of young people for their local magazine who asked what my ambitions were for the coming year. They interviewed me again recently, and wanted to know how I thought things were going.
Although there are all sorts of new developments to point towards, the honest answer was its probably too soon to say.

Delivering the Every child matters agenda is a hugely complex and potentially-daunting business. Having a clear understanding of how it all fits together and then moulding the balance of resources and investments across the system is what it's all about.
Improvements will be measured by the impact on the lives of young people, but for now, the jury is still out. And finally, does it matter what professional background a director has? In my view, not at all.

Doing the job well is about the big picture and about leadership What keeps me grounded is frequent visits to frontline services and conversations with creative and wise frontline staff, who always have sensible things to say and good ideas about how we can do better.