Clause 1 - General functions of local authority: England
Childcare Bill
4:30 pm
Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
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 perverse incentives, but that they need to push forward the continued development of early childhood services.
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.