Mrs.
Miller: I support the amendment that the hon. Lady has
just discussed. From my experience as a Member for a constituency that
covers rural and suburban areas, I know the problems that many young
people face when they try to access after-school clubs and extended
school services: the lack of an effective transport link can stop
children accessing the services that they need. The hon. Lady makes a
very powerful point that transport can be a great barrier for young
people from a very young age, and I urge the Minister to consider the
hon. Lady’s comments closely.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: The children and young people’s plan
will, among other things, set out how the relevant partners will come
together to deliver certain joint services to children, young people
and their parents. The Government recognise the importance of good
transport provision for children and young people to
enable them to access such services. I am happy to assure the Committee
that the guidance on the production of the plan will make it clear that
the children’s trust board should consider transport matters as
part of the plan’s development. Although that is separate from
local authorities’ wider transport duties, such as transport to
school, local authorities’ wider responsibilities in that area
should help inform the children’s trust board’s
consideration of transport matters.
In other
areas, some transport strategy is set by the passenger transport
authority and implemented by the local passenger transport
executive, but we expect the children’s trust board to consult
them when preparing the CYPP. We also intend the board to consult
children and young people themselves, allowing them to respond on all
issues, including transport. If members of a children’s trust
board identify transport for children and young people as a shared
priority locally, there is nothing stopping them from developing a
co-ordinated approach to transport locally, although, again, that would
be a matter for local determination.
I hope that
on the basis of my assurance that transport will be covered in
regulations and guidance, the hon. Lady will be prepared to withdraw
her amendment.
Annette
Brooke: I thank the Minister for her remarks. She has
provided a certain amount of reassurance. I notice that children and
young people’s plans will have to take the matter into account
but will not necessarily have any policy within them. So I ask the
Minister to reflect further to see whether anything stronger than just
saying the matter will be taken into account could be considered, but
at this stage I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. 8.30
pm
Mrs.
Miller: I beg to move amendment 193, in
clause 185, page 101, line 13, at
end insert— ‘(c) monitor the
implementation of strategies set out in the children and young
people’s plan and prepare and publish an annual report about the
extent to which strategies result in improved outcomes for children and
families, (d) forward for
formal response copies of both reports to relevant
partners.’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment 192, in
clause 185, page 101, line 13, at
end insert— ‘(4) The
Director of the Children’s Services Authority shall be
responsible for the implementation of the children and young
people’s plan and the cooperation of persons and bodies within
the plan, in particular relevant persons or
bodies.’.
Mrs.
Miller: As I said my opening comments on the clause, I am
sure that the Minister does not think that simply placing a body such
as a children’s trust board on a statutory footing would address
all the problems that such organisations have faced over the past few
years. However, on examining the detail in the Bill it is difficult to
pick out where the changes have been made to ensure that
children’s trust boards move
forward. The
Minister mentioned the important role of those boards in terms of
children and young people’s plans, but I am sure that she has
made herself aware of the comments of Lord Laming in his most recent
report on
children and young people’s plans. I will quote a section from
that report, in case Committee members have not had the chance to
review
it: “it
is not clear that the quality of the analyses underpinning
current” children
and young people’s
plans “is
of a consistently high level nationally to drive the resourcing of
services to meet the needs of all children. Further work should now be
done at local, regional and national levels, to improve the quality of
data on levels of need amongst children and young people, and local
authorities should formally reconsider the adequacy of their budgetary
commitment.” So
there is some work to do in that area, too. I am sure that the Minister
will want to update us, in her response to the two amendments, on how
she plans to address Lord Laming’s concern about the quality of
children and young people’s plans, because producing the plan is
only the beginning and not an end in
itself. The
Bill does not make a lot of things clear. The hon. Member for
Mid-Dorset and North Poole is right to say that the objective behind
children’s trust boards is not as clear as it might be in the
Bill. I would go further than that. The Bill also fails to make it
clear that partners not only need to have regard to the children and
young people’s plan in exercising their duties, but that they
should be monitoring whether those plans are having material effect.
Surely, to have real teeth the role of a children’s trust board
has to be more than just monitoring whether partners are acting in
accordance with the plan. If we are to get to the table the people who
really make the decisions, children’s trust boards need to be an
integral part of raising standards for children’s services, not
just bodies monitoring compliance, which is what they appear to be set
up to do in the
Bill. We
should be assessing whether the right thing is being done to raise
standards for children and ensuring that the role and the work of
children’s trust boards is improving young people’s
lives. If those boards do not take on that role, I fear that the
improvements made will be more limited than they need to be. How will
children and young people’s plans be part of a process of
continual improvement, rather than something more static, as suggested
in the
Bill? Amendment
193 attempts to deal with monitoring effectiveness and accountability
by explicitly placing in the Bill a need for children’s trust
boards to monitor the way that children and young people’s plans
have made a material improvement to children’s lives. It
includes a requirement for the boards to issue an annual report
detailing the impact of outcomes on children, rather than just
monitoring the compliance of the partners. That report will be sent on
to relevant partners to—hopefully—elicit a formal
response. Again, more must be done to try to involve our health
partners in focusing on the role of children’s trust boards. If
we do not want those boards to be talking shops, as the Minister has
made clear she does not, we need to give them an active, not passive,
role in this
area. Amendment
192 is designed to give children’s trust boards a powerful ally
with a shared ambition, and to try to clarify, perhaps, exactly where
the buck stops. It is clear that responsibility for the implementation
of children and young people’s plans has to lie with
children’s services directors and the members in that area.
However,
again, that is not clearly expressed in the Bill. The amendment is
designed to put that clarity in the Bill. It also picks up on more
remarks made in the Laming report on the importance of holding
children’s trust boards to account and the need for a clearer,
more direct link with local authority children’s
services. Annette
Brooke: I certainly support the principles behind
amendment 193. We clearly need a monitoring of the outcomes and it
would be helpful to define exactly what the monitoring will be. We need
to be clear that it will not just be a case of making vague statements
that children’s well-being has to improve, because that is not
tight enough. We need something specific in this area. I also like the
fact that the amendment refers to
“improved
outcomes for children and
families”. That
is an important
contribution. I
shall say a little more on amendment 192 because, as is evident from
the sessions that we had before we started formal scrutiny of the Bill,
I am concerned that the changes might mean that we will lose a clear
line of accountability. In fact, I asked that very question of
Councillor Les Lawrence, who was clear that the statutory body was
essential. On accountability, he said that although the ownership was
shared across all the public agencies,
“I am the
elected member in the locality with a statutory duty; that is enshrined
in the Children Act 2004. I have no problem in accepting that
responsibility”.——[Official Report,
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee,
3 March 2009; c. 55,
Q150.] That
was the thrust of the answers given in that evidence session.
My concern is
that the new set-up could mean that we lose such great clarity. I have
found reading the indicative guidance interesting, because it asks how
the CTB and its members will be accountable for their actions. We are
told that there will be a great deal of guidance, and that the CTB will
be responsible for producing and monitoring children and young
people’s plans. However, the individual members of the CTB will
continue to be accountable for delivering their contribution to the
overall plan and for fulfilling their own functions. That is
interesting because it is hidden in the new notes that we had this
week. In
fact, I asked a question of someone in the health sector during the
Select Committee last week and I was also given the answer that
individual bodies will be accountable for their sections in the plan.
It gets tricky when there is more than one partner involved with a
particular section of the plan. How are we going to make it clear who
is accountable for what when we hope to have close partnership working?
How is the responsibility divided up? I look to the Minister for some
answers.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: On amendment 193, I assure hon. Members that
I fully support the importance of making sure that the
children’s trust board holds its individual members to account.
However, the Bill as drafted already achieves that. The Bill requires
the children’s trust board to prepare, publish, monitor and
review a joint children and young people’s plan, but
responsibility for the implementation of the strategy set out in the
plan continues to lie with the individual
partners. Each is responsible for their own role within it and for their
individual contribution to the delivery of shared outcomes.
The plan will
set out board members’ strategy for co-operating with each other
in order to improve the well-being of children and young people in the
local area. The board is already required to monitor and report
annually on the extent to which partners are acting in accordance with
the plan. If partners fail to honour their commitments to co-operate to
improve well-being for children, they will need to explain why to their
fellow members. That way, the Bill will ensure that the contribution of
individual board members is monitored and challenged, and that results
are made public through the annual report on
compliance. Amendment
192 would give the director of children’s services the single,
ultimate responsibility for implementing the children and young
people’s plan. I appreciate that hon. Members are concerned
about ensuring that someone is leading and driving the system, but I am
worried that the amendment would work against the improved partnership
working that the Bill seeks to deliver. Responsibility for a local
area’s children and young people’s plan lies with the
local authority, so, while the plan may describe joint strategies with
other partners, the local authority alone is accountable for its
success, and no other partners have to take on any responsibility for
agreeing or delivering an integrated strategy for improving
children’s well-being.
Although the
local authority will retain a key leadership role, and the director of
children’s services will be accountable for the establishment of
the board itself, the children and young people’s plan will be
the shared responsibility of members of the children’s trust
board. The board as a whole will be responsible for publishing and
revising the plan and for monitoring its members’ compliance. We
hope that greater ownership will increase commitment, but, just to be
sure, it will be backed up by the system of peer and public
accountability that I have described.
The measures
strengthen the children’s trust board and extend responsibility
for the children and young people’s plan to the partners,
through their membership of the board. Those are important steps
forward in genuinely integrating services around the needs of the
child. My worry is that amendment 192 would reverse those changes and
would be counter-productive. I hope that the hon. Member for
Basingstoke will not press her
amendments.
Mrs.
Miller: I am minded not to press the amendments at the
moment, but I am not sure that the Minister has answered in full the
issues raised by me and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole.
I am rather concerned that the Minister has not really got the point of
amendment 193. It sounds as though she still sees the children’s
trust board as a way of simply co-ordinating different activities,
rather than of trying to drive an improvement in the lives of children
in our community. There is a difference between those two things. If we
are to have a children and young people’s plan that improves
every year, getting better each time a new plan is made, the boards
need a broader role in assessing its
effectiveness.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: I may be able to clarify something for the
hon. Lady. She asked about Laming’s concerns, to which I did not
respond. It is important to point out
that the quality and impact of the children and young people’s
plan will be monitored through the comprehensive area assessment
process. The first CAA reports, which are due in November 2009, will
assess children’s services in the round, drawing on the children
and young people’s plan, among other evidence. If the CAA
highlights any concerns about partnership working, section 20 of the
Children Act 2004, which is extended by clause 185(5), provides for
inspection of the children’s trust board in more
detail.
Mrs.
Miller: I thank the Minister for covering that point,
which I was going to come to. However, improving the quality of
children and young people’s plans is only the first step in
trying to improve the lives of and outcomes for children in our
communities. I remain concerned that the board will be a somewhat
passive partner in the process, when what we need in our communities is
an active driving force that understands what works, what does not,
where we should put our money, and how we should deploy our resources.
I am still unsure that that is there, so I need to think about this a
little more and consider the Minister’s comments in a bit more
detail.
I am equally
concerned that the individual responsibility aspect of amendment 192
worries the Minister, because the idea of the buck stopping with one
individual does not worry me. Again, I need to ponder further her
comments about there being shared responsibility throughout the board,
because that will make leadership quite difficult. If there are a
number of people, who might change over time and who might represent a
multitude of different organisations, where will the leadership come
from? If things go wrong, who will take responsibility? Those are the
sorts of things that our constituents will want to know. I shall not
press the amendment to a vote, but I reserve the right to return to the
matter at a later stage. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill. Mrs.
Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead, East and Washington, West)
(Lab): I do not want to delay the Committee for long—I
shall take only about three minutes—because I am aware that we
have a long night ahead of us, and what I want to say is a drop in the
ocean compared with what is facing us. Some of the amendments to the
clause relate to the breadth of consultation that the Government would
be required to undertake. I know that whenever changes are made, an
inevitable cacophony of voices clamour to be heard, and we have heard
some of them tonight. I shall briefly state the case for the voice of
local authorities to be recognised, not just as influential partners in
delivery, but as democratically accountable elected
bodies. 8.45
pm The
LGA stated in representations that it welcomes the clear placement of
local authorities in the lead on the 16 to 19 learning agenda, and the
reiteration of their centrality and planning in commissioning
children’s services more widely. The premise must be that they
should focus on the complete needs of individual young
people so that local authorities and other partners can best support
them in the
round. There
is concern that clause 185(2) on the functions and procedures of
children’s trust boards should require consultation. The Bill
sets up complex commissioning arrangements and accountability in
relation to several aspects of planning and delivery at which local
authorities are at the heart. If they are to fulfil their
accountability effectively and ensure that young people receive the
best education, training and support, the Bill in its full extent
should require explicit liaison and consultation between them, the
Secretary of State, Skills Funding, the Young People’s Learning
Agency, and for the avoidance of
micromanagement. The
LGA believes that the key areas for consultation should be the
functions and procedures of children’s trust boards with any
additions to the remits of the Young People’s Learning Agency or
Skills Funding, any commissioning functions with implications for
financial criteria, funding formula or place planning, and any
performance management or intervention functions, either with regard to
local authorities or to those bodies commissioned by local authorities
to deliver outcomes for young people. Information should be provided
and there should be discussions with the Secretary of State before
requesting that a warning notice be issued to a
school. Without
such commitments to consultation, there could be considerable scope for
unintended consequences, as I am sure the Minister can imagine. In case
she cannot, I will highlight one. On performance systems, the ticking
of boxes would fail to hold to account or challenge the delivery of key
outcomes for young people, and that ties in nicely with what the hon.
Member for Basingstoke alluded to. With that in mind, will the Minister
address the local government sector’s concerns, perhaps through
the LGA, and ensure that the Bill provides for proper consultation with
local authorities on key issues and, if necessary, to introduce
amendments on Report to ensure that such liaison and consultation is a
statutory
requirement? I
said that I wanted to be brief, and in closing I do not want to suggest
that we should provide carte blanche for demands for statutory
recognition of the right to consultation. The Minister may agree that
local authorities could use their existing links, perhaps with private
and independent bodies, to ensure appropriate consultation with those
bodies.
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