Examination of Witnesses (Questions 377
- 379)
WEDNESDAY 2 FEBRUARY 2005
MR TOM
JEFFERY, MS
ANNE JACKSON,
MS SHEILA
SCALES, MS
ALTHEA EFUNSHILE,
DR JEANNETTE
PUGH AND
MR MARK
DAVIES
Q377 Chairman: Good morning everyone
and welcome to this morning's session. The new responsibilities
for the Department and hence for this Committee on the Children's
Act are quite daunting. We have found a whole different world,
a whole different language and vocabulary and our learning curve
has been quite steep. As you know we have been taking quite a
lot of oral evidence and we have received a great deal of written
evidence; we have also been to British Columbia where they have
had a Children's Act for some 10 years. Interestingly it came
about after a tragedy similar to the tragedy that focussed everyone's
mind on this issue in this country. Tom Jeffery, you are known
to the Committee, which of your team would like to say something
to open up on the Children's Act or do you want to go straight
into questions?
Mr Jeffery: Thank you, Chairman;
maybe I could say something by way of opening. Firstly, we are
very grateful for the opportunity to give evidence. We have been
following some of the evidence sessions to date and they give
us much food for thought. They demonstrate clearly the challenges
we face and we are very conscious of the challenges and the complexities
of the change programme on which we are launched. We also believe
we are laying firm foundations for change and that we are building
a strong coalition and a consensus around what we are doing. Over
the last year or so we have been focussing on putting in place
the main elements of what we call a whole system change for children
in which the Children's Act is of course central but not in itself
sufficient. It is clear that change must be led locally and the
most important change will take place on the ground close to children
and families. What we have been seeking to do, therefore, is to
put in place a supportive national framework for 150 local programmes
of change. We set out some of that in a document just before Christmas,
including our outcomes framework and the inspection framework
which is out for consultation now. There are further elements
to come. We will be publishing a workforce strategy shortly. The
Children's Commissioner is being appointed. However, we are moving
now from a design phrase to delivery. As ever in Every Child
Matters the most innovative out there are moving well ahead
of government and we are getting evidence of good progress being
made across the country on many Every Child Matters priorities.
Our priority is very much to support that change and to go forward
in what we hope is a joint venture between government, statutory
agencies, voluntary agencies, children, families and communities.
We know we have a very long way to go on what is a long term programme
of change, but we believe we have made a start.
Q378 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Let us start with the question that really came out of our trip
to British Columbia. Their Children's Act, in terms of its original
conception, was broad in intention in terms of having a Minister
for children and families, having a children's commission and
commissioner, but some years after it all seems to have gone rather
wrong. What has really developed is that it is rather hard even
to engage people in discussion about a universal service for children.
To most of us it seemed to be focussed on child protection. The
original intention had been diverted into just this obsession
with a very important sector but not what this Act is about. Is
there a danger that we will start off with a great intention of
a broad policy agenda and finish up in the area of just child
protection? Do you think that is a danger for us?
Mr Jeffery: These are issues which
have been debated throughout the development of Every Child
Matters and subsequently, the balance between help for the
most vulnerable and seeking to promote prevention and early intervention
through universal services, and I think keeping those elements
in balance is a challenge for any change programme; it must be
so. That is, of course, what we are seeking to do, to bring together
the universal and the specialist because the distance between
services—cultural and sometimes physical—has generated
the gaps between which children have fallen. The commitment on
the part of universal services—including those in schools—and
their interest in this agenda before (and certainly ever since)
Every Child Matters was published has been very high indeed
and they are very much part of that coalition to which I referred
earlier.
Q379 Chairman: From the original
inquiry into the tragic death of a child, from that time there
does seem to be an indication of some lack of commitment in some
areas. We have murmurings from certain people in the health sector
that the degree of collaboration is not what it seemed to be at
the time, a weakening of the resolve to communicate across disciplines
and departments. Does that worry you?
Mr Jeffery: If that is what we
were finding it would worry me. It is idle to pretend that there
are not people starting from different places and one keeps building
that coalition. However, there is strong commitment across government
and it is indicated to some degree by our involvement with the
Department of Health -Mark may want to comment on this in a moment—and
there is a strong commitment on the part of schools and others
to this agenda. If there were those variations in commitment it
certainly would worry me. There is a major effort in communication
to demonstrate how all these parties can play a part in the Change
for Children programme and we are engaged on that.
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