2 DCSF Annual Report
15. As the Committee commented in its report on the
Children's Plan, the DCSF has several sets of objectives—Every
Child Matters outcomes, Departmental Strategic Objectives and
cross-governmental PSA targets—and it was not clear to us
how these Objectives related to each other or which had priority.[5]
The 2008 Departmental Annual Report (DAR) is structured around
the Departmental Strategic Objectives, and the Department indicates
that this will be the structure for future reports.[6]
Table 1 of the DAR attempts to show how the various objectives
interact with each other. It lists which PSA targets are linked
to Departmental Strategic Objectives, and how they relate to Every
Child Matters outcomes. It is interesting to note, for example,
that PSA 9 on the abolition of Child Poverty is linked to the
ECM outcomes, but not to a Departmental Strategic Objective.
16. Further problems become apparent when examining
the expenditure tables. Table 8.3 of the DAR groups the Department's
expenditure under three heads: Schools, Children and Families,
and Young People. This breakdown is an attempt to align spending
to the name of the new Department, but it is clear that it has
not been successful in that attempt.
17. It is evident that the Department has worked
hard to find a way of presenting the new Department's programme,
but there are three key problems with the presentation of expenditure
figures which derive from the new Department's remit. These problems
are:
— There
is no clue as to which expenditure streams or grants within Table
8.3 are supposed to deliver the objectives set out in Table 1.
— The three major sub-heads (Schools, Children
and Families and Young People) relate only in part to recognisable
delivery institutions. While Schools expenditure is clearly linked
to schools, Children and Families is, as a stream of money, less
obviously spent through bodies that can be scrutinised and assessed.
— Local government has been required to
create Children's Services departments. Within authorities, services
still include recognisable entities dealing with matters such
as child protection, childcare, adoption, young offenders and
so on. None of these comprehensible service sub-heads appear in
the detailed breakdown of expenditure in Table 8.3.
18. When we raised these issues with the Permanent
Secretary and Director General, Corporate services, we were told
that it would be possible to align the expenditure more precisely.
Jon Thompson said:
"It certainly would be possible to produce an
analysis of the £168 billion that the Department has available
in the public spending review period against the six departmental
strategic objectives...It is available within the Department."[7]
19. The Department provided the information in writing
after the evidence meeting. The allocation of DCSF resources for
the current financial year is:
£'000
| DSO 1 |
Secure the wellbeing and health of children and young people
|
536,452 |
| DSO 2 | Safeguard the young and vulnerable
| 170,168 |
| DSO 3 | Achieve world class standards in education
| 39,606,111 |
| DSO 4 | Close the gap in educational achievement for children from disadvantaged backgrounds
| 2,608,912 |
| DSO 5 | Ensure young people are participating and achieving their potential to 18 and beyond
| 7,623,754 |
| DSO 6 | Keep children and young people on the path to success
| 981,609 |
| Lead and manage the system
| 1,063,987 |
| DCSF Total
| 52,590,993 |
20. We are grateful to the Department for providing
the information that we asked for. This brings home clearly the
division between school and education, and other children's services,
and the dominance that education enjoys: on these figures, £49,838,777,000
(just under 95%) of the Department's budget is spent on educational
services. With in the region of 23,000 schools to fund, we can
see how this comes about; but with that structural rigidity it
may be that the Department automatically looks to schools to undertake
an increased number of 'social' tasks rather than necessarily
considering whether delivery through schools is the best way of
delivering them.
21. We asked if it would make more sense to illustrate
spending by showing how money is allocated to Children's Services
departments and then show its allocation to other more specific
services. David Bell and Jon Thompson indicated that it could
be done,[8] but in a supplementary
memorandum the Department cautioned that
"The existing Table 8.3 is based on the Departmental
organisational structure, which is largely in line with the various
areas of policy development. The table can be reformatted in a
number of ways but this will take considerable effort to ensure
that the information is correct, will be helpful and will be understandable
to users. The Department will consider if this is possible when
preparing the 2009 Departmental Report".[9]
22. We understand the complexities of changing the
presentation of information so radically, and there is a strong
argument that information should be provided in a consistent form
over a period of years in order to allow proper comparisons. We
look forward to discussing with the Department what might be possible
in the build-up to next year's Departmental Annual Report. However,
if the
Department for Children, Schools and Families is to continue with
its Departmental Strategic Objectives, having information about
expenditure on each objective is extremely useful, and we ask
that it be included in the Departmental Annual Report from next
year on.
Public Service Agreements
23. The system of Public Service Agreements (PSAs),
commonly known as targets, was completely overhauled in the 2007
Spending Review. The responsibility for delivering each PSA lies
with a number of Departments, who share a Delivery Agreement.
The stated aim is to have fewer PSAs and targets, although as
we said in our report on the Children's Plan:
"Under the 2004 Spending Review, the DfES had
five headline objectives, and 14 indicators in total which were
used to assess progress towards those objectives. Under the 2007
Spending Review, the DCSF a gain has five headline objectives,
but 26 indicators. For the DCSF at least it appears that the pressure
to achieve targets will not be reduced."[10]
24. We will no doubt return to the question of the
usefulness of a multiplicity of performance indicators, but one
of the issues we explored on this occasion was the amount of money
that each Department which shared a target contributed towards
its achievement. We asked whether it was possible to identify
precisely how much money was being spent across Government on
PSAs for which the Department has responsibility. David Bell said
that "No department was able just to put its name to a PSA
being led by another department without being clear that it had
the means to support the achievement of those ends."[11]
On the specific point, however, Jon Thompson told us:
"We definitely could tell you how much of our
budget is allocated against the relevant Public Service Agreements.
To manage expectations, the total budget can be broken into the
six departmental strategic objectives, so you can allocate all
the money into those bits, but PSAs do not cover the totality
of the Department's spend, so you then have to go to another level.
We could answer your question from our perspective, but beyond
the Department the information that we would provide to you would
be less specific. We could not necessarily answer how much in
total is spent on a particular PSA, but we could definitely tell
you how much we are contributing."[12]
25. We can see why the DCSF might not have the full
range of information about funding of a specific PSA from outside
departments, but there is no doubt that this lack of clarity about
what a commitment to support a PSA actually means in financial
terms makes our job of holding the Department and the Government
to account more difficult. David Bell noted that each PSA has
a delivery agreement, [13]
but these do not appear to list the financial contribution made
by each Department to the achievement of each PSA. There
is an argument that in the Departmental Annual Report for each
lead Department on a Public Service Agreement there should be
clear financial information listing the amount of money each Department
has committed to the objective in the previous financial year
and that which it plans to spend in coming financial years. This
is another issue which we will wish to discuss with the Department
in advance of next year's Departmental Annual Report. It is also
an issue which we shall ask the Treasury to examine.
26. The other issue on Public Service Agreements
that we pursued was the extent to which the objectives from the
2004 Spending Review were still being pursued. The example that
we looked at was that of reducing childhood obesity. The 2004
target was to halt the year on year rise in obesity by 2010. The
2007 target is to reduce the proportion of overweight and obese
children to 2000 levels by 2020.[14]
David Bell argued that this new target was more ambitious but
explained that the 2010 target was no longer being pursued.[15]
This causes a real problem. There
is no real accountability in a target that is set 12 years ahead,
so staging points along the way are essential. Targets must also
be allowed to stand until the point at which they are due to be
met, otherwise the goalposts will be changing constantly. If the
targets are set 10 or 12 years ahead, but are changed at every
three-yearly spending review, no target will be attained or missed,
but all will be superseded.
5 Children, Schools and Families Committee, Second
Report, 2007-08, The Department for Children Schools and Families
and the Children's Plan, HC 213, para 22 Back
6
DCSF, Departmental Annual Report 2008, Cm 7391, page 11 Back
7
Qq 18 and 19 Back
8
Q 20 Back
9
Ev 21 Back
10
Children, Schools and Families Committee, Second Report, 2007-08,
The Department for Children Schools and Families and the Children's
Plan, HC 213, para 25 Back
11
Q 34 Back
12
Q 33 Back
13
Q 38 Back
14
Q 42 Back
15
Qq 42 and 45 Back
|
