Select Committee on Education and Skills Ninth Report


Conclusions and recommendations


Overarching issues

1.  We understand the drive toward rapid transformational change at policy level and think that this is entirely legitimate given the urgency of protecting children better and promoting their development and well-being. However, a Government committed (rightly) to pursuing evidence-based policy has a difficult balance to strike. It is crucial that significant changes are thoroughly trialled and evaluated before roll-out, especially in cases where doing things badly risks worsening outcomes for vulnerable children and young people. (Paragraph 20)

2.  The balance between local determination and action from the centre is likely to remain a critical issue as Every Child Matters unfolds. Too much central direction risks alienating those on the ground who know a great deal about local circumstances; too little, on the other hand, risks inconsistency and the appearance of gaps in services. In respect of certain aspects of the reforms, our evidence suggests that more central responsibility and direction may be needed than is currently the case. (Paragraph 23)

Involving children, young people and parents

3.  We are concerned that significant changes are being made to the Sure Start programme when evidence about the effectiveness of the current system is only just beginning to emerge. This relates back to our wider point about the inherent difficulties of pursuing transformative and rapid change while at the same time maintaining a commitment to evidence-based policy. (Paragraph 39)

Children's Commissioner for England

4.  We have yet to be convinced that a Children's Commissioner role primarily defined in terms of promoting children's views, will be as effective in practice as one focused on promoting and protecting children's rights in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Paragraph 46)

5.  We are concerned that the definition of the role of the Children's Commissioner for England as one primarily framed in terms of promoting children's views and concerns, rather than promoting and safeguarding rights, may directly and negatively affect the ability of the Commissioner to achieve improved outcomes for children and young people. (Paragraph 48)

6.  We welcome the Minister's assurance that the circumstances in which the Secretary of State will direct the Commissioner will be limited to very serious or tragic cases that require a national inquiry. We also welcome the assurance that the Secretary of State will under no circumstances prevent an inquiry being conducted. However, further clarification of the limits of directive powers should be made through regulation if necessary. Moreover, if there is no intention to ever prevent the Commissioner from conducting a particular inquiry, we fail to see the purpose of a duty to consult prior to launching an investigation. It is conceivable that future Secretaries of State may not take the same view, and we believe the Government should consider modifying this part of the Act. (Paragraph 52)

7.  It should be made clear at the earliest possible opportunity what level of funding will be available for the operation of the Commissioner's office and whether additional resources will be provided if the Secretary of State instructs the Commissioner to conduct a major inquiry which is likely to tie up large amounts of resources and personnel time—or whether it is expected that those costs will be met out of current allocations. (Paragraph 53)

8.  We are reassured to hear the Minister's assessment of her likely working relationship with the Children's Commissioner for England as one that was likely to be uncomfortable at times—in our view, anything less would be profoundly worrying, and as a Committee, we will look for evidence that the relationship between the Children's Commissioner and Ministers is developing in an appropriate way. (Paragraph 54)

9.  We are pleased that the three existing Commissioners are committed to working with the Commissioner for England to resolve any problems concerning jurisdiction. Their suggestion that a memorandum of understanding should be drawn up at the earliest possible convenience seems a productive way forward, and is one possible way to broach issues of jurisdiction. This would also provide an opportunity to capitalise on the valuable experience of the three existing Commissioners—which they are extremely keen to share with the appointee for England. (Paragraph 57)

10.  We suggest that a fully independent review of the role and remit of the Children's Commissioner for England should be commissioned within three years of appointment. This should include analysis of the effectiveness of the Commissioner post, with particular reference to the impact of the statutory framework. Amendments to statute should be pursued if the review indicates that the Children's Commissioner is unduly constrained by the existing legal framework. (Paragraph 59)

11.  To preserve independence of the Children's Commissioner for England, there needs to be a strong link between the Commissioner and Parliament. By custom and practice Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools reports directly to Parliament through this Committee and we envisage a similar relationship with the Children's Commissioner for England. (Paragraph 60)

Integrated services at the frontline

12.  The DfES told us that they would shortly launch a prospectus on Extended Schools. Where conversion to an Extended School is being considered, we recommend that the prospectus should stress the benefits of planning with local partners, including voluntary services, who often have wide experience of engaging vulnerable groups, to ensure local needs are met. (Paragraph 72)

Workforce development and training needs

13.  A toolkit on multi-agency working is scheduled to be released in April 2005—and we will be interested to see what prominence is given to challenges around the reconfiguring of professional identities and responsibilities that working in a multi-agency team is likely to present. (Paragraph 78)

14.  The introduction of an integrated inspection framework offers a further opportunity to emphasise the importance of integrated working at the front line, and we hope the final guidance on integrated inspection later this year will focus in part on this issue. (Paragraph 82)

15.  We are not convinced that workforce training needs for all in-service staff are likely to be given the priority across the board at the local level that they merit and which the Government anticipates. While we appreciate that there are significant resources already invested in the training of children's professionals in some sectors, we are particularly concerned about the priority which will be attached to Every Child Matters-related workforce development for staff in other sectors, and particularly the health services. (Paragraph 89)

16.  Department of Health officials told us that there was no ring-fenced money at departmental level for training . With little or no extra resources identified for the implementation of Every Child Matters in general, we are concerned that with many pressures on primary care trusts and other budgets, crucial Every Child Matters-related training will not be given the priority it deserves. (Paragraph 90)

17.  We would urge that the presumption against an entitlement to training—with a pooled fund at interdepartmental level to support it—is reconsidered. Such a move would send out clear signals to local areas that training and workforce development were being given a high priority, and would also provide vital initial resources to address some of the staff development and training needs arising from the implementation of the Every Child Matters agenda. (Paragraph 92)

Child indexes

18.  In the past, this committee has been concerned that crucial policy decisions are sometimes taken without sufficient research or evaluation of existing practice. In this case, the fundamental decision to go ahead with child indexes appears to have been taken before the activities of the Information Sharing and Assessment Trailblazers could be fully analysed. (Paragraph 112)

19.  We are not convinced that sufficient evidence currently exists to justify the commissioning of the proposed IT-based child indexes. We have significant reservations about whether this will represent the best use of resources and very significant concerns about critical issues such as security, confidentiality and access arrangements. We are concerned in particular that the current research evidence does not conclusively demonstrate that expenditure in this area is the best way of improving outcomes for children. (Paragraph 113)

20.  We welcome the news that further evaluative work on the impact of indexes in Trailblazer areas is now being planned, and that the results of this will be used to inform the business case for implementation. This research should analyse the comparative benefit of the indexes as a means of improving outcomes and other ways of improving information-sharing within and between professionals. (Paragraph 114)

Common Assessment Framework

21.  It is essential that the design and implementation of the Common Assessment Framework takes place at a pace that allows informed development. The commitment to further testing and assessment before national rollout is therefore extremely welcome. While it is sensible that the assessments will examine the impacts of Common Assessment Framework on services, we would also hope that they take a broader view and examine the extent to which the Common Assessment Framework is leading to improved outcomes for children, young people and families. (Paragraph 126)

Pacing change

22.  The Government has made a welcome commitment to respecting local needs, and putting control over change in local hands and we would encourage them to maintain this commitment. Statutory guidance should contain explicit reference to the need to protect front line services during transition, and to implement change at a pace suited to local needs. At the national level the Government can assist by remaining alert for any evidence that unintended negative side-effects of change are occurring, and, especially, that any decrease in the effectiveness of critical front line and child protection services is taking place. (Paragraph 131)

Integrated inspection

23.  We maintain that for inspection to serve as a lever for improvement, there needs to be a clear process linking inspection findings, communication of these findings to service(s) inspected, and suitable intervention to bring about change. (Paragraph 140)

24.  To play the critical role in Every Child Matters that the Government envisages, integrated inspection must ultimately contribute to the improvement of services. We would welcome clarification on how this will happen with regard to inspections of children's services. The specific procedures which will be triggered should a local area be deemed by integrated inspection to be failing require clearer explanation. In particular, it needs to be made clear how the findings of area reviews will be played back to individual service providers, and how these will be used to bring about improvement. (Paragraph 143)

25.  We are not convinced that the levers for participation suggested by the Government will provide the necessary safeguards. This is especially true in the light of policy tensions in the DfES, which appear to be producing contradictory drivers and to be demanding conflicting responses from schools and service providers. (Paragraph 150)

26.  We await final confirmation of the details of integrated inspection, but we are deeply concerned that some schools, GPs and other services not under a statutory duty to collaborate in Children's Trust agreements may choose, for one reason or another, not to participate. This has the potential to fundamentally undermine the aims and intentions of Every Child Matters. It is unlikely that the current incentives and penalties in the system will be adequate to make reluctant schools, in particular, co-operate. The Government needs to clarify what additional incentives will be introduced into the system to address this issue, and especially, what changes will be made to the framework for the inspection of schools. (Paragraph 162)

27.  Statutory guidance and other communications which concern themselves with budget-pooling need to make absolutely clear that local areas should not pursue such pooling for its own sake. Until sufficient evidence has been amassed from Pathfinder Children's Trusts on best practice in this area, it would be preferable to give a clear steer for local areas to thoroughly analyse the benefits likely to accrue from budget-pooling before embarking on the process. (Paragraph 169)

Director of Children's Services

28.  The DfES is currently consulting on the Director of Children's Services role. When statutory guidance is finally issued, it must make explicit the actions which will be open to Directors of Children's Services should essential partners fail to co-operate. (Paragraph 176)

Funding: overall costs of reform

29.  We think—and our concern is amplified by what witnesses have told us—that the additional resources needed to 'bridge' the transition from 'fire fighting' to more effective preventive, universally accessible services are unlikely to be found through 'efficiency savings' generated by services working in a more 'joined-up' way. (Paragraph 186)

30.  The evidence we have seen has not convinced us that the financial implications of the Every Child Matters programme of reform have been properly assessed or comprehensively modelled, and it is therefore not clear on what basis the Government is able to assume that Every Child Matters will be largely self-financing. We recognise and welcome the significant extra resources for primary school capital projects, announced in Budget 2005 which, it is intended, will be used partly to support the Every Child Matters agenda. However, we are still unclear as to whether capital building, adaptation or maintenance costs associated with the roll-out of Extended Schools and Sure Start Children's Centres have been properly modelled. (Paragraph 188)

31.  We are doubtful that a policy as ambitious as Every Child Matters can be funded in the main from existing budgets. Better deployment of existing resources is a laudable aim, but we believe the Government needs to lead from the top on this issue and build up an evidence base which demonstrates how this can be achieved in practice. (Paragraph 189)

32.  Our evidence demonstrates that at the very least, in respect of some specific areas of policy there is a strong case for identifying additional funds for implementation, over and above those which have already been put aside. These areas include, but are not limited to, workforce development and the setup and maintenance of Children's Trusts. The Government should therefore consider committing additional dedicated resources—cross-departmentally and ring-fenced if appropriate—to enable successful implementation of Every Child Matters. (Paragraph 190)

DfES restructuring

33.  We are not convinced that the rollout of Every Child Matters will be successfully implemented in the context of significant job cuts and restructuring at the DfES and the Children, Young People and Families Directorate in particular. While we appreciate that a more 'strategic' department (and directorate) potentially frees up money for front line services, we are not convinced that this can be achieved at the same time as a major programme of change. Clarification on the kinds of modelling and analysis which have been carried out to demonstrate that the two agendas are complementary is required. (Paragraph 197)

Intra-departmental policy

34.  We accept that there is a fundamental convergence between the standards and the inclusion agendas. However, what concerns us is that the drivers in the system - including inspection and 'league tables', to give two examples—may not be sufficiently strong to encourage schools to see the two agendas as complementary. (Paragraph 198)

Interdepartmental policy

35.  We do not think that the challenges involved in dealing with children and young people in custody have been properly addressed by the Every Child Matters reforms. The youth justice system is not sufficiently distinct from the adult criminal justice system and is too separate from the mainstream children's legislation and services. (Paragraph 205)

36.  We heard evidence that in some cases children's outcomes are secondary to immigration outcomes. We accept that there are sincere attempts to look after children's welfare within the immigration system, but we are concerned that some of the fundamental policy decisions - such as detention of asylum-seeking children - may make the achievement of the five outcomes for these children much more difficult. (Paragraph 208).


 
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