Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
PROFESSOR AL
AYNSLEY-GREEN
5 DECEMBER 2005
Q20 Chairman: I always get a sinking
feeling when people talk about roadshows but that is probably
my cynical experience.
Professor Aynsley-Green: This
is why we need to pilot and test it.
Q21 Mr Marsden: The programme and
the ideas that you have laid out before us this afternoon would
test not one but two Ofsteds. You have neither the budget nor
the structure or independence of an Ofsted. Would you welcome
that structure?
Professor Aynsley-Green: Inspection
has to be one of the most important levers for getting change
that we need for children. I am fully aware of the debate about
a single inspectorate. I have seen the submissions from CSCI and
others. I know the proposals for there to be a reinvention of
Ofsted for learners and children. Our view is that we need to
be persuaded that these new structures will deliver the holistic
concept that underpins Every Child Matters, not least because
health and youth justice, for example, will not be a part of that.
They are critically dependent as social carers on the interface
with adult services. Whatever the structure is, what really matters
if the function of these organisations. I would welcome at the
local level the integration of an inspectorate process as long
as it really does tackle the important issues. We will await the
outcome of the current consultation and see what happens but we
have made our position quite clear.
Mr Marsden: That is highly relevant because
we have had evidence here on the single inspectorate but what
I was focusing on was your reach as opposed to your resources.
Your reach is imaginative and your resources are minuscule. What
are you going to focus on in your first 18 months?
Chairman: You must not go through the
eight points though.
Q22 Mr Marsden: You make my point
for me, Chairman. The eight points would consume 30 million, not
3 million.
Professor Aynsley-Green: Exactly.
If you put that against what I said before about the cascade of
exposing issues, influencing, scrutinising and holding organisations
to account, that is a helpful construct. It has certainly been
helpful as far as stakeholders are concerned. The reality is we
cannot do it all ourselves. The inevitable consequence is we must
work with others, which is why already we are setting up coalitions,
collaborations and alliances. You will be pleased to hear we have
brought into the Commission ten advisers to help us shape our
policies.
Q23 Mr Marsden: It depends how much
you are paying them.
Professor Aynsley-Green: Exactly
right. These ten advisers come from the NSPCC, from the NCB, from
national children's homes etc. Building alliances is another tightrope
for us to walk. We need to work very carefully with the voluntary
sector but we cannot afford to be in their pockets because many
of them have axes to grind for their own particular interests.
Already we have identified the priorities. First of all, bullying.
Here is a good example of how we are working. We have worked with
the Anti-Bullying Alliance and we have sought our own work with
children. We have published for the first time one of our documents.
I will leave this document for you. This is what we published
last week for the Anti-Bullying Alliance. We have worked seriously
with young people about their concerns, supported by the Anti-Bullying
Alliance. We have produced our own view of this. Here we have,
for example, eight illustrative journeys, real journeys of children
through the experience of bullying. We have pulled this together.
We have offered commentary to these journeys and we have said
what we are going to do. We are going to have to identify how
we can take this forward. On ASBOs, we are interested very much
in anti-social behaviour. We are very concerned about asylum and
pain is another example. You may not have even thought of the
issue of pain management in children but in August of last year
the Health Care Commission reported the fact that over 40% of
children taken to emergency departments with broken limbs wait
for more than an hour without any kind of pain medication. We
also know that the management of pain in ambulances leaves much
to be desired as far as children are concerned. We focus on pain;
we have exposure; we have breakfast time television and so on.
What we are going to take forward is the big question.
Q24 Mr Marsden: You gave an interview
in The Guardian on 27 July when you described yourself
as a high wire artist, a noble profession. You talked about a
whole range of things and you said at the end, "I need to
confront ministers and have the opportunity to influence them.
The media will hold me to account." What did you mean by
that?
Professor Aynsley-Green: They
already are. I can leave for you a distillation of the coverage
from the bullying issue. We had something like 266 press coverage
clippings and cuttings from all over the country as a consequence
of that. What it held us to account for was, first of all, to
support what we were saying, which was the majority, but also
to challenge what we were saying. We were declaring what children
and young people were saying to us, but also what we intended
to do about it.
Q25 Mr Marsden: Media campaigns can
do an enormous amount of beneficial things to raise issues and
promote inquires. Are you not a bit worried that you might get
boxed into short-term reactions and responses rather than digging
out some of the root causes of these issues, just by the very
nature of the media process?
Professor Aynsley-Green: You are
absolutely right. That is a serious temptation for us. You will
not be surprised to know that every day of the week I am bombarded
with requests to say something.
Q26 Mr Marsden: You must be on chat
shows from dawn to dusk.
Professor Aynsley-Green: We have
resisted that, which is why we have not been on chat shows from
dawn to dusk other than the issues we have selected: pain, bullying
and anti-social behaviour. We have selected three against innumerable
opportunities to address that. I am already confronting the media
because we have been to the Press Complaints Commission and Ofcom
with colleagues from the Youth Parliament over the concern we
have about the portrayal of children in the media. I have written
to the editors of all 100 leading regional newspapers to ask them
what they are doing about the promotion of childhood in the localities.
I would be interested in what your own personal views are about
the press coverage in your constituencies about children and what
you are doing about it because we know that local newspapers are
profoundly influential in affecting the public's mood towards
young people.
Q27 Mr Marsden: I think it is fair
to say in my own locality and media there is a reasonable balance
but local media do not fight shy—and nor should they, in
my view—from reporting circumstances in which people's lives
are made a misery by young people. Is there not a danger that
if you focus too negatively on the whole issue of ASBOs you will
be perceived as a woolly-minded do gooder who does not have any
knowledge of the reality of what it is like to live on a council
estate or be an old person tormented by a gang of children?
Professor Aynsley-Green: With
respect, if you listened carefully to what I said on Panorama,
I did not say that. I said I was not opposed to ASBOs because
I have seen the impact myself on my own life, my own family, in
my own locality. ASBOs can be a good thing. They are certainly
liked by the community and the police. I have also met and heard
of young people whose lives have been transformed by being pulled
up short.
Q28 Mr Marsden: It is a question
of balanced usage and how it is represented in the media?
Professor Aynsley-Green: Exactly.
I will give you a harsh, incontrovertible statistic from hard
research: 70% of media articles are negative towards children.
When do we ever see anything celebrating children? Remembering
the official figure, 10 times more young people contribute to
society and communities than cause trouble.
Q29 Mr Marsden: I wrote a letter
to my local paper 10 days ago where I celebrated the achievement
of one of my estates and a whole group of young people who are
doing martial arts classes.
Professor Aynsley-Green: Was it
published?
Q30 Mr Marsden: It was published on the
letters page of the local Gazette. Finally, on the Youth
Services Green Paper, you said you made a submission to it. What
was the key issue that you wanted to be addressed out of that
Green Paper?
Professor Aynsley-Green: Implementation
and resources to make it happen. That is my challenge across government.
We have the NSF. Where is the resource to make the NSF real and
to make the Youth Green Paper real?
Q31 Chairman: My concern is that
my team gets all the questions in. Perhaps Gordon was too polite
to say this but Parliament calls you to account. That is just
an aside.
Professor Aynsley-Green: I think
the final accountability is the children and young people.
Chairman: We just wanted to get the statutory
framework right.
Q32 Dr Blackman-Woods: Thank you
for the very positive comments you have made about Durham. I will
make sure they are passed on. You outlined quite an impressive
list of nine areas, issues and subject areas, that you are looking
at. Can you tell us how you went about identifying those areas
and how you have prioritised them, if you have?
Professor Aynsley-Green: We are
still in the process of evolution for how we are going to identify
our priorities. We have had to hit the ground running. I have
only been in place for five months. Inevitably, some of those
issues were driven by circumstance rather than a serious thinking
through. We have these two sets of inputs, the inputs from children
and young people, what they are telling us, and that is going
to be an ongoing process although already we have a fairly consistent
list of what they are concerned about; and also the issues from
the sector. We brought in these ten policy advisers who are helping
us with landscaping and scoping exercises to see exactly what
the issues are. Then we will have to have some kind of judgment.
Part of that judgment will include the views of children themselves.
In Scotland, for example, Cathy Marshall is just embarking on
an electronic voting process whereby her office has identified
a series of issues the children themselves have said concern them.
There is a national vote for what children think she should focus
on. That must be a very important component of our work.
Q33 Dr Blackman-Woods: You have told
us a little bit about how you are going to tackle them. Could
you tell us a bit more about how you see work progressing on these
matters over the next year or so?
Professor Aynsley-Green: Yes.
We have to develop a strategy. I am delighted to tell you that
we are just appointing our senior management team. Behind me we
have Graham Hasting-Evans who is our interim chief operating officer.
To his left is Clare Philips who today has been appointed as my
head of policy and research through a rigorous process that I
can describe if you would like me to. We are also appointing today
Lisa White who is our head of communications participation. The
four of us will be the senior management team. We will now be
seriously engaged in shaping our policy function, linked with
the strategy. Those are serious imperatives. First, we have to
demonstrate our credibility, not least with children and young
people. Second, we have to demonstrate that we are not afraid
to say difficult things. Third, we need to have one or two big
wins which confirm that we are here as serious players on this
agenda, but we should not be afraid to tackle some of the longer
term issues, each of which will require a very careful tactical
plan. Perhaps the next time I meet you, whenever you invite me
back, we will be able to declare much more detail for our business
plan and our strategic plan. The essence we are submitting to
DfES and we will be sharing it with the stakeholders for their
opinions over the next few weeks and months. I would make one
further point about the policies which is the word "participation",
not consultation, because children and young people are fed up
with being consulted. There is an industry out there. Much of
it is tokenistic and of poor value, not least because there is
no feedback as to what has been the impact of the input. Participation
to us means seriously engaging children and young people in what
we do. I intend to appoint as a start some young assistant commissioners
who will work with me as members of the senior management team.
We are working with Durham over how we might have placements from
Newton Aycliffe Woodhead School to work with us in the Commission.
All the time, children will be real in this process to help us
shape our priorities.
Q34 Dr Blackman-Woods: The involvement
of young people is to be very much commended but can you tell
us whether your intention is to go beyond drawing attention to
problems and issues to making recommendations for change?
Professor Aynsley-Green: Most
certainly we will be making recommendations for change. We already
have done that. We have just written to Liam Byrne expressing
our concerns about the NHS with reorganisation etc., and this
issue of pain. We have very specific proposals for managing pain.
There is a very important opportunity which is my annual report
to Parliament through you. Already we are working on the shape,
structure and substance of this report which, apart from the dry
detail of how we have spent the money, provides us we suggest
with an opportunity to offer a commentary on the state of the
nation's children and young people. We are thinking about the
shape of this. We intend in our first report to have some fairly
broad brush issues with some recommendations for government to
take note of in terms of further research or policy development
and we expect government formally to respond to those recommendations
through you.
Q35 Dr Blackman-Woods: I look forward
to coming back to that in a year or so. Can I pick up one particular
issue that you identified and that was bullying? Can you tell
us whether you think the measures outlined in the Steer Report
and the Schools White Paper are appropriate? Are they going to
enable bullying to be effectively tackled?
Professor Aynsley-Green: Yes.
We have expressed our concern over the White Paper with its focus
on bullying. Of course, bullying is an incredibly emotive issue
which polarises opinion, particularly for those who wish to have
punishment and control and those that may be seen to be liberalist.
My view is quite explicit. There is no one size which fits every
experience of bullying. I make the point too that bullying is
not just an issue for children; it is very relevant to the adult
world and we need to look at ourselves before them. In terms of
what can be done, one of the issues children have asked us to
put to government is regular surveys through questionnaires of
what is happening. I have had some very graphic accounts from
children and young people who tell me, "Al, in my school
there are 100 CCTV cameras. We have an anti-bullying charter and
programme. The staff say that there cannot be any bullying. We
know that bullying is going on." They are saying, "Why
does not somebody ask us what is going on in the school to make
sure the school understands it?" That was the basis for my
comment in the media about this possibility of a regular survey
from schools about the reality of the existence of bullying.
Q36 Dr Blackman-Woods: The Secondary
Heads Association has come out against this. Do you think you
are going to manage to get it implemented?
Professor Aynsley-Green: I am
interested that the secondary heads have come out against it because
I fully understand the pressures on head teachers in particular.
I have been to some schools where there are stunning examples
of what can be done. The example starts with the head making bullying
a critically important issue for the school and expecting the
staff to comply with that. The three things we ask are, first
of all, for head teachers to demonstrate leadership, making sure
that bullying is seen to be important. The second is to involve
children in the solution as well as the problem by proper participation
on school councils and so on. The third is to make sure everybody
is trained to understand bullying because it is a threat to teachers
to be confronted by a parent who denies their child is a bully.
How do they do that? Of even greater importance, we are very anxious
to promote the concept of empathy in the earliest of years in
primary school, to understand each other's feelings. I draw to
your attention The Roots of Empathy programme in Canada.
Please feel free to dial it up tonight on Google. It is a stunning
programme which has been by randomised control trials shown to
be effective in decreasing bullying and anti-social behaviour
by getting very young children to understand each other's feelings
through the medium of a baby coming to the class. We are asking
for children to be given the toolkits to be resilient, to have
empathy and to understand how to confront bullying.
Q37 Stephen Williams: I would like
to return briefly to bullying and read a quick news report I pulled
out of The Sun back in the recess because it shocked me
so much. It was tucked down in the bottom corner of one of the
news reports: "Bullied lad is hanged. A bullied teenager
was found hanged with his school tie, an inquest has heard. Shaun
Noonan, 14, was headbutted, thrown into a ditch, stamped on and
had an earring pulled out by thugs. One bully allegedly kicked
him in the back while another filmed it on a mobile. Authorities
refused to move him from Sutton School in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.
Shaun's mum Diane found him hanging in a wardrobe at home. The
Chester inquest recorded an open verdict." That is a curious
verdict perhaps. That tiny news report says so much. The fact
that it is tiny says a lot as well about the fact that children
can be in such desperate circumstances that they move to suicide
which, if it was in the adult workplace, would cause absolute
uproar. I think bullying still has not hit that sort of level
in the public consciousness. You will be pleased to hear that
this Committee is going to have its own look at bullying next
year. I wanted to ask you about strategies for dealing with bullying.
You mentioned there were several. My own local council has landed
itself in a certain amount of hot water with some people recently
by publishing its bullying document which has a lot of good things
in it. Bristol is doing interesting things. It has had every school
having a competition which children are taking part in. It has
made films and even a football club has come together to promote
it. One aspect in the report that has been criticised is this
concept of no blame, dealing with bullying. Could you offer us
your thoughts on no blame and what do you think are the alternatives
for engaging with the bully?
Professor Aynsley-Green: That
is a very good and important question. Two million adults were
described by the TUC as having been bullied in the first six months
of this year. Coming back to the issue of no blame, I repeat that
there is no one size fits all. There is a temptation to have a
knee jerk reaction, that we should punish the bully. From my contact
with bullies, many of them have been bullied themselves and come
from very troubled backgrounds. I am not using that as an excuse
for their behaviour but we need to look at ways of approaching
this. Some of the stories we have been told by children are quite
horrifying, about how for example a bullied child has been excluded
from school. That cannot be in that child's best interests. Also,
how a bullied child has moved class. That cannot be in the child's
best interests because it highlights that he or she is separate
to other children. This is where I come back to understanding
the research evidence as to what works. The Anti-Bullying Alliance
has been charged with being a no blame organisation, which I do
not think it is. What I am asking for is serious thought to be
applied to each individual case of bullying, looking at the circumstances
and finding the best ways. At the end of the day, yes, some children
may require criminal proceedings. Some of these outcomes recently
have been quite horrifying. Of course they must be held to account
for what they are doing to their colleagues but I do ask for a
more structured debate about this than just polarised "punish
the bullies." That is not the answer to every issue.
Q38 Stephen Williams: Your role presumably
allows you to look across the piece at how government interfaces
with children to look for examples of joined up government. You
mentioned hormones being your specialism and I just raise the
issue of sexual health advice to young people. Last year the Department
of Health confirmed guidelines which said that if a child in between
13 and 16 goes to a GP or another advice worker for advice on
sex, sexuality and so on, although they should be encouraged to
talk to their parents, the confidentiality of their advice would
not be breached; whereas now the Department for Education and
Skills has consultation on doing precisely the opposite. You have
two major departments of state supposedly saying different things
about the same topic. Do you have a view on that?
Professor Aynsley-Green: Yes.
The first thing is to get them together and sort it. There is
some urgency in this because they are sending conflicting and
confusing messages, not least to children and young people. I
am very concerned about lowering the threshold for disclosing
information and the basis of confidentiality. I say that particularly
from my background of being a children's doctor, where I regard
the trust between doctor and patient to be paramount, unless under
existing legislation there is a risk of serious harm to the child.
We have a provision for that. I am very concerned that if we make
this more of a criminal activity or one that requires reporting
we will dissuade young people from seeking advice and that is
what they are telling me. The children I am speaking to now are
very concerned about this move with the explosion of sexually
transmitted infections, teenage pregnancy etc. Anything which
prevents them having the confidence going to trained professionals
that they will trust, in the long term, will be to the detriment
but I hope that the DofH and DfES will come together. We have
written to ministers about that and we are consulting children
and young people, getting them to participate in what they think
is the way forward.
Q39 Chairman: Is that confidentiality
as simple as that right across the piece?
Professor Aynsley-Green: No.
| 
