Department for Children, Schools and Families
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| Department overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2007 |
| Preceding Department | |
| Dissolved | 2010 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | England |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) was a department of the UK government, between 2007 and 2010, responsible for issues affecting people in England up to the age of 19, including child protection and education. The DCSF was replaced by the Department for Education after the change of government following the General Election 2010.
The DCSF was created on 28 June 2007 following the demerger of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES).
The department was led by Ed Balls. The Permanent Secretary was David Bell.
Other education functions of the former DfES were taken over by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (originally the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, since merged with Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform).
The DCSF was directly responsible for state schools in England.
The Department employed over 2,500 staff.
In May 2010 the DCSF had four main sites:
Charlie Brooker, writing in the Guardian, expressed incredulity that the department for children, schools and families was supportive of Brain Gym, despite its broad condemnation by scientific organisations, and despite it being apparently nonsense.
Upon learning that the programme was used at hundreds of UK state schools, Dr Ben Goldacre of The Guardian's Bad Science pages called it a "vast empire of pseudoscience" and went on to dissect parts of their teaching materials, refuting, for instance, claims that rubbing the chest would stimulate the carotid arteries, that "processed foods do not contain water", or that liquids other than water "are processed in the body as food, and do not serve the body's water needs."
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