Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Margaret Hodge MP
When I attended the Education and Skills Select
Committee on 9 February I promised to write to you with some further
information.
I said that I would send the Committee details
of projected funding for early years and childcare provision and
the typical cost of a SureStart children's centre: please see
the annex to this letter.
The issue of the evaluation of the SureStart
programme came up during the course of the Committee's questions.
You referred to research which suggested that two-thirds of SureStart
had not been successful. I think that you may have had in mind
some quite recent interim findings from the National Evaluation
of SureStart (NESS) which showed that 24% of SureStart Local Programmes
were being more effective than would have been expected across
a range of indicators.
I am aware that this finding has been widely
misinterpreted as suggesting that the remaining Programmes were
ineffective. That is most certainly not the case. The NESS research
found that SureStart local programme areas were more than twice
as likely to be defined as especially well-functioning (on the
basis of a range of outcomes for children) than were those without
a local programme.
Paul Holmes asked me about the amount of money
that was currently being spent through pooled budgets. Unfortunately
we do not hold that information. The Department of Health operates
a notification system for pooled budgets set up under the Health
Act 1999 which include the NHS; however there is no requirement
for partnerships to register their pooled budgets or to update
the sums of money involved. We do not propose to collect information
about the budgets that are pooled through children's trusts.
You asked for information on the funding provided
to support implementation of the Every Child Matters: Change for
Children reforms. These are set out in Every Child Matters:
Change for Children at paragraphs 4.16 to 4.25—see Annex
B.
We have made it clear that there are already
significant resources available to improve outcomes for children
and young people and that those resources are being increased
over the three years to 2007-08. Additionally, we are providing
the resources to support the implementation of the Every Child
Matters: Change for Children programme. It is my strongly held
view that, in addition to the significant investment by Government
in children's services, Every Child Matters: Change for Children
is also about enabling front-line services to use their resources
more efficiently. Working practices which add synergy and remove
duplication of effort will go a long way to achieving this.
During the course of David Chaytor's questioning
I promised to send the Committee details of the number of schools
in special measures that fall within the 20% of poorest wards.
The level of deprivation in an area is determined
by their ranking on the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2004,
which was published last year by the Office for Deputy Prime Minister.
1MD2004 replaced the 2000 ward based Index of Multiple Deprivation.
1MD2004 uses the newly devised (by ONS) geographical unit known
as the Super Output Area. SOAs are generally smaller than wards;
their advantage over wards is they are more equal in size, measured
by population, and are less subject to change over time.
There are 88 schools in special measures that
are in the 20% most deprived SOAs in England. This represents
30% of all schools in special measures. The remaining 208 or 70%
of schools are spread across the other 80% more affluent SOAs.
Finally, I thought the Committee might welcome
the opportunity to read the evaluation report prepared by Professor
Cleaver for DIES on the information sharing Trailblazers,
published in November 2004. This relates to research carried out
between October 2003 and August 2004. I enclose a copy of both
the full report and a summary.
The report's findings are presented around three
themes: changing culture and practice (pages 3-28); supporting
collaborative practice (pages 29-51); and using IT systems to
share information (pages 52-68). At the time the fieldwork was
undertaken, a handful of Trailblazers had indexes which were operational
and these had been running for only a few months.
The report's conclusion and recommendations
on the use of IT systems are on pages 68-69, and I should like
to draw the Committee's attention to the conclusion's opening
sentences:
"Outcomes for children will be improved
if practitioners communicate and services are delivered in a co-ordinated
way. A child index with details of how to contact other practitioners
involved could aid this process but must not be seen as the whole
solution . . ."
As I emphasised in my oral evidence to the Committee,
I very much agree that changing working culture and practice is
paramount and that IT systems to support practitioners must be
as simple as possible. Professor Cleaver's report helpfully highlights
the practical implementation issues but it does not call into
question the concept of having IT indexes.
We are continuing to build on Professor Cleaver's
research by commissioning further work on the impact of indexes
in Trailblazer areas now that most Trailblazers have these in
place and some have been operational for a little longer. This
will inform the business case for full implementation. Let me
reassure you again that we will continue to take a steady, staged
approach and we will not move to national implementation until
we are satisfied that the indexes will be technically robust and
a sound investment.
I hope that this further information will be
of help when the Committee's prepares the report of its Inquiry
into Every Child Matters.
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