Examination of Witness (Questions 240-259)
17 DECEMBER 2003
BARONESS ASHTON
OF UPHOLLAND
Q240 Mr Gibb: Do we have research evidence
that the Early Years education is leading to greater achievement
amongst children in years one and two later on in their school
career?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
We do not have so much evidence about that yet because it has
not been going long enough. The early evidence from both teaching
and indeed the EPPE research into what happened to children who
had been through nursery education was quite stark in saying that
it made a huge difference to the potential of children in education
attainment.
Q241 Mr Gibb: How can they claim that
when there is no research evidence?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
The research that EPPE did was long-term research with children
who had had the benefit of the early part of the introduction
of nursery education—of course, nursery education has been
in some areas for quite a lot longer—and looked at what
happened to the children later, both in terms of social development
but also in terms of what happened academically. What they said
to us is that, by the time a child is at mainstream school, if
I describe it as such, and full-time school, it was clear that
those children who had the benefit of that were more able to manage
school, they understood what was needed, meshed well into the
school and developed better and I think that is a critical part
of why we have invested—and we have had a lot of support
from all different sides of Parliament, if I can describe it as
such, on this—because it is quite clear that the early years
make a huge difference in terms of breaking the link between socio-economic
background and educational attainment.
Q242 Mr Gibb: Does the DfES have in place
a research project to measure this scientifically?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
We have a longitudinal piece of research going on independently
around the Sure Start model to evaluate what happens to children
who have those early years positive interventions in terms of
their academic achievement later.
Q243 Mr Gibb: Given that 88% of three-year-olds
are now receiving some form of Early Years education, then that
is everybody, is it not, or virtually?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
We are doing it in specifically areas of disadvantage on the Sure
Start programme because the original Sure Start programmes linked
to that.
Q244 Mr Gibb: What research projects
have you started in terms of the general principle that Early
Years education is leading to higher achievement in years 1 and
2?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
There is a DfES research project that will look at the impact
of Early Years education at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 partly
because we measure Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 and we are able
to see children coming through and, as we have long said, when
you develop the literacy and numeracy strategies, one can see
the impact partly because we do measure children's achievement.
Q245 Mr Gibb: When will this research
be ready?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I do not have a specific date for it but I will let you know.[1]
Q246 Paul Holmes: Where Sure Start exists,
people say that it is excellent but there are one or two criticisms.
One is that it has been very slow to roll out in some areas and
certainly that is true in my area in Derbyshire, for example.
Linked to that partly is the criticism of some considerable under-spends
in budgets on Sure Start. When you were before the Committee last
year, you talked about an under-spend on the Sure Start programme
of £253 million of revenue and capital for the years 1999-2002.
For this year's winter supplementary estimate, the DfES, for example,
indicate that they are transferring £23 million from Sure
Start grants into nursery education places. Does Sure Start not
need the money or is it just simply not getting its act together
in terms of spending it year by year?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I think it is a combination of the money that looks like an under-spend
is committed money that has not left the Department. One of the
reasons why the Sure Start local programmes were slower is because
we gave them, I think correctly, into the hands of local people
to develop and design. What we have done subsequently in helping
to support those communities is actually put in expertise because
sometimes it is about working with an architect or a planning
department which, for a local community and local people, may
be something new, so we have given them a bit more support and
expertise to help them find their way through that process if
they are not used to it and that has speeded it up. As Sure Start
is now one overarching programme bringing together Early Years
education and so on, we do not have the same distinctions that
we had before. We want all the local Sure Start programmes to
begin to develop—there are 522 of them now—into providing
children centres of the future and being the places where the
family support comes together with Early Years education. So,
it is an accounting transfer, in that sense, because these things
are meant to organically grow and be better. All the money for
Sure Start is now committed and hopefully, as buildings get built
and programmes start, the money will start to flow out more freely.
Q247 Paul Holmes: So, you do not think
that this year, next year or the year after, there will be significant
under-spends in Sure Start?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I am not expecting there to be under-spends. It is what I said
in my first answer really, that what is classified as an under-spend
is money that has not left the Department and the commitment we
have is to make sure that all the money we have been allocated
reaches those local communities. We are trying to support them
to speed that up a little bit for the reasons you rightly say,
that some have been slower than others sometimes because local
authorities have not supported them quite as effectively as they
might. Sometimes, simply just the bringing together of the different
partners to work well together takes time. We hope though that
that is now going to speed up and that the money will start getting
out quickly.
Q248 Chairman: Why can Sure Start not
be something that is offered to every child from a deprived background
in our country?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I have described the Sure Start programme as where we begin and
not where we end. There are a number of things about that. First
of all, it is about resources and making sure we put the programmes
into the most deprived areas. That is where we should begin and
where we have begun. Also, that we start to mainstream the principles
of Sure Start. If you look at some of the work that goes on, it
is about professionals working more creatively or cleverly together
and allowing people to do things differently. That could happen
in any community and one of the great advantages of bringing together,
within the Department, all the different areas of children services
and reflecting that in what we do in local government is it will,
I believe, be easier to mainstream the principles and thus enable
the kind of things Sure Start does to happen everywhere.
Q249 Chairman: Some of us had the privilege
of meeting young John Brown yesterday evening in "Number
11" and, now that the Chancellor has become a parent, is
he going to be a soft touch for more money for Sure Start?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I have never thought of the Chancellor as a soft touch! It is
an interesting concept! I think that the Chancellor has been a
huge supporter of this area of work for as long as we have had
it and I see no reason to suspect that he will change his view.
Q250 Chairman: If you were given £1
billion, where would you spend it? More Sure Start? Subsidising
students in higher education? Would you put it into something
else?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I would certainly invest in Early Years on the principles that
Early Years has the biggest impact on what happens to a child
later. If you look at the spending, we spend over £500 per
student per year in later life; we spend £183 on a young
child. So, simply in terms of even-handedness, I think I would
invest it in Early Years.
Q251 Chairman: That was a pretty unfair
question from the Chairman.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I am a Lords Minister, I am used to unfair questions!
Q252 Mr Turner: When you were answering
the question on research, I did not catch the name of the project
that you quoted.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I did the worst thing of giving an acronym of EPPE because I can
never remember what the second `P' stands for. Kathy Sylva is
the well-respected academic who ran that project.
Chairman: A specialist adviser to this
Committee.
Q253 Mr Turner: Was the basis of that
research a representative sample of those who received nursery
education or a representative sample of all children of that age
group?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I am afraid that I cannot remember the detail because it is some
time since I read the research. I did hope that we had actually
sent copies of the research to the Committee. I know that I asked
for that to happen. If that has not happened, I do apologise.
We will send it to you.
Q254 Chairman: I do not think that we
have had it.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I will send it to you so that you receive it before Christmas.
It makes very good Christmas reading! My understanding of the
research was that they were looking at a group of children with
a control group of children, if you like, children who had received
or had not received different kinds of input in the early years.
I am reluctant to go further than that because, as I thought you
had had the research and it was before I think appeared last time,
I did not bone up on it as I clearly should have done for this
particular session. If I may send the research and of course answer
any questions that come from it.[2]
Q255 Jeff Ennis: Following on from the
Chairman's earlier questions, you do not see the results targeted
to the 20% most disadvantaged areas for the Sure Start projects
as being a sort of postcode lottery?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
Area based initiatives have their downside and one of the issues
has always been those children who do not seem to fit into that
group, particularly on the borders. What I did as Sure Start Minister
was ensure that we said to all our Sure Start projects that it
was critical that they worked with the children who were within
their catchment, but we had no difficulty with them working with
children whom they recognised needed support outside of their
catchment. It is, in a sense, the reason why we need to mainstream
the principles of Sure Start and have the provision, in a sense,
in a universal way provided through our systems. What we do not
have are the resources to be able to roll that out in the concerted
and concentrated way that we have done in the 522 schemes so far.
Q256 Jeff Ennis: Turning to the Barnsley
model, which I know you are familiar with and I guess that Barnsley
must be the only area that has three Sure Start schemes that are
or were all community led at the beginning of this year and, as
you know, they hit a hiccup being community-led Sure Start projects
and they felt they were disadvantaged in terms of agency-led/voluntary-led
Sure Start schemes. We have got over that hiccup now and are community-led
Sure Start schemes on a level playing field with your ones?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I would say that they are. I have not had representations from
your colleagues in Barnsley of late, which suggest to me that
the problems have been solved. As I understand it, we did deal
with them. I was pleased to meet them because it did raise what
is a fundamental point in all of these initiatives, which is making
sure that those who come from a different sector, the voluntary
sector if I might describe it as that, do recognise that they
are critical to success and they are on the same level playing
field. I think we have resolved those issues satisfactorily and
certainly I pay tribute to them because they gave me real insight
into how things classically sent down the line do not always translate
as easily as they might.
Chairman: Did the Minister visit Barnsley?
Q257 Jeff Ennis: No, we had the three
community leaders of the Sure Start come down and meet the Minister.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I do not think that I have been invited yet, but I am sure I will
be!
Jeff Ennis: I thank the Minister for
meeting my colleagues.
Chairman: Jeff, did you hear that the
Minister said she had not been invited?
Jeff Ennis: Well, we will rectify that!
Chairman: So, you are going to invite
her? We usually get the advertisements for St Albans. Your Member
of Parliament is not here today but I have never heard of a St
Albans chop!
Jeff Ennis: May I just pursue this line
of questioning?
Chairman: You were coming on to a Barnsley
chop?
Q258 Jeff Ennis: Minister, you mentioned
that there were 522 Sure Start schemes across the country; do
you know roughly how many of those are community led?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I do not know offhand. I know that it is quite a small percentage.
Q259 Jeff Ennis: Is that a disappointment
to you because I would have thought that community-led initiatives
are where people are working in the grass roots in the community
and are closest to what the needs of those communities are, and
I am a little disappointed and I know that it is only a small
proportion, I guess it is less than 5%, but I do not know because
I have not put a question down on it because I thought you might
know the answer. Do you see that as a disappointment?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I think it depends on what you mean by community led. We can probably
spend a great deal of time on that. What often happens with Sure
Start programmes is that they need a body that can take the legal
responsibility for government money and, so, quite a number of
Sure Starts that I visited that would be classified as either
Health Service led or local authority led actually, I think, are
community led. They simply use the vehicle of the local authority
or the Health Service in order to have that legal framework and
that is true of major voluntary organisations too who have been
very involved in the development of children centres. What is
critical for me is that, when I visit them, I meet local people
and you can tell in any project whether the real involvement exits
between local people and I have to say that I have yet to be disappointed
in the Sure Start programme.
1 Ev 68 Back
2
The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education, DfES/Institute
of Education; 26 March 2003. Back
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