Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
9 JUNE 2004
RT HON
MARGARET HODGE
MBE MP
Q80 Mr Chaytor: If I could just move
on to two other quite separate issues. You mentioned in your earlier
remarks the change in the arrangements for Connexions. You were
talking about a single budget line where several different services
have pooled together. Can you just talk through the implications
of that? Does that mean we are going to see the re-municipalisation
of the Connexions service?
Margaret Hodge: Pooling budgets
does not mean re-municipalisation and we are working very carefully
to ensure that the private and voluntary sector have a very strong
role to play, not just in the provision of services but actually
in the planning and the commissioning as well and we will do that
through the regulatory route. We are putting a further amendment
in at the Report Stage of the House of Lords just to confirm and
reaffirm our commitment to the private and voluntary sector in
that regard. However, we are looking at the implications for the
Connexions Service of the creation of Children's Trusts. We will
need to see how the Connexions Service fits into the new order
of Children's Trusts. At this point, if I am absolutely honest
with you, you are asking me a little bit too early as to how that
will find itself. If I came back to the Committee in three or
four months' time hopefully I would be able to give you greater
detail of what that means in practice. It is a nonsense not to
have the Connexions Service, with the services it provides, as
an integral part of the Children's Trusts.
Q81 Mr Chaytor: This would solve the
17.5% VAT problem at a stroke which is exercising the various
Connexions Services.
Margaret Hodge: I think the VAT
problem can be solved in other ways actually.
Q82 Mr Chaytor: On a separate issue,
the extended schools concept, can I just clarify what the Secretary
of State said recently about extended schools. In the Green Paper
the commitment is for one extended school in every local authority
by 2006 but that was built on by the Secretary of State who said,
as I recall, that every school will be able to apply to become
an extended school.
Margaret Hodge: Yes.
Q83 Mr Chaytor: That is slightly different
from what you said earlier when you said every new school will
be able to offer extended school services. Is it all of the 3,000
secondary schools or is it only those that are going to be newly
established?
Margaret Hodge: It is how we get
there. Over time, we would like to see every school open all-year,
all-day, providing relevant services for that community. That
does not mean, for example, that childcare is in every primary
school, it may well be that you get a network of primary schools
together to get a viable after-school childcare service, to take
an instance. It does not mean necessarily that you have a GP,
which might be one of the extended school services, working in
every school, he or she might work in a network of schools. Over
time, we want to see all schools providing extended services.
How do we get there? The funding in this CSR took us to one in
every LEA, a bit more than one in every LEA. Building Schools
for the Future gives us an opportunity to extend that to
the new schools that we are building and converting, but we are
looking in the 2005-08 CSR settlement at how we can drive that
policy forward to move as swiftly as we can to every school providing
extended school services.
Q84 Mr Chaytor: Will there be schools
that are officially designated extended schools and schools that
offer extended school services? Are we going to have a two-tier
system or will there be a unified funding stream into which schools
can bid to be designated as extended schools?
Margaret Hodge: They will not
all necessarily require public funding to extend their services.
We will not have a single model of the services that we think
should be available in schools, although for that first phase,
you are right, the fully extended school has a core set of services
which we think should be provided. It is a bit like Children's
Centres, we are doing the same thing there, but you do not have
to come to the local, authority or to Government to say, "Can
we have a bit of extra money and call ourselves a Children's Centre?",
if you are providing Children's Centre services you will be classified
as a Children's Centre. It is similarly the case with extended
schools if they provide the services, and a lot do as you know.
Q85 Mr Chaytor: We are going to have
the first round of all-singing, all-dancing extended schools and
then subsequent designations of schools that offer a bit here
and a bit there?
Margaret Hodge: We are, yes, because
some will require extra money. What we have got to be careful
of is that as we extend that policy we do it in the context of
not diminishing the focus on teaching and learning of the school
workforce.
Chairman: We are going to come on to
information sharing in a moment but Helen thinks we have let you
off the hook on one aspect of independence.
Q86 Helen Jones: I would like you to
clarify your answer for us, Minister. As I understood it, you
said that where the Commissioner wished to investigate systemic
abuse which was brought to light by an individual case—
Margaret Hodge: Systemic failure.
Q87 Helen Jones: Systemic failure, sorry.
In that case he could do so. Can you clarify for us whether the
Commissioner will be able to initiate any other sort of investigation,
for instance, you mentioned obesity, and it could be children
in the media or whatever, without resort to the Secretary of State?
I was not clear on what you were saying.
Margaret Hodge: The answer is
yes.
Q88 Helen Jones: So that will be changed?
Margaret Hodge: No, that is already
there but because there has been slight confusion about it we
will clarify that in an amendment in the House of Lords.
Chairman: I am smiling because there
are two nodding heads. Jonathan, you have also got a worry about
the difference between Kent and Rutland.
Q89 Jonathan Shaw: Yes. You are saying
one centre in every LEA.
Margaret Hodge: Extended school.
Q90 Jonathan Shaw: Yes. Why are we not
doing this on a population basis? As you say, Kent is 1.5 million
and Rutland, I think, is 25,000.
Margaret Hodge: You did not say
Barking and Dagenham.
Q91 Jonathan Shaw: What is Barking and
Dagenham then, how big is that? You do not know?
Margaret Hodge: No, I do.
Q92 Jonathan Shaw: Do they drop litter
there?
Margaret Hodge: Never!
Q93 Jonathan Shaw: Surely it should be
on population. People do not live their lives by local authority
boundaries, do they?
Margaret Hodge: If you are creating
a new concept and that concept needs to be delivered through local
authorities, it just makes sense to start that off, to trigger
a development, by every authority having at least one. Over time,
as we encourage the development of more extended schools, we will
have to look at the criteria that we use but in the very early
days it made sense because we wanted every local authority to
start with one.
Q94 Jonathan Shaw: You are not going
to say, "Now every LEA has got two, now every LEA has got
three"?
Margaret Hodge: No. We will have
to look at sensible criteria.
Q95 Chairman: We are going to look at
information sharing and Nick has been very patient. He is hotfoot
from, very appropriately, Woman's Hour.
Margaret Hodge: On information
sharing?
Q96 Mr Gibb: On reading. Can I just say
I am slightly anxious about the database tracking system. What
are the civil liberties issue on this system? It is going to track
11 million, all children essentially. You have also conducted
these Identification, Referral and Tracking Trailblazing authorities.
What have we learned from those pilots?
Margaret Hodge: This is one of
the most complex areas of policy development that we have got
and we recognise that and are going extremely slowly and carefully
on it, which is probably why we have not got as far as we would
have liked. On the other hand, if we do not tackle that we will
be failing to respond to one of the key criticisms that come out
of every one of these child death inquiries, which is the failure
to share information properly. We are quiet clear in the work
that we are doing that we are not in any way amending any of the
Data Protection Act protections. What we are doing is making clear
on the face of the Bill how and when people can share information.
That is the first thing to say. The second thing to say is if
you ask me in principle, there is obviously a tension between
the privacy of the individual and the protection of the child,
there is that tension and we have to work our way through it.
If you ask me where my priority is, I would say to you that the
priority has to be ensuring that we properly protect and safeguard
children. That is the second thing to say to you and I hope you
would share that same sort of approach. The third thing to say
is we are going to be putting amendments in at the Report Stage,
having listened to their Lordships talking about this in Committee,
to make it absolutely clear what basic information will be held
centrally. It is very basic. It will be things like name, address,
school attended, date of birth, parental responsibility, GP, health
visitor, that is almost about it.
Q97 Mr Gibb: So how does having that
information help?
Margaret Hodge: It will have a
unique identifier. It means that everybody identifies the same
child. I am going to get this slightly wrong but one of the local
authorities that was supposed to be caring for Victoria Climbié
had, I think, three, four, five, different files on her. She had
five identities in one social services department, in one of the
local authorities. We are going to create a unique identity for
that child. What we will also do is have a system, and where the
Trailblazers are helping us,—
Q98 Chairman: When would that identity
start?
Margaret Hodge: Birth.
Q99 Chairman: If the birth is not registered?
Margaret Hodge: We are doing a
lot of work on this, Chairman. We have got a second feasibility
study which is reporting to us in July which will help us clear
up some of these detailed points. We have got the Trailblazers
going and we are beginning to learn from them how you can get
information systems up and running which have that proper balance
between privacy and protection and which work, which act as a
good tool to get the professionals working together. That is all
this is, it is no more and no less than a tool. What do we use
as the unique identifying number? Should we use the National Insurance
number or the NHS number, for example, is—
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