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Every Child Matters is a comprehensive programme of reform for children's services. Key underpinning principles—all garnering very broad support in the evidence we have received—include: more closely integrated frontline delivery of educational, health, social and specialist services; earlier intervention to provide support before problems become serious; closer working between professionals who might be involved with the same child or young person; more coherent planning and commissioning of services at the combined local level—and the establishment of Children's Trusts (or similar arrangements) to support this; and greater involvement of children, parents and carers in the development of services.
More generally, the drive to improving both universal and targeted services in the same suite of reforms has been very well received. It is supported by research evidence which demonstrates the value of early intervention to prevent serious problems developing, coupled with targeted and specialist support where necessary. The Government needs to be commended at the outset for embarking on such an ambitious and wide-ranging programme of root-and-branch reform.
We have been impressed by the commitment, dedication and enthusiasm demonstrated by those responsible for delivering the reforms at the front line. There is considerable evidence of progress already been made on the development of integrated, user-centred services in some areas. Other areas have much further to go and ensuring consistency across the country is likely to be challenging in the extreme—implementation will be the litmus test for Every Child Matters, and the Government needs to remain attentive to the kinds of support and direction that local areas need.
Some specific aspects of the reforms give us cause for concern. The Government has proposed the establishment of a network of computerised 'child indexes' (or databases) containing basic details on all children in England, to aid communication between professionals. These proposals are not currently well-grounded in research evidence. Crucial decisions to go ahead in principle were taken before it could be demonstrated that the indexes would be worthwhile and that practical problems with security and keeping information up to date could be overcome. We welcome the reassurances given to us by the Minister for Children, Young People and Families that she would proceed slowly and would not enter into commissioning arrangements for child indexes lightly, and that more research will be undertaken before going ahead.
Some extra resources are being made available for implementation of Every Child Matters, but the Government has repeatedly said that it expects improvements to services to be largely resourced from mainstream non-ring-fenced budgets and savings derived from more integrated and coherent services. Witnesses have told us that this will be difficult to achieve in practice. Workforce development for in-service staff is of critical importance, but it is likely to be resource intensive. It is not clear that services will be able to meet the costs that this will incur. The initial set-up of Children's Trust arrangements is also likely to be costly, yet minimal funding is being provided directly for this purpose. The Government therefore needs to lead from the top and provide evidence of how efficiency savings and improved services might be achieved concurrently.
Some crucial services—such as schools and General Practitioners—have not been placed under a direct 'duty to co-operate' in local Children's Trust partnership arrangements. The Government argues that these agencies will be encouraged to participate by levers in the system such as inspection and through their relationships with Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts respectively. However, we do not think that these levers are likely to be powerful enough. There is a real risk that a minority of schools and GPs could choose not to participate, fundamentally undermining the ethos of Every Child Matters.
Every Child Matters, although based in the Department for Education and Skills, requires co-ordination and joined-up working with other Government departments—especially the Department of Health and the Home Office. While sincere efforts are being made to promote joined-up working, there are still some tensions between different policies affecting children and young people emanating from different departments. In particular, the Youth Justice system and the immigration system currently operate in ways which can be seen to undermine the aims of Every Child Matters. These tensions need to be tackled at Ministerial level if the Government is to convince us that every child really does matter equally.
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