Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department of Health
Question 49 (Mr Austin Mitchell): Co-ordination
between children's centres and Primary Care Trusts
In drawing together a response, we have examined:
— information collected from November
2005-March 2006 as part of the Department of Health's and Durham
University's first year of the National Child Health and Maternity
Services Mapping project—specifically the data in to
questions on the number of early years' services provided by PCT;
whether the main base of the service was in a children's centre;
and/or whether a children's centre was used for outreach services;
— DfES information on the number of
designated children's centres in each local authority area in
November 2005; and
— NAO summaries of its interviews at
children's centres and local authorities about partnership issues.
At annex A we have set out a list of those PCTs
who informed the Mapping project that they were not using children's
centres either as a main base or for outreach early years' services
when it is evident from the DfES list that there was a designated
children's centre on their patch. This could be taken as an indicator
that partnership working was not well developed. However, caution
is needed as the mapping does not identify circumstances where
the children's centre is funding health services directly.
We have also listed the PCTs who informed the
Mapping project that they were using the children's centre as
their main base for early years' services. We suggest that this
is an indicator of good partnership working
There are some obvious cautionary notes about
the interpretation of this information that I am sure the Committee
will understand.
The NAO's summary of its interviews indicates
that at the time of its visits a number of LAs and children's
centres were experiencing difficulties in developing partnerships
with PCTs because PCTs were merging or restructuring. These changes
have now been completed. Coterminosity between PCTs' and LAs'
boundaries has increased from 44% to 70% and we would expect this
shift to have assisted the development of partnership working
While we were very encouraged by the level of
support demonstrated generally by PCTs and NHS providers in contributing
data to the first year of the Mapping project, not all PCTs submitted
a return and the information wasn't complete for each PCT in every
respect. Much effort has been focused on improving the mapping
data in the last year.
Hilary Samson-Barry
Programme Director, Children, Families & Maternity
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