Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
12:00 pm
Graham Moore: There is a lot of good will at local authority level, and I have been party to some negotiations at local level, although I am sure that negotiations are different across the country. So officers clearly want to work together to try to make this system work. The issue is about the politicians, their role and their loyalty, if you like, to their community, which makes it a little difficult for officers to give up some authority to neighbouring local authorities when sometimes local authorities have fought very hard to gain their independence and control. That is an area of concern.
We were also particularly concerned with the relatively small number of young offenders that you are talking about. Again, that is an added complexity for local authorities, which, it seems to me, do not need those added complexities at the moment. If we can see that more as part of a national scheme that we are supporting, local authorities’ responsibility comes when the young offenders have to be placed back in the community and in the normal education system. That is where I would like to see the local authorities focus their attention. They should make certain that there are proper transitional arrangements, so that when somebody comes out of an institution, they are properly looked after and there is proper funding attached to them, so that they can have the right sort of education to come back into the community, and get the skills that will make them a full part of the community rather than an outcast.