NCB Now: Comment - Reasons for sector to remain cheerful

I was involved in the very first edition of what was then called Children Now, and I don't intend to vanish just yet.

When I started at NCB 13 years ago there was no Children & Young People Now, no Every Child Matters, no Sure Start, no universal offer for threeand four-year-olds. There was a great divide between schools, health and social care services. Teachers and social workers rarely met. There was little tradition of qualifications for many parts of the children's workforce – indeed, there was little concept of a "children's workforce".

Much has changed, and largely for the better. It is possible today to talk of a children and young people's sector, in a way we couldn't before.

In early years, we have come to accept that early years provision will continue – with reduced funding maybe, but still there.

Schools really have opened up to the wider range of needs, even if current government policy seems to be edging them back to a single-minded focus on academic attainment. Services for children are much better funded than 13 years ago.

Changes in policy are never as good as their proponents claim, nor as bad as their opponents say. Overall, most of the present government's policies towards children are not that different to the last government – but there is less money.

The gains of the past decade came largely from a cross-party understanding that children's lives are not led in a series of separate boxes, and a cross-party commitment to expanding early years provision – and both remain. There are still plenty of reasons to be cheerful.

Sir Paul Ennals, chief executive of NCB, is leaving in August. His replacement is Dr Hilary Emery.