Childcare Bill |
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Beverley Hughes: I beg to move amendment No.d ¤128, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, leave out ‘prescribe’ and insert
Column Number: 53 The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendment No. 129. Amendment No. 192, in clause 1, page 2, line 8, at end insert—
Beverley Hughes: The two Government amendments make a minor change to the wording but an important, substantive change to the Secretary of State’s power to set targets for local authorities in improving outcomes for young children and narrowing the gaps in their achievement. Subsection (3) requires the targets for improving well-being and reducing inequality to be set out in the regulations. As we intend targets to be set for each local authority after discussion, the subsection is clearly not practical or correct. Amendment No. 128 clarifies that the regulations mentioned in subsection (3) would prescribe the procedures by which targets would be set, and amendment No. 129 makes a minor consequential change to subsection (4). Although we cannot provide precise draft regulations to the Committee today, I can give an indication of their content. We envisage that regulations would set out the broad areas that statutory targets must address, which may vary from time to time, and we also require the Secretary of State to take account of local authorities’ representations about their individual targets. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole that targets will genuinely be set, as I have said on the record, with local authorities and their partners, rather than being imposed by central Government without discussion. Although I hesitate to re-open the debate with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham over whether targets should be qualitative or quantitative, we will need to be able to measure outcomes. Perhaps an example would be helpful. Deciding whether a young child is healthy is a matter for a doctor’s professional judgment. Assessing a local authority’s contribution through children’s centres to the health of young children would be very burdensome, unless we use some proxy indicators. For example, with the health of young children, we might consider child obesity levels or the numbers of children attending accident and emergency as a proxy for their health and safety. In the current climate of reducing central control and increasing local autonomy, it is important as a way of directing local resources to achieve the aim of improving well-being of young children. Statutory targets have an important role in that. However, I appreciate that in setting targets, we must take care that they are proportionate and avoid creating
Because of the serious nature of the power to set targets, it is right that the process by which they are set should be set out in regulations that are both transparent and subject to parliamentary process. I envisage that regulations would set out the broad areas that mandatory targets must address. As currently worded, the individual targets would, as I have said, need to be set out in regulations, but that is clearly not the way to go. The regulations must set out the process and I hope that I have explained that clearly. I recommend that the two amendments be adopted by the Committee. Amendment No. 192 is designed to compel local authorities to evaluate and report on the measures that they take to improve the well-being of young children. I appreciate that evaluation and monitoring are an essential part of the process, but it is not necessary to put them in statute. Members of the Committee who are familiar with “Every Child Matters” will know about the improvement cycle for children’s services, which is a process of continuous assessment, planning and evaluation that includes a local assessment of needs, discussion of priorities with local partners and central Government, and local development of the children and young people’s plan. The evaluation of all local services is conducted through the joint area review, which includes a survey of the views of children and young people, and Ofsted monitors local authority children’s services through the data-based annual performance assessment. The final children and young people’s plan, the annual performance assessment and the joint area review are all submitted to the Secretary of State. There are, therefore, robust apparatus for inspection and monitoring in place, which ensure that evaluation is carried out at a local level by the local authority and its key partners, and by independent inspectorates. Our approach, which is consistent with the general direction of travel of government, has been to create a legal framework with only as much prescription as is absolutely necessary, so that local authorities and their partners can develop services that best suit the needs of children and the circumstances of their area. Clause 16 brings the duties in part 1 of the Bill into the remit of the processes of the children and young people’s plan and the joint area review. I hope that hon. Members will accept that those robust apparatus mean that the amendment is not necessary. Annette Brooke: I thank the Minister for her elaboration regarding the regulations. I have a few points to make on amendment No. 192. I am a little saddened that the Minister dismissed it quite so quickly, and there are a few questions to which I would like to tease out answers. The amendment was tabled because, as was shown by our discussion this morning, there needs to be clarity about how on earth reducing inequalities will work in practice. There is an outcomes framework, which came in this September. I understand that the targets that specifically cover the early years are a little
The Minister mentioned existing joint area review inspection processes. It is important to appreciate how they will fit in with the new duties on local authorities. Dr. Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): Can the hon. Lady help me to understand her point. This morning she abstained on amendment No.d ¤64, demonstrating, I think, that she is indifferent as to whether reducing inequalities is in the Bill, yet she is now asking for additional monitoring to be put in place to reduce inequalities. I am not sure that that is a consistent approach. Annette Brooke: I am clear that I am approaching matters consistently, and I am not really interested in getting into political crossfire. I explained exactly why I took that stance this morning, and any justification that needed to be made was made then. Throughout my contributions, certainly, I have made the point that how the provision is implemented is all important. I am talking about the practical implementation rather than the theoretical interpretation. What I am saying is particularly relevant at this time and, given the later recommendations in the Bill, I was disappointed to be intervened on during something as important as asking whether there will be an outcomes framework for children from birth to five years. There are processes through which children’s views are obtained, as the Minister explained. With this amendment, I have in mind the views of young children. I shall expand on that in some depth when we debate a later amendment. The work that has been done to gather young children’s views is interesting, and some of it has been funded by the Government. The booklets and pamphlets produced by the National Children’s Bureau are absolutely fascinating. They show that it is not a one-way system, but an interactive system. The introduction of the idea that young children’s views should be taken on board would be a big step forward. I am really taken by the NCB pamphlets. We read young children’s views on food and, as anybody who has helped to feed a child knows, they can express those views in all sorts of ways. One pamphlet is about determining the viewpoints of young disabled children. That is so interesting and so pertinent to the Bill. I should like the Minister to respond to that point. I listened carefully to what she said about the provision being too prescriptive. There are processes in place, but I want to be assured that the processes are tailored to work with the Bill and the new duty on local authorities. Tim Loughton: I thank the Minister as it is useful to have some illustrative examples of forthcoming regulations, although I was disappointed when she started by talking about broad areas that may be varied by the Secretary of State, taking into account
I have some sympathy with the Liberal Democrat amendment. We have been consistent, because amendment No. 65 to this clause sought to change the reduction on inequalities to raising the quality of outcomes for the most disadvantaged. We have been entirely consistent, even though we have been defeated by the greater numbers if not the strength of argument of the Government Members. As I mentioned in my opening comments, if the Bill is to mean anything, the improvement in well-being and the welfare criteria must be properly monitored and evaluated. I have a deal of sympathy with taking account of young children’s views. It is particularly hard—much harder than in the Children Bill, when many of us argued for and succeeded in reinforcing the need to consult children. I know that it is something that the new Children’s Commissioner for England is keen to do and has actively done during his few months in the position. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) commented on children’s eating habits and food labelling, and how it is essential to take into account how young people react to certain food products and the way in which those products are packaged. I have recounted the experiment that I carried out with two of my children when they were aged about eight and 10. I took them to Tesco, gave them each £10 and instructed them to buy food for the following day’s meals, which they thought very exciting. They came back having spent within a few pennies of their £10. They had lots of things that contained 49 per cent. sugar but were in packages with nice cartoon characters on the front. They had crisps that were endorsed by certain celebrities, and various things that were not terribly good for them. In many cases, they had been attracted by the way the products were presented. 4.45 pmI admit that my children were exceedingly good at getting great value for money on two-for-one offers and so on. I was therefore proud of them in one respect but disappointed that, predictably, they had responded to things that were not best for them. We are all concerned about achieving better responses from children. Obviously, if that goes for slightly older children, it goes all the more for younger children, who would just throw a hissy fit and refuse to eat their greens or whatever it may be. We must explore ways of taking children’s views on board, and I hope that there will be reference to that in some of the accompanying regulations or guidance to local authorities when they are published. Column Number: 57 My final point on amendment No. 192 is about reporting to the Secretary of State. If such reports are to be meaningful, it is important that they be made to Parliament rather than to the Secretary of State—I shall not go into detail about that at the moment—so that we can find out how the proposals are working or not working, in which case they may need to be adjusted. If that is to be done by affirmative resolution, we will know how to adjust them at some future stage. We sought assurances in the 2004 Act that annual reporting by, for example, the Children’s Commissioner would go to Parliament primarily, rather than to the Secretary of State who may choose not to publish all the information that is provided to him. Some of us would be very much in favour of a mechanism whereby the Education and Skills Committee or a Sub-Committee would have an annual sitting for the Children’s Commissioner or for reports on the well-being of children and how that has improved or not in the year. Such reports could be scrutinised by the Select Committee or Sub-Committee in much the same way as the Governor of the Bank of England, by tradition, appears before the Treasury Committee once a year. If we are putting all these new mechanisms in place, it is important that there is a way for us in this place to monitor them in a clear, transparent and meaningful way. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole is happy with some of the responses on the amendment that she received from the Minister and, in principle, I have a good deal of sympathy with some of the things that it is trying to achieve. Beverley Hughes: I am grateful for those comments from Opposition Members. I shall try to deal with their further queries. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole asked about defining and then assessing outcomes. In fact, we will develop a new outcome framework and review the early-years and child care components of the annual performance assessment and the comprehensive performance assessment. Obviously, they will have to relate to the early-years foundation stage that we shall discuss later in the Bill. We will also develop a performance management framework with performance indicators for children’s centres. They will be based on the five outcomes in “Every Child Matters” so that, at the level of setting as well as at the local authority level, an apparatus will be in place to require the local authority and the children’s centre staff to monitor how they are doing and evaluate their performance against indicators. Both Opposition Members raised the importance of the views of children. I agree that the views of children, even those under five, should be sought and deployed when delivering services. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said, valuable work is being undertaken by partners, particularly in the voluntary sector, to produce good practice guidance on how we can consult children, including those with a range of disabilities, in individual settings. Through the
On the final point made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, I said earlier that the measures of performance—the annual performance assessment, the comprehensive performance assessment and the joint area review—were submitted to the Secretary of State. They are submitted to the Secretary of State, but, of course, they are all published by the various organisations that undertake them, whether we are talking about Ofsted or the Audit Commission. Those documents are in the public domain and anybody can get hold of them. Annette Brooke: I apologise because I am going back to an earlier point. Will the Minister assure me that working up the new outcomes will be done in conjunction with relevant partners in the voluntary sector? Beverley Hughes: I certainly will. As I said at the beginning—this is the case throughout the guidance on the Bill—we will consult widely and extensively on all the matters that we have yet to define in detail, including the outcomes framework and the foundation stage itself. Tim Loughton: I understand that the figures that Ofsted produces are published when a copy is given to the Secretary of State. That happens simultaneously, so there is no problem about the figures being transparent. The problem with the Children’s Commissioner’s report is that it is not published until the Secretary of State has scrutinised it and the Secretary of State may seek to change it. We are concerned because the figures should be published in full for Parliament to see, rather than having a situation in which a Secretary of State could choose to—that is not to say that he or she would—censor them in some way by removing parts of the information. Beverley Hughes: I have not specifically discussed the Children’s Commissioner’s report with the commissioner, but I have had several meetings with him and I would be astonished if he allowed anybody—the Secretary of State or otherwise—to change his report. He quite rightly guards his independence and his reputation very jealously. With regard to the other measures of assessment that the hon. Gentleman was referring to, the outcomes of those assessments, as I think that he acknowledged, are owned by other bodies, not by the Department for Education and Skills. We receive them, but they are published and are in the public domain. I hope that, with those assurances, Members will be happy to accept the Government amendment and that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole will not press her amendment. Column Number: 59 Annette Brooke: I am happy not to press my amendment, but we may wish to revisit the idea of an annual report to Parliament. Amendment agreed to. Amendment made: No. 129, in clause 1, page 2, line 7, leave out ‘prescribed’ and insert ‘set’.—[Beverley Hughes.] Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 88, in clause 1, page 2, line 8, at end insert
This is a probing amendment and it would be useful to have the Minister’s response. It still relates to the exercising of the functions of local authorities in order to secure the targets—that horrible word—that have been laid down by the Secretary of State. There should be a clear steer for local authorities to make the information as user-friendly as possible. Most parents, whether they come from an advantaged or disadvantaged background, will have little knowledge of the well-being criteria and precious little knowledge of what it means in terms of the impact on their child. That is not to undermine the interest and concern of parents, but the information will not register. Talking in broad terms, mental health and emotional well-being may mean many different things to many different people. It should be inherent in the advice given to local authorities enacting the legislation to secure those targets that they should go out of their way, particularly as this is pioneering legislation and parents have not been used to this level of support being marshalled by local authorities, to ensure that the information provided is as clear, user-friendly and transparent as possible. The criteria may mean anything to anybody. For example, subsection (2)(d) refers to
Does that mean their contribution if they have been successful enough to play football for the England football team or to win the Eurovision song contest? The criteria need to be explained in terms that parents can relate to, so that they know what to expect. If we are to empower parents more and give them greater control over the way they can access child care, they need to know what to expect when it goes right or if they fear that it is going wrong and what should have happened to provide them with the quality child care that they were led to expect. This is a probing amendment that suggests that if the targets are to be meaningful, there should be a clear directive such as a local authority producing simple, straightforward pamphlets saying “This is what you can expect for your child in this borough.” That would be helpful and I am sure that that is the Government’s intention if the proposals are to mean anything. It is worth bringing the matter up in Committee to allow the Minister to signal her agreement and to explain in what practical way that will be achieved. Column Number: 60 Beverley Hughes: I agree with the spirit of the amendment in that parents should be given as much information as possible and that that should be done in a way that is meaningful and transparent to them. Hon. Members will be aware that the Bill already places several duties on local authorities in this regard. Clause 12 places a specific duty on them to establish and maintain a service that provides information, advice and assistance to parents not just about the provision of child care but about any services or facilities that they need to support themselves and their young children. That duty is the most effective way of ensuring that parents and prospective parents receive the information they need about services. The hon. Gentleman proposes to require local authorities to explain to parents any targets that might have been set by the Secretary of State. There are already two ways under the Bill in which that can and will be done. Under the 2004 Act, local authorities must produce and publish a children and young person’s plan setting out their strategy for delivering services. Hon. Members who are involved with their local authorities will be aware that most of them have made a great deal of progress in making those high-level plans accessible and meaningful. 5 pmThe children and young people’s plan covers all children and young people in the authority’s area, including their early childhood services, and clearly will have to contain all the relevant information in an accessible way, along with anything relating to targets. However, what is more important for children’s centres—the main vehicle for delivering early childhood services—is that in spring next year, as I have just said in reply to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, we will publish a new performance management framework that will ask all children’s centres to publish annually a detailed account and self-evaluation of their services. It will include their contribution towards progress in the “Every Child Matters” outcomes and any national targets that we have set for the local authority involved. The framework will have a clear focus on the quality of provision and how it improves outcomes for children, what parents can expect, what sense they can make of it and how it all hangs together. That is what parents want to know about—the quality of services and how their children can benefit from the integrated front-line services. As I say, that document, too, will contain details of national targets and the way in which the children’s centres are working towards them. I hope that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham will recognise that, at the local authority level and the children’s centre level, we intend to ensure that parents have full, accessible, transparent and meaningful information. I therefore hope that he will seek to withdraw the amendment. Tim Loughton: I am grateful to the Minister, who did what I hoped she would and gave some weight to the considerations that she was putting forward. Even if she does not consider it appropriate to put them in
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. The Chairman, being of the opinion that the principle of the clause and any matters arising thereon had been adequately discussed in the course of debate on the amendments proposed thereto, forthwith put the Question, pursuant to Standing Orders Nos. 68 and 89, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill. Question agreed to. Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 2 Meaning of “early childhood services” for purposes of section 3 Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 68, in clause 2, page 2, line 15, after ‘services’, insert ‘or children’s services’. The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 69, in clause 2, page 2, line 25, at end insert
No. 212, in clause 16, page 9, line 6, at end insert—
Tim Loughton: We are making rapid progress: we are on clause 2—and it is dark. Again, these are probing amendments that set out some of the differences, or similarities, between the Bill and the 2004 Act. The Act talks of children’s services departments. I know that there have been big changes in local authority social services departments, which are now split into adult services departments and children’s services departments. As part of the 2004 Act, local authorities are required specifically to establish directors of children’s services, a function that we agree with, as the buck with whom responsibility should stop for problems relating to the abuse of children or indeed welfare criteria. That was a new provision in the Act that we very much supported. In probing with amendments Nos. 68 and 69, I am therefore asking the Minister why we still refer to the local authority’s social services functions, when, to mirror the terminology of the 2004 Act, we could refer to children’s services. Clearly adult services will not have a direct role in this matter, which is limited to children’s services. Amendment No. 68 would make that change in clause 2(1)(b). The addition of children’s services, again as per the 2004 Act, is
I deal now with the third of the trio of amendments, although I think I know the answer to this point, which was raised by the National Union of Teachers. Another element of the reorganisation of social services into children’s services departments is the fact that there should be a lead elected member of the local authority who will have responsibility over various children’s services matters. I think that that responsibility is automatically transferred, as part of the legislation. Is that the case? I am referring specifically to clause 16. If that is not the case, why is the lead member for children’s services not being given responsibility over this child care legislation, considering that he or she has been given responsibility for the other activities of children’s services through the 2004 Act? These probing amendments were tabled to try to get some continuity with the 2004 Act. I see that in-flight refuelling is now arriving to give us a reason for the difference. |
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