The Department for Education has more responsibilities than ever, but fewer civil servants, prompting concerns over whether it has enough capacity to run its expanding empire.

Prime minister Theresa May’s decision to move further education, skills and some of higher education back under the DfE’s remit this summer means that Justine Greening now has direct oversight of more policy areas than any other education secretary before her.

Her department has held onto the wider children’s services and social policy areas that it acquired when Gordon Brown was prime minister and in addition now also has direct control over growing numbers of schools.

These pressures will only grow as the DfE presses ahead with its academy and free school agenda, taking thousands of schools out of the hands of local authorities.

But the expansion of the department has coincided with a steady reduction in civil-servant numbers, with the latest figures revealing a 15.3 per cent cut in staff between 2010 and 2015.

This week, Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that the rapid growth of the DfE’s remit meant it would be forced to look at its staffing numbers.

“They will have to look at capacity and capability,” Mr Trobe said. “One of the reasons the DfE has struggled, particularly when it comes to the Education Funding Agency and its oversight of academies, is because they didn’t have the staffing levels to cope.”

The Brexit effect

The disparate range of ministerial briefs has led recently appointed permanent secretary Jonathan Slater to hire a consultancy firm to advise him on how best to organise the DfE.

But according to Jonathan Simons, head of education at thinktank Policy Exchange, the ideal that the DfE will be able to take on more staff to meet its growing brief is far-fetched.

In fact, he believes that the enormous administrative headache posed by Brexit could mean that the opposite happens.

“The government faces the biggest policy admin since the Second World War,” Mr Simons said. “As the DfE is the least likely department to be affected by Brexit, there is a possibility that resources could be reallocated from the DfE to other departments dealing directly with it.”

Origin story

The creation of today’s DfE stretches back to 2007, when Gordon Brown, then prime minister, created a social empire for his ally Ed Balls, making him the first secretary of state for children.

What had been the Department for Education and Skills became the new Department for Children, Schools and Families, with a vast brief taking in schools and everything from children’s centres to “families with multiple problems”, domestic violence and youth services.

Some capacity was created as universities, FE and skills were moved out to a new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Three years later, the coalition government renewed the emphasis on education at Sanctuary Buildings, but eschewed another major reorganisation. So the new Department for Education was, in fact, a rebranded DCSF and retained the same brief.

And now, under Ms May’s latest reorganisation - with FE and HE back on board, and thousands of academies to look after - the DfE is bigger than ever. Its remit stretches from adoption and foster care to all facets of education, while also taking in women and inequalities.