This page shows descriptive statistics for the network analysis with the fifteen highest scoring organisational and individual nodes for values of degree, closeness, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality (described in each section). A discussion is also included that briefly considers the implications of this analysis, and in particular the implications for the Children’s Social Care Review in England currently being chaired by Josh MacAlister.
Degree, or strength, represents the direct influence of each node in the network based on the number of immediate connections they share with other nodes. High strength can represent the size of an organisation or the nature of an individual’s work — for example, in positions that focus on building professional collaborations. In addition, high degree can reflect the transparency of organisations or individuals publicly documenting their involvement with other actors.
| Name | Degree | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teach First | 88 | org | Teach First is an education charity founded to provide fast-track qualifying teacher training. |
| Department for Education | 71 | org | Department for Education is the government department responsible for chidlren's services and education. |
| Frontline | 51 | org | Frontline is a charity based in the UK with a primary focus on providing fast-track training to qualifying social workers. |
| Ark | 38 | org | Ark is a charity involved in a number of initiatives both within the UK and internationally, including running a network of 38 schools in the UK. |
| Ambition Institute | 34 | org | Ambition Institute private limited company that provides support to educators. |
| Fair Education Alliance | 26 | org | Fair Education Alliance are a coaltion of education organisations. |
| What Works for Children's Social Care | 25 | org | What Works for Children's Social Care is a private limited company commissioned by Department for Education to generate and evaluate evidence related to children's social care. |
| The Difference | 24 | org | The Difference is an organisation that supports senior school leaders in a number of ways, including running programmes, research and developing partnerships. |
| Cabinet Office | 23 | org | Cabinet Office is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet |
| Education Endowment Foundation | 23 | org | Education Endowment Foundation is a charity focused on education. |
| Oak National Academy | 23 | org | Oak National Academy is a private organisation founded during the Covid-19 to provide online lessons to children in the UK. |
| PricewaterhouseCoopers | 21 | org | PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the largest consulting firms in the world. |
| Now Teach | 20 | org | Now Teach is a charity dedicated to bringing career changers into teaching. |
| Children's Social Care Review | 19 | org | Children's Social Care Review has been contracted by the UK Gov to Review children's social care in England. It is currently due to run from March 2021 - March 2022. |
| Youth Endowment Fund | 19 | org | Youth Endowment Fund is a charity funded by the Home Office working with children and young people. |
Within the network are a large number of highly connected education-focused organisations, including many charities. There is a notable inclusion of some private organisations, namely, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Ambition Institute, and the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care (one of the four overtly children’s social care and social work orientated organisations in the top 15 for strength).
| Name | Degree | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh MacAlister | 12 | person | Josh MacAlister is a former teacher, and the Chair of the Children's Social Care Review. |
| James Darley | 11 | person | James Darley is a former director of Teach First and the CEO and Founder of the Transform Society. |
| Isabelle Trowler | 8 | person | Isabelle Trowler is the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families in England |
| Russell Hobby | 8 | person | Russell Hobby is the CEO of Teach First. |
| Andrew Adonis | 7 | person | Andrew Adonis is a Labour Life Peer and former Labour Minister. |
| David Laws | 7 | person | David Laws is the Chair of Unlocked Graduates and executive chairman of the Education Partnerships Group and the Education Policy Institute. |
| Ian Bauckham | 7 | person | Ian Bauckham an advisor to the Department for Education |
| Leon Feinstein | 7 | person | Leon Feinstein is Director of the Rees Centre and Professor of Education and Children’s Social Care at the University of Oxford. |
| Matt Hood | 7 | person | Matt Hood is a former teacher and principal of the Oak National Academy. |
| Michael Clarke | 7 | person | Michael Clarke is the Deputy Chief Executive of Ark. |
| Natasha Porter | 7 | person | Natasha Porter is a Teach First Ambassador and founder and CEO of Unlocked Graduates. |
| Sam Freedman | 7 | person | Sam Freedman is the CEO of Education Partnership Groups at Ark. |
| Brett Wigdortz | 6 | person | Brett Wigdortz is the founder and honorary president of Teach First. |
| David Thomas | 6 | person | David Thomas has a background in business and is the Strategy Director at Inspiration Trust, as well as co-founder of the Oak Academy. |
| Ed Vainker | 6 | person | Ed Vainker is the co-founder and CEO of the Reach Foundation. |
| John Blake | 6 | person | John Blake is Curriculum Research and Design Lead at Ark |
| Luke Sparkes | 6 | person | Luke Sparkes is a founding principal and executive principal at Dixon's Academies Trust. |
| Sophie Humphreys | 6 | person | Sophie Humphreys is the founder of Pause and the former Head of Safeguarding at the London Borough of Hackney. |
Individuals closely involved with some of the high-degree organisations also, unsurprisingly, have relatively high degree themselves though the absolute number of connections is far smaller than the numbers of connections documented at an organisational level.
Closeness measures how many steps are required to access every other node from a given node, expressed as inverse distance meaning that higher scores reflect those with the closest distance. In communications, closeness can be used to estimate who is most likely to receive information travelling across the network first, on average (in this case, through only formal partnerships which may therefore include more privileged information). In this sense, closeness can be used as an approximation of which nodes in the network are best able to quickly reach all other actors in the network.
| Name | Closeness | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teach First | 0.447 | org | Teach First is an education charity founded to provide fast-track qualifying teacher training. |
| Department for Education | 0.446 | org | Department for Education is the government department responsible for chidlren's services and education. |
| Frontline | 0.428 | org | Frontline is a charity based in the UK with a primary focus on providing fast-track training to qualifying social workers. |
| Ark | 0.411 | org | Ark is a charity involved in a number of initiatives both within the UK and internationally, including running a network of 38 schools in the UK. |
| Tutor Trust | 0.401 | org | Tutor Trust are a charity with a focus on education. |
| The Difference | 0.394 | org | The Difference is an organisation that supports senior school leaders in a number of ways, including running programmes, research and developing partnerships. |
| Fair Education Alliance | 0.392 | org | Fair Education Alliance are a coaltion of education organisations. |
| Transform Society | 0.365 | org | Transform Society is an alliance of fast-track training providers all based on the model first pioneered by Teach First and brought into social work through Frontline. |
| Nesta | 0.359 | org | Nesta is a social innovation organisation based in the UK. |
| What Works for Children's Social Care | 0.357 | org | What Works for Children's Social Care is a private limited company commissioned by Department for Education to generate and evaluate evidence related to children's social care. |
| IntegratED | 0.357 | org | IntegratED is a coalition of partners working around alternative provision |
| Year Here | 0.355 | org | Year Here is an organisation running a year long postgraduate course focused on entreprenuership |
| Oak National Academy | 0.355 | org | Oak National Academy is a private organisation founded during the Covid-19 to provide online lessons to children in the UK. |
| AKO Foundation | 0.354 | org | AKO Foundation is a charitable foundation set up by AKO Capitol. |
| PricewaterhouseCoopers | 0.351 | org | PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the largest consulting firms in the world. |
Because closeness is, at least in part, determined by the number of direct connections a node shares we observe much overlap with degree. There are some notable differences, such as the inclusion of Nesta, IntegratED, Year Here, Tutor Trust, and the AKO Foundation being in the top 15 organisations for closeness whereas other organisations like the Cabinet Office and Children’s Social Care Review are not present in the top fifteen.
| Name | Closeness | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh MacAlister | 0.371 | person | Josh MacAlister is a former teacher, and the Chair of the Children's Social Care Review. |
| Natasha Porter | 0.368 | person | Natasha Porter is a Teach First Ambassador and founder and CEO of Unlocked Graduates. |
| Sam Freedman | 0.363 | person | Sam Freedman is the CEO of Education Partnership Groups at Ark. |
| Matt Hood | 0.362 | person | Matt Hood is a former teacher and principal of the Oak National Academy. |
| Edward Davison | 0.361 | person | Edward Davison is Head of Office: CEO and Chair at Office for Students |
| Michael Clarke | 0.360 | person | Michael Clarke is the Deputy Chief Executive of Ark. |
| Luke Sparkes | 0.356 | person | Luke Sparkes is a founding principal and executive principal at Dixon's Academies Trust. |
| Ed Vainker | 0.354 | person | Ed Vainker is the co-founder and CEO of the Reach Foundation. |
| Russell Hobby | 0.353 | person | Russell Hobby is the CEO of Teach First. |
| David Laws | 0.353 | person | David Laws is the Chair of Unlocked Graduates and executive chairman of the Education Partnerships Group and the Education Policy Institute. |
| Jonathan Clifton | 0.353 | person | Jonathan Clifton is the Head of Strategic Policy at the Department for Education. |
| Isabelle Trowler | 0.352 | person | Isabelle Trowler is the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families in England |
| James Darley | 0.351 | person | James Darley is a former director of Teach First and the CEO and Founder of the Transform Society. |
| Andrew Adonis | 0.348 | person | Andrew Adonis is a Labour Life Peer and former Labour Minister. |
| Sarah Waite | 0.345 | person | Sarah Waite is the founder and CEO of Get Further |
| Will Bickford Smith | 0.345 | person | Will Bickford Smith is the Schools Policy Advisor at the Department for Education. |
Closeness measures for people in the network are largely dominated by chief executives (or equivalent positions) of charities where closeness is often higher than those of senior civil servants in public positions. After Josh MacAlister, senior executives from three non-public organisations are rated higher in closeness than the first individual within the public sector representing the Office for Students. There are then a further four senior executives outside of the public sector before the next public sector representative with high closeness, the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families.
Betweenness is a measure of gatekeeping or brokerage potential. Rather than direct influence or at pace information sharing potential, betweenness measures the number of times a given node falls along the shortest path between nodes. In other words, nodes with high betweenness can exert a high degree of influence over a network by enabling or blocking the shortest (formal) routes of connection. Those who have high degree/strength values are also likely to have high betweenness, but so are those who act as a bridge between very different sectors.
| Name | Betweenness | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Department for Education | 27037 | org | Department for Education is the government department responsible for chidlren's services and education. |
| Teach First | 25911 | org | Teach First is an education charity founded to provide fast-track qualifying teacher training. |
| Frontline | 14927 | org | Frontline is a charity based in the UK with a primary focus on providing fast-track training to qualifying social workers. |
| Ark | 9380 | org | Ark is a charity involved in a number of initiatives both within the UK and internationally, including running a network of 38 schools in the UK. |
| Fair Education Alliance | 5990 | org | Fair Education Alliance are a coaltion of education organisations. |
| What Works for Children's Social Care | 4827 | org | What Works for Children's Social Care is a private limited company commissioned by Department for Education to generate and evaluate evidence related to children's social care. |
| PricewaterhouseCoopers | 4811 | org | PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the largest consulting firms in the world. |
| Social Work Awards | 4806 | org | Social Work Awards is an annual awards ceremony for social workers. |
| Ambition Institute | 4379 | org | Ambition Institute private limited company that provides support to educators. |
| Education Endowment Foundation | 3943 | org | Education Endowment Foundation is a charity focused on education. |
| The Difference | 3848 | org | The Difference is an organisation that supports senior school leaders in a number of ways, including running programmes, research and developing partnerships. |
| Social Finance | 3824 | org | Social Finance is a not for profit organisation that partners with governments, service providers, the voluntary sector and the financial community to find better ways of tackling social problems in the UK and globally. |
| Children's Social Care Review | 3672 | org | Children's Social Care Review has been contracted by the UK Gov to Review children's social care in England. It is currently due to run from March 2021 - March 2022. |
| Tutor Trust | 3208 | org | Tutor Trust are a charity with a focus on education. |
| Oak National Academy | 3111 | org | Oak National Academy is a private organisation founded during the Covid-19 to provide online lessons to children in the UK. |
Organisational betweenness includes two notable inclusions in the top fifteen that are not present in degree or closeness: Social Finance and the Social Work Awards. Further, one commonly occuring node, PricewaterhouseCoopers, has one of the highest betweenness scores.
| Name | Betweenness | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh MacAlister | 2231 | person | Josh MacAlister is a former teacher, and the Chair of the Children's Social Care Review. |
| James Darley | 1817 | person | James Darley is a former director of Teach First and the CEO and Founder of the Transform Society. |
| Leon Feinstein | 1301 | person | Leon Feinstein is Director of the Rees Centre and Professor of Education and Children’s Social Care at the University of Oxford. |
| Isabelle Trowler | 1276 | person | Isabelle Trowler is the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families in England |
| Luke Sparkes | 1177 | person | Luke Sparkes is a founding principal and executive principal at Dixon's Academies Trust. |
| Martin Narey | 1016 | person | Martin Narey is a former Prison Governor who has worked extensively as an advisor to the UK government, and held a number of additional public and private sector posts. |
| Andrew Adonis | 905 | person | Andrew Adonis is a Labour Life Peer and former Labour Minister. |
| Natasha Porter | 869 | person | Natasha Porter is a Teach First Ambassador and founder and CEO of Unlocked Graduates. |
| Michael Clarke | 843 | person | Michael Clarke is the Deputy Chief Executive of Ark. |
| Russell Hobby | 810 | person | Russell Hobby is the CEO of Teach First. |
| Karl Hoods | 808 | person | Karl Hoods is Chair of Governors at Harris Academy Beckenham |
| Jon Yates | 777 | person | Jon Yates is executive director at the YEF. |
| Ian Bauckham | 751 | person | Ian Bauckham an advisor to the Department for Education |
| Camilla Cavendish | 747 | person | Camilla Cavendish is a former journalist and former Conservative member of the House of Lords, currently working as an advisory for the Department of Health. |
| Matt Hood | 745 | person | Matt Hood is a former teacher and principal of the Oak National Academy. |
Contrary to their positions in closeness and degree/strength, we see increased importance of key public sector actors in the role of bridging connections across the network through formal engagement with other actors.
Finally, eigenvector centrality is a measure of being ‘well-connected to the well-connected’. It enables greater identification of nodes that may sit on the periphery of highly influential networks even if they, themselves, may have relatively few direct connections.
| Name | Eigenvector Centrality | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teach First | 1.000 | org | Teach First is an education charity founded to provide fast-track qualifying teacher training. |
| Department for Education | 0.675 | org | Department for Education is the government department responsible for chidlren's services and education. |
| Frontline | 0.608 | org | Frontline is a charity based in the UK with a primary focus on providing fast-track training to qualifying social workers. |
| Ark | 0.466 | org | Ark is a charity involved in a number of initiatives both within the UK and internationally, including running a network of 38 schools in the UK. |
| The Difference | 0.401 | org | The Difference is an organisation that supports senior school leaders in a number of ways, including running programmes, research and developing partnerships. |
| Fair Education Alliance | 0.370 | org | Fair Education Alliance are a coaltion of education organisations. |
| Ambition Institute | 0.293 | org | Ambition Institute private limited company that provides support to educators. |
| Tutor Trust | 0.277 | org | Tutor Trust are a charity with a focus on education. |
| Transform Society | 0.263 | org | Transform Society is an alliance of fast-track training providers all based on the model first pioneered by Teach First and brought into social work through Frontline. |
| Oak National Academy | 0.230 | org | Oak National Academy is a private organisation founded during the Covid-19 to provide online lessons to children in the UK. |
| Civil Service Fast Stream | 0.214 | org | Civil Service Fast Stream is a fast track training Civil Service programme. |
| Year Here | 0.203 | org | Year Here is an organisation running a year long postgraduate course focused on entreprenuership |
| AKO Foundation | 0.199 | org | AKO Foundation is a charitable foundation set up by AKO Capitol. |
| IPPR | 0.196 | org | Institute for Public Policy Research is a Think Tank started by Labour members. |
| IntegratED | 0.192 | org | IntegratED is a coalition of partners working around alternative provision |
Notable organisations that were not already present in the previous measures include the Civil Service Fast Stream and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Transform Society also has a relatively high level of Eigenvector Centrality due to its connections with multiple other initiatives with more direct links.
| Name | Eigenvector Centrality | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh MacAlister | 0.251 | person | Josh MacAlister is a former teacher, and the Chair of the Children's Social Care Review. |
| James Darley | 0.216 | person | James Darley is a former director of Teach First and the CEO and Founder of the Transform Society. |
| Michael Clarke | 0.206 | person | Michael Clarke is the Deputy Chief Executive of Ark. |
| Matt Hood | 0.206 | person | Matt Hood is a former teacher and principal of the Oak National Academy. |
| Sam Freedman | 0.195 | person | Sam Freedman is the CEO of Education Partnership Groups at Ark. |
| Edward Davison | 0.191 | person | Edward Davison is Head of Office: CEO and Chair at Office for Students |
| Natasha Porter | 0.186 | person | Natasha Porter is a Teach First Ambassador and founder and CEO of Unlocked Graduates. |
| Russell Hobby | 0.185 | person | Russell Hobby is the CEO of Teach First. |
| Andrew Adonis | 0.175 | person | Andrew Adonis is a Labour Life Peer and former Labour Minister. |
| Ed Vainker | 0.170 | person | Ed Vainker is the co-founder and CEO of the Reach Foundation. |
| Luke Sparkes | 0.165 | person | Luke Sparkes is a founding principal and executive principal at Dixon's Academies Trust. |
| Jonathan Clifton | 0.165 | person | Jonathan Clifton is the Head of Strategic Policy at the Department for Education. |
| Meera Moynihan | 0.146 | person | Meera Moynihan is Director of Operations at Now Teach. |
| Will Bickford Smith | 0.144 | person | Will Bickford Smith is the Schools Policy Advisor at the Department for Education. |
| James Toop | 0.141 | person | James Toop is CEO of Bite Back 2030 |
Among people, there is large representation among high eigenvector centrality nodes of individuals from the private/not-for-profit education sector.
Networks, connections, relationships, and influence should not be interpreted as a straightforwardly negative factor. Indeed, on one hand, a fair argument is that a high degree of interconnectedness with others across a spectrum of services and initiatives is essential for creating the consensus that is needed to create change. These descriptive statistics support the idea that if the aim in setting up the Children’ Social Care Review was to identify the single most efficient chair for galvanising connection across an existing network of formal and professional connections, Josh MacAlister was — statistically speaking — the most optimal choice that could have been made.
However, shining a light on what the composition of that established network looks like is a worthwhile goal. Within the most dominant actors in the network we see very high representation from organisations and policy actors that are focused on ‘transformation’, particularly transformation of the public sector, predominantly in education reform. This highlights potentially interesting avenues to explore, identifying what parallels (or divergence) in policy reform might be found between education and children’s social care and social work given the significant crossover of actors found in the network.
Conspicuous in their absence when it comes to influence over a network whose most central actors have been tasked with boldly transforming children’s social care are organisations that represent social work and social workers. From what is publicly known, only one prominent civil servant shares comparable levels of influence in this network to that of a much larger group of chief executives and other senior members of private or not-for-profit organisations. Other than the Children’s Social Care Review and the Department of Education itself, only one other overtly social work and children’s social care focused organisation shares the level of influence that education-focused charities, charitable foundations, social entrepeneurs, and a large consulting firm hold.
Regardless of opinion on these individuals/organisation’s work or influence, they are now in the likely unfavourable position of being the most likely to be asked to represent the entire gamut of diversity of opinion in children and families social work. Would a different chair of the Care Review have resulted in a more balanced network of social work organisations and pubic actors? Or does the fault lie with a failure of social work organisations and individual actors to build or maintain formal networks and coalitions in the time leading to the Care Review?