Memorandum submitted by The
Association of Directors of Children's Services (E&S 01)
Written evidence
Introductory note
1. The
ADCS represents local authority leaders of children's services in England, and
specifically directors of children's services. The Children Act 2004 introduced
the statutory rôle of director of children's services, replacing the previous
rôles of chief education officer and director of social services; the latter
rôle has been divided into adult and children's services.
2. Statutory guidance issued under the Children Act 2004
requires directors of children's services to be responsible and accountable for
the leadership and management of education and children's social care services,
for leading partnership working across a range of statutory agencies set out in
s10 and s11 of the Act including the Learning and Skills Council, and for
leading partnership working across the private, community and voluntary
sectors. The underlying purpose of the Act is to improve the well-being of children in five outcome areas:
1 physical
and mental health and emotional well-being
2 protection
from harm and neglect
3 education,
training and recreation
4 the
contribution made by them to society
5 social and
economic well-being
3. The definition of children in the Children Act 2004 includes all
young people up to their eighteenth birthday and those aged 18,19 or 20 who have been looked-after by a
local authority after the age of 16 or have a learning disability.
4. The
Learning and Skills Bill will change the statutory framework with a view to
making participation in education or training compulsory until the age of 18,
and to provide support for such participation. This is the main area of
interest in the Bill for the ADCS, although there are some other clauses on
which we offer comment.
ADCS position
5. The
ADCS welcomes the central thrust of the policy, that is, to increase the
participation age in education or training to the age of 19. The ADCS will work
closely with DCSF and other partners to that end. The most effective way of
ensuring that such participation gives maximum value to the young people and to
the economy is to make the education and training both relevant and attractive
to all young people.
6. Our
shared aim must be to maximise voluntary participation and to keep to an
absolute minimum the need to use the sanctions that the Bill proposes.
7. One
of the biggest challenges is to achieve, over time, a cultural change as a
result of which all sections of society accept that participation in education and
training to age 19 and beyond is the norm.
8. This
challenge is for local authorities but also providers of education and training
to make the offer attractive and relevant to the whole cohort of 16 to 19 year-olds.
Equally, employers will be challenged to support their young employees'
participation in relevant and attractive education and training.
Detailed comments
Part 1: Duty to
participate in education or
training: England
9. Too
many young people aged between 16 and 18 are not engaged at all in education,
employment or training ('NEET'), or are employed in work without training. The
fundamental shifts in the economy over the last thirty years have greatly
reduced the availability of paid employment that requires low levels of
education and skill. In addition, the rapid changes over the last few years,
and the inevitable changes in the labour market in the future, have made it
obvious that 'a job for life' is no longer a realistic expectation.
10. It
is therefore vital for the country, and for the future well-being of young
people, that young people are both educated and trained for the jobs that are
available now, and in a way that gives them the flexibility and resilience to
re-learn and re-train as employment patterns change. It is also vital that young
people develop aspirations for their futures that are driven by high
educational standards. We cannot afford the waste of long-term unemployment,
and, worse, inter-generational unemployment.
11. We
must secure a good supply of well-qualified and aspirational young people into
the employment market, in order that the country can nurture, attract and
retain employers which add maximum value and generate maximum wealth for the
country. This in the context of changes in the age profile of the population as
a whole, and a reducing number of young people entering the employment market.
12. There
are significant additional, but indirect, benefits for young people of
participation in education and training beyond the age of 16; as a rule young
people who are participating in education or training are healthier, and less
likely to be involved in anti-social, risky, or criminal activity. Together
these are major and long-lasting - indeed lifelong - benefits for the young
people and society as a whole.
13. There
are very significant long-term costs both to the country and the young people
concerned of failure to reach their educational potential. The average
educational attainment of convicted prisoners, for example, is very poor; the
long-term social and financial costs associated with crime are very great
indeed. Inevitably, the children of offenders are less likely to reach their
potential, given the instability and poverty that is often the reality for the
children of families involved in the criminal justice system.
14. Therefore,
the ADCS fully supports:
· the
principle behind Part 1 of the Bill, in that it will directly improve outcome
areas 3 (education, training and recreation) and 5 (social and economic
well-being), and indirectly improve the other outcome areas;
· the
principle that 'participation' should not simply be school- or college-based on
the existing curriculum, but may relate to appropriate full time education or
training, a contract of apprenticeship, or part-time education or training
leading to an accredited qualification as part of or alongside full-time
occupation;
· the phased
implementation of the raising of the participation age, to 17 by 2013, and 18
by 2015, so that educational institutions and employers can make appropriate
and effective arrangements for education and training that will meet young
people's needs.
15. Part
1 sets out the framework to make the arrangements necessary to secure
participation. This framework will require considerable fleshing-out in
regulations and guidance: the ADCS is already engaged in discussions with DCSF
on increasing participation rates and will continue to work with DCSF during the drafting process to ensure that
the arrangements are, in practice, workable and effective without any
unnecessary bureaucratic burdens.
16. For
example, Clause 12 (Duty on local authorities to makes arrangements to identify
young people not participating) will require local authorities to have systems
in place, including cross-boundary systems, that both record the education and
training provision being accessed by all relevant young people, and identify
those young people who are in, or become in, breach of the duty. These systems
will need to build on existing systems recording pupils under the age of 16,
ContactPoint, Connexions databases, employment databases, and school and
college databases for young people aged between 16 and 18; developing either a
national system or local systems will require considerable effort and care to
be fit for purpose.
17. Alongside
the legislation, there will need to be a very considerable information and
communications programme to ensure that young people, education and training
providers, and employers understand the benefits of the legislative
requirements which are being introduced.
18. The
principal aim should be that national and local programmes are effective in
securing voluntary compliance.
19. While
the ADCS supports the provisions set out in, for example, clauses 22 and 27,
relating to arrangements for enforcement and penalties for non-compliance by
employers, all partners should strive to ensure that action under these clauses
will only be required in very exceptional circumstances.
20. Chapters
4 and 5 relate to various actions that can be taken by local authorities to
secure young people's compliance with the duty to participate. Parenting
contracts, parenting orders, attendance notices and penalty notices form a
spectrum of support and coercion. ADCS will work to ensure that coercion need
only be employed in a tiny minority of cases.
21. In
practice, there are a range of informal but powerful actions that can be taken
by local authorities that are at a lower level that parenting contracts;
mentoring, support by Connexions advisers, support by employers, and support by
colleges and schools can all play a part. One important action that can be
taken is to ensure that the education and training opportunities available to
young people are likely to engage their interest and commitment.
22. The
voluntary parenting contract properly places a responsibility on the parent of
the young person, and makes provision for their support by the local authority.
23. The
parenting order is the next step in escalation. This again makes provision for
parenting support.
24. The
attendance notice and, failing that, the penalty notice are the next steps in
escalation, and Chapter 5 makes provision for a range of detailed, formal and
bureaucratic steps.
25. The
ADCS supports the general principles of Chapter 5 but believes that, while
there are always likely to be a few young people who are difficult to engage,
and thus for whom one of the orders or notices might be appropriate, local
authorities will need carefully to assess on an individual basis the action
that is most likely to secure the desired outcome.
26. Some
young people face specific challenges to their participation; for example,
teenage parents, both young men and young women; in this case their life
chances (and the life chances of their children) will be much enhanced if they
can continue with education and training until the age of 18 and can then enter
the employment market. Another example is that of young offenders; again their
life chances will be much enhanced if, both while serving their sentences and
afterwards, they are supported in continuing education and training. Children
and young people in the care of local authorities are another vulnerable and
often-underachieving group; provisions of the Children and Young Persons Bill
are relevant here.
27. The
ADCS believes that local authorities and Children's Trusts should be
encouraged, and funded, to commission specific provision to meet the needs of
these vulnerable and at-risk groups.
28. The
ADCS supports the general framework of informal support, parenting contracts,
parenting orders, and attendance notices and penalty notices, but believes that
very few cases should reach the level of consideration of an order or a notice;
and that in many of those cases the order or notice will be considered
inappropriate.
29. The
ADCS position is that the most effective way of securing the participation of
young people is to ensure that appropriate provision that meets their needs is
available; that effective information, advice and guidance about the options is
given; that a culture of participation is promoted, nationally and locally,
through channels that will impact on young people, education and training
professionals, and employers.
30. As
a culture of participation to age 18 becomes embedded, and as provision is more
closely matched to need, there will be a natural decrease in the numbers of
young people not wishing to participate. At the time of the last raising of the
school leaving age, to age 16, within a short period the expectations of young
people had changed significantly.
31. The
introduction of Diplomas, the development of apprenticeships, and the
development of specialist alternative provisions will all play an important
part in cultural change.
32. The
ADCS believes that there will be significant extra costs relating to making
specialist and tailored provision available to met the needs of the few young
people who require such provision. But this is likely to be much more effective
in securing successful participation than forcing an unwilling young person to
follow a course that they have rejected and on which they are behind.
Part 2: Support for participation in education and
training: young adults with learning difficulties
and young people in England
33. The
ADCS welcomes the devolution of responsibility and funding for Connexions
services to local authorities; this will enable future developments to relate
more closely to other developments in services for young people, through
targeted youth support, and through extended schools.
34. The
ADCS supports clause 65 which makes provision for young people with learning
difficulties to have an assessment of their need to be undertaken prior to
considering appropriate post-16 provision.
35. It
is of course important that those offering information, advice and guidance to
young people (and relevant young adults), wherever that advice is given and
whoever is the employer of the person offering advice, do so on a basis of
professional knowledge of employment and of education and training
opportunities, and that such information, advice and guidance is given to young
people solely on the basis of what is in their best interests.
36. The
ADCS therefore fully supports clause 66 (careers education).
37. The
ADCS fully supports clause 67 (apprenticeships) but notes that there are cost
implications.
38. The
ADCS fully supports clause 68 (transport provision) but notes that there are
cost implications of the proposals, and that these will vary depending on the
geography of local provision.
39. The
ADCS fully supports clause 69 (14-19 collaboration). The nature of local
collaborative arrangements, brokered by local authorities or Children's Trusts,
must be determined locally, as they will be affected very substantially by the
geography of local provision and populations. The arrangements that are
necessary to secure effective collaborative education and training provision
will be different in, for example:
· urban local authorities with a high
degree of cross-border traffic;
· areas served by very large colleges;
· areas with
different patterns of local sixth forms, sixth form colleges and further
education colleges;
· areas served by sub-regional or
regional specialist provision; or
· rural local authorities.
Part 4: Regulation
and inspection of
independent
educational provision
in England
40. The
ADCS fully supports the intentions of this Chapter, which will help ensure that
local authorities have available to them specialist education and training
placements of high quality.
Part 5: Miscellaneous and general
41. The
ADCS supports the changes to off-site provision arranged by schools for their
pupils set out in clauses 133 (behaviour) and 134 (non-attendance).
42. The
ADCS supports clause 141, extending the membership of the schools forum to
non-schools members.
January 2008