Having looked at each of our three countries individually, we turn now to comparing the different national experiences. What has merging departmental responsibility for childcare and education, pre-school and school actually meant in terms of policy, provision and practice? How can we characterise the ‘integration’ process in each case? How far has integration gone and what dimensions are involved? How can we make sense of the different experiences? How do they relate, for example, to the contextual issues we outlined in Chapter Two? We hope that this comparative process will enable us not only to conclude that there are differences between the three countries, but also to prepare the ground for defining some critical questions for the future direction of children’s services, the subject of our final chapter.

In this chapter, we begin by comparing the extent and nature of integration across the three countries, both structurally and conceptually. We then consider the relationships both between the three services on which we have focused – early childhood education and care, compulsory schooling and school-age childcare – and between them and other services for children and families. We conclude that the integration process was fundamentally different in Sweden from that in England and Scotland, and end the chapter by considering the difference and the reasons for it.

The nature and extent of integration: structures

Our starting point was a similar reform in England, Scotland and Sweden: departmental reorganisation at national level that brought together responsibility for early childhood education and care, compulsory schooling and school-age childcare. In all three countries, this involved a transfer of responsibility for some services from welfare to education departments. But, behind this superficial similarity, important national differences are apparent.

In Sweden, the transfer involved the whole system of early childhood education and care (‘pre-schools’ and family daycare for children up to school age) together with school-age childcare. In England and Scotland, where responsibility for early childhood education and care had always been split, the transfer involved moving that part (‘daycare’) that was located in welfare. In Scotland, the process of departmental reform also included bringing child welfare and family support services into the Scottish Executive Education Department, to create a broader remit for children and families than in either England or Sweden