Clause 2 - General function
Children Bill [Lords]
3:30 pm
Mrs Margaret Hodge (Minister of State (Children), Department for Education and Skills; Barking, Labour)
There is a danger that we will regurgitate the debate that we had this morning, but this debate gives me the opportunity to say that these Government amendments reflect the purpose that we see for the commissioner. We want the commissioner to have a wider focus on outcomes and not a narrow focus on policing individual rights. That may be a difference between us in Committee. Again, experience will tell who is right with regard to the way in which we have formulated the functions of the commissioner.
Perhaps I can reflect a little on the transformation agenda. The five outcomes, which we have translated into parliamentary language in one of the amendments before us this afternoon, arose out of an extensive and thorough consultation exercise that we undertook with children and young people. They are the expression of what children and young people said to us mattered to them. Making their priorities the focus of what we wish the commissioner to undertake seems to me the best way of ensuring that we will have a children and young persons' champion, and not a champion of any particular interest group. I say that with all sincerity, and I recognise the commitment that many people have to the concept of the Children's Commissioner.
Our entire programme of reform—our entire transformation of children's services—is built around those five outcomes. When I talk about the Bill being the legislative spine, I mean that those outcomes will be reflected in the targets that we set ourselves as a Government and against which we wished to be judged, in the targets that we set for local authorities and against which they will be judged, in the targets set by the Minister responsible for community health, and
in the framework that he has established through the national service framework for health. They will also be reflected in the integrated inspection of children's services, which is led by Ofsted. Throughout all the work that we do, we reflect what children have told us matters to them, as described in those outcomes.