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15 Oct 2009 : Column 169WH—continued
"Systems for expressing outcomes or robust links with the Every Child Matters Framework or wider poverty reduction are less well-developed."
In NESS itself, we can see that there may well be very strong evaluation in place, but it also shows quite graphically that Sure Start has only hit five of 15 NESS indicators. Worryingly, NESS shows that some negative effects persist, notably for black children-from memory, I think that it was black boys who were particularly negatively affected in Sure Start areas.
I do not need to remind the Minister about the problem of evaluation, because her own Department issued a further report in June on financial benchmarking, which I read with interest over the summer recess. It was quite extraordinary to consider that a programme that has now been in place for 11 years should prompt the comment in the report:
"consistency of structure, service offer and financial reporting do not exist."
That is quite a clear statement. Perhaps the Minister will help us to understand exactly what her Department will do, following that report in June, to ensure that improvements are made and that we have a robust way of benchmarking the impact of an important programme, which has such a vital role to play for so many families in our constituencies.
The fifth area that the Minister did not touch on in her opening remarks is the critical role that Sure Start has at its core for supporting families with children who have special educational needs. Further work in this area was done by Anne Pinney in 2007, as part of NESS. Her research showed that only half of Sure Start centres employed a member of staff with specialist training in special educational needs. Anecdotally, I can say that I have been to Sure Start centres where they have said that that is a real concern of theirs; they want to be able to offer more support, particularly to children with special educational needs. I am very fortunate in my constituency that the Pebbles Sure Start centre, which Hampshire county council set up, has been established with a nursery that has a specialism for children with special educational needs. I am very proud of what I think is a really groundbreaking idea. However, that is an anecdote and such provision is not the norm.
The figures speak for themselves and, as I have said, only half of Sure Start centres employ a member of staff with any specialism in that area.
In her opening remarks, the Minister rightly picked up on the early years foundation stage results that were issued in the last 24 hours, I believe. She said that she was very satisfied with the job that was being done in that respect, but, again, I urge her to look a little more closely at the detail of what was announced in those results, because she would then see that only 42 per cent. of children in the 30 per cent. most deprived communities in our country secured results in the seven scales that are set out in the EYFS, whereas 57 per cent. of children in other areas achieved results in those scales.
Furthermore, the gap between those in the most deprived areas and the least deprived areas has barely changed in recent years. It is worrying that the Minister did not pick up on that in her earlier comments, although perhaps she has not had a chance to review the EYFS results in enough detail yet, as they have only come out quite recently. Nevertheless, I find it worrying that the gap between those who are most advantaged and those who are least advantaged may in some way be marginalised when the Government start to analyse the results. I urge the Government not to do that, but to stand up and acknowledge that gap in achievement. It may have decreased by 1 per cent., but I am sure that the Minister and other Members would not be happy or content with that decrease and would want greater progress to be made.
I did not expect to talk about EYFS in this debate, which is directly about Sure Start, but given that the Minister referred to EYFS in her opening remarks, I would also be quite interested to understand what strategies she has in place to tackle another worrying problem, which she did not highlight in her comments. It is that the results issued yesterday showed that one in six boys cannot write their name or simple words, which is double the rate among girls. The gap between the most deprived and the most advantaged exists, but we also now seem to be seeing an entrenched divide between young girls and young boys. Young boys at the end of the reception year are less likely to know the alphabet, less likely to be able to count to 10, less likely to be able to sing simple rhymes and less likely to be able to dress themselves. Those are all elements of what Sure Start is focusing on to help children to be school-ready, so what plans does the Minister have in place to tackle that problem, rather than just celebrate any improvements that have been achieved? We do not want to dwell solely on what we have achieved; we also want to stretch ourselves to achieve better results in the future.
Those are the main areas that the research tells us need to be examined as we look at the progress of Sure Start. A number of different organisations have given us the benefit of their experience on the subject-not just the DCSF itself, but the Children, Schools and Families Committee, Capacity, NESS and a number of others-so there is quite a body of evidence for the Government to consider in more detail than they may have had before. My party has a clear position, a clear commitment and clear proposals on Sure Start. The Minister might need to examine them in a little bit more detail so that she understands them fully.
We owe it to families to ensure that we can quantify the impact of Sure Start and give them our vision of how that important service will develop. Most importantly, the Conservative party will put at the heart of Sure Start an army of Sure Start health visitors, stemming the flow of outgoing health visitors and recruiting into the profession more than 2,000 new people. Health visitors are proven to be effective at outreach and giving families the support that they need to thrive and establish good routines in the early days. It will be similar to the kraamzorg support scheme in the Netherlands and draw to some extent on the Olds model in the US, which also has important lessons for us to learn. In that approach, health will no longer be the missing partner but will be at the heart of an effective service of the sort that we know our communities need.
We have also been examining the training of health visitors, with input from those within and outside the profession on how that could evolve to increase health visitors' expertise. Perhaps special educational needs could be identified in the early years, which are critical not just for the child but for parents, who all too often have to wait until well beyond the school starting age for special educational needs to be identified and referred on for diagnosis. More health visitors will be in place to ensure that Sure Start can effectively help to diagnose the 20 per cent. of women who suffer post-natal depression, who all too often go undiagnosed because they do not know how to seek out the support that they desperately need.
Probably one of the most important issues is how health visitors working through Sure Start can help parents to get the support that they need for their relationships with each other, which as we all know come under a great deal of strain with a first baby. The very point when parents want their family to be strong and successful can be the point when they are most likely to experience family breakdown. We feel that Sure Start can, where necessary, take an active role from the start to help parents to understand that they can be signposted to assistance and avoid family breakdown, which is a tragedy, particularly when very young children are involved.
As we evolve a firmer foundation for Sure Start and move forward into the future, we can also consider the successful models created by voluntary organisations, which have a critical role to play. I am sure that the Minister will want to discuss further what the Government are doing to support the third sector's capacity to be more involved not only in running services through Sure Start centres but actively managing them. There are some excellent case studies from which much learning can be drawn, including cases of successfully getting health involved, even though the framework is not as robust as it needs to be.
I am thinking particularly of the work of 4Children, which runs the Carousel centre in Braintree. I have visited the centre and seen at first hand how the local authority works with 4Children to bring together more services for families. It hosts a resident health visitor, a community paediatrician and specialist nursery care for children with developmental issues. All the statistics and research that I mentioned show that such services are not readily available in all centres, but they are
available at the Braintree centre. It is important that we learn from such successful models and see how we can roll out a similar approach into other areas. The Carousel centre has gone on to offer after-school and holiday care and actively supports intergenerational involvement; grandparents come in to volunteer their support. The centre is at the heart of the community, as all centres need to be if they are to be as successful as they can be, and, importantly is led by the voluntary sector.
It might be only six months before the next general election, but they are an important six months. I know that the Minister has been in her post for only a matter of weeks and that it is difficult coming into post at the tail end of a Parliament. She is still trying to get to grips with a complex brief, but I hope that she will be able to respond to the issues that I have raised and some of the facts and figures that I have mentioned. It is easy to talk about anecdotes and one's individual experience, but much more difficult to take a step back and say that there are issues that must be addressed if we are to be true to the people who work in Sure Start, the concept of Sure Start and a desire, which I believe is shared, to strengthen the communities in which we live. Sure Start has an important role to play in that.
4.25 pm
Dawn Primarolo: I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber), for High Peak (Tom Levitt) and for Copeland (Mr. Reed) for their contributions to this short debate, which reinforced points about the role of Sure Start centres in narrowing the gap between the highest and lowest achieving children, raising attainment, working with the work force to ensure its development and encouraging social cohesion. I will pick up each of those points in responding to the hon. Members for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller).
There is always a balance, particularly in a relatively new programme. I remind Members that it is a bit difficult to evaluate the whole programme of Sure Start children's centres, as the last ones are not yet completed and will not be open until March to December 2010. However, the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole was generous. I think that she would set the same priorities as the Government in deciding how to roll out a programme of developing Sure Start centres, given the constraints that she clearly identified in terms of work force capacity, centre location and the need for buildings to be constructed. It should always be a priority to start with those in greatest need, and the Government have taken that approach as we have proceeded through the development of Sure Start children's centres,.
The hon. Lady was right to identify the difficulty involved when a small community suffers disadvantage, whether it is surrounded by an affluent area or isolated in a rural area. The question then becomes how to ensure that services are delivered to such communities. This Government are not unique among developed countries in struggling to balance where investment is placed. As she will know, we must strike a balance, in partnership, between local authorities' rights under local democracy to take decisions about their priorities for the location of children's centres and recognition of the challenge of ensuring that services reach out into all communities.
For that reason, the Government decided and announced that we would increase funding for outreach workers, so that they can work similarly to health visitors, community paediatricians or speech therapists by having a base and reaching out. We stated clearly that we want to ensure that there are outreach workers in the most deprived areas. We must develop the training and the partnerships that the hon. Lady rightly identified as being important. Those could be with the Department of Health, the local health service or the local authority, depending on what is suitable.
In debates such as this, there must be a balance between being fair and celebrating this huge achievement. The work force in Sure Start centres must be congratulated on that. However, we must recognise that the job is not finished and that there is more to do.
Mrs. Maria Miller: Will the Minister give way?
Dawn Primarolo: I would like to make a few more points, but I will certainly answer the points made by the hon. Lady.
Issues such as these will always involve a struggle. People talk about hard to reach groups. That is not the sort of language that we should use because the challenge for the services is to ensure that they reach out to families. We are in the early stages of that. I agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole that this is a matter for local authorities. The location of some children's centres may not be aligned with her or my assessment of where they would be of the greatest benefit, but we must defer to local authorities and understand that they make such decisions as best they can. There will be a duty for local authorities to consult their local communities and users before opening or closing centres.
Mrs. Miller: Will the Minister give way on that point?
Dawn Primarolo: No, I will not give way on that point, but I will give way in a moment.
We must find the right balance to decide where the investment should go first. When it is not economic to have a full children's centre in a particular place, we must still reach out to the groups that need the services.
I agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole on healthy eating and the Change 4 Life programme, and in particular on the availability of fresh vegetables and fruit in certain kinds of shops. She may be aware that the Department of Health is running pilots through the Change 4 Life programme in which it funds the display and storage of products that shops cannot make available at a reasonable cost because they do not have the right equipment. I have seen the role Change 4 Life plays in many Sure Start centres, not only in relation to diet, but in working with parents on smoking cessation.
That leads me to the way in which health should be partnered with Sure Start centres. The hon. Lady made the fair point that we have huge expectations because we can all see many things that Sure Start centres could do. So many things are connected in people's lives and one of those is health. The question is at what speed we should move to deliver such things. In my move from the Department of Health to the post of Minister for Children, Young People and Families, I wanted to
consider what more could be done to encourage such partnerships. It is not rocket science-I am not talking about writing guidance or cascading more things down.
One example of what the Government are doing is the role of children's trusts, which the hon. Lady has supported. Under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill that is before the other place, the trusts will be able to bring together health services, local authorities, third sector organisations and other partners before the location of services is decided upon, so that the child is at the centre of the commissioning programme.
I am sure the hon. Lady would agree that we should go beyond the issues that she touched on and into questions of the mental health of adults, adolescents and children. A number of hon. Members have mentioned that. For example, if a mother is under huge pressure, there should be an understanding at an early stage of how her mental health might influence her child. Through the presence of such early understanding, so much more can be achieved.
Our hopes and aspirations for Sure Start children's centres are built on our experience and celebration of how much they have achieved thus far.
Judy Mallaber: Does the Minister agree that we must progress in an orderly fashion? Although I can think of other services that could be provided from Sure Start centres, we must embed those that are there and ensure that they are working properly. Our aspiration should be to add further services. One difficulty is the speed with which that should be done. We must ensure that such services are integrated in the planning, even if they are not in the centres at this stage.
Dawn Primarolo: I think we would all agree that we must be careful about the balance when we expand a service and ask more of it. Staff in Sure Start centres and schools are sometimes uncomfortable with the pressure we put on them to develop their services. There must be time for existing services to bed in. There will always be debate about whether the pace is fast enough, but this debate should be about whether we agree that Sure Start centres should move forwards, not backwards.
The valid point was made that we must ensure that Sure Start children's centres publicise their presence, not just through outreach workers, but at every available opportunity, so that parents are aware of all of the services that they offer. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole referred to a publication that makes exactly that point. From 14 September, all Sure Start centres have been encouraged and supported by the Department in developing what is, for want of a better word, their communication campaign-how they make sure at every opportunity that parents know about the services they have on offer. As we move towards having some 3,500 children's centres in every community by next March, it is important that that message gets across.
There have already been amazing results in terms of publicity, and we will need to see whether that translates into recognition-the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole has clearly seen that happen. There have been more than 300 items of press coverage, events have been held in children's centres, and more events are planned as we move through to March. Those events will particularly focus on the local authorities where the
children's centres themselves are saying, "Here we are. This is what we do. Come in and see." We will be using every opportunity to generate publicity because, as is so often the case, although the people who use the service celebrate it, we need to reach out to those who do not.
Again, the hon. Lady mentioned the effectiveness of Sure Start and how we measure that over time because some changes are short term and some are cultural, long-term changes. That goes back to the point I made in my opening remarks about some changes taking much longer to assess. When the centres have all started and come on-stream-some are not yet fully developed-it seems somewhat unrealistic to expect a fully consistent financial benchmarking and measuring of them going forward. It is not possible to have that. The centres must be responsive to the local need for services, and therefore what they provide will vary. It is important that the centres have financial mechanisms in place and that they are able to look at what they are providing locally and whether they are actually delivering for those communities. However, of course, as the hon. Member for Basingstoke said, we need to ensure that we have more rigour in relation to that, as the programme is fully implemented.
I say to the hon. Lady that the Ofsted pilots on children's centres have already started, and that they will be considering exactly what we should be taking forward and measuring the centres on. We have had advice on that. The inspections cycle is expected to start early next year, but, of course, that is subject to parliamentary approval of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill-as is setting up the children's trust-which is in the other place. The issue of recognising what needs to be done in the future has been acknowledged and taken forward by the Government, and provision has been made to ensure that we have the necessary rigour.
I do not want to put words in the mouth of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, but I think she said that although she agrees most definitely with the outcomes we are trying to achieve, sometimes her opinion on the method varies. That is perfectly legitimate. She referred to the early years foundation results and seemed to demonstrate a positive engagement with the programme-in fact, her party has made a commitment to future investments.
I have dealt with the question of how to ensure that we have rigour and efficiency, and how we will try to encourage further integration with health through the children's trust. In doing so, I think I also covered the questions of special education and when it is needed, particularly for the very young. I have also dealt with outreach, but there are a number of further issues to which I would like to turn briefly.
Mrs. Maria Miller: Will the hon. Lady allow me to ask a question on the issue of outreach?
Dawn Primarolo: May I just finish answering all the hon. Lady's questions, as she was keen for me to do? If she then wants to add anything more, I am happy to respond.
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