Fifth Standing Committee
on Delegated Legislation
Thursday 22 July 1999
[Mr. Bill O'Brien in the Chair]
Local Government Finance (England) Special Grant Report (No. 50) on Children's Services (Quality Protects) Special Grants for 1998-99 and 1999-2000
10 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Hutton): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Local Government Finance (England) Special Grant Report (No. 50) on Children's Services (Quality Protects) Special Grants for 1998-99 and 1999-2000.
The quality protects programme is a key part of the Government's strategy for delivering modern, high-quality special services for children. We are committed to putting right the failings of the past and ensuring that we promote a better outcome for the most vulnerable children in our society: children in the care of local authorities, children in need of protection from abuse and neglect, disabled children and other children in need because of economic and social deprivation or family breakdown. Our expectations for those children have been too low for too long and we are not prepared to tolerate that failure any longer. The future cost for the children and for society is too high. That is why we launched the quality protects programme in September last year.
The evidence of inconsistent quality and poor management in children's services has been too strong to ignore. We know, for example, from the children's safeguards review report and from the shocking testimony of those young people who suffered abuse in children's homes that the risks for children living away from home in the 1970s and 1980s were seriously underestimated. More recently, social services inspectorate reports and joint reviews have demonstrated that the quality of children's services is inconsistent, both within and between authorities. They have shown poor assessment, planning and case recording, unnecessary delays, inappropriate placements and haphazard decisions on who receives specific services. Those problems can no longer be ignored.
The Government have recognised their responsibility to improve children's services, to provide the right legislative and structural framework, to set proper objectives and standards and to monitor and inspect services and outcomes. The quality protects programme covers all those issues.
The main elements of the quality protects programmes are as follows. New national Government objectives for children's services will, for the first time, set out clear outcomes for children and, in some instances, give precise targets that local authorities will be expected to achieve. Local councillors will have a new role in delivering this important programme. There will be a new special grant of £375 million over three years for children's services, starting this year. All local authorities will be required to submit an annual quality protects management action plan and a progress report to the Department of Health.
We are supporting the quality protects programme with a substantial investment of new, targeted resources. The new children's services special grant will provide £375 million over three years, to be spent on modernising children's services. The allocation of those resources will be £75 million this year, £120 million next year and £180 million in the third year.
Some of the grant—nearly £600,000 this year—has been set aside for the regional development workers and regional development assistants who have been recruited to help local authorities to deliver the programme of change required of them. All eight regional development workers, mostly from a background of social services but from other sectors too, are now in post and have already begun a major programme of development with local authorities in their areas. Most of the regional development assistants, of which there will be four full-time equivalents, are also in post.
The remaining money has been divided among the 150 social services departments in England. With the move to a new standard spending assessment formula this year, we decided to phase its introduction for the new special grant. Half of the allocations for authorities were calculated on the basis of the old standard spending assessment formula and half on the basis of the new. We made special arrangements for Rutland and the Isles of Scilly, where comments following the publication of indicative allocations highlighted their very small allocations.
For this year, local authorities have been given six priority areas for expenditure of the grant: increasing the choice of adoption, foster care and residential care placements for looked after children; increasing the support provided for care leavers, including steps to prevent inappropriate discharge of young people aged 16 and 17; improving the management of children's social services, including more and better use of management information systems; improving assessment, care planning and record keeping; improving quality assurance systems; and listening to the views of children and young people.
Payment of the special grant for this year was dependent on local authorities submitting acceptable management action plans—MAPs. In future years, it will also be dependent on local authorities demonstrating, in annual progress reports, that acceptable improvement has been made in implementing those management action plans. the plans and progress reports will be the key documents in showing how local authorities intend to modernise their services and how well they are delivering in practice.
All local authorities were required to submit their first management action plans to the Department of Health by 31 January this year. I am pleased to say that all the plans were evaluated by the Department's social services inspectorate as being of an acceptable standard. We published a national overview report setting out the key national messages from the evaluation of the MAPs on 29 June. Copies of the report are available to all members of the Committee.
Local authorities responded promptly to the requirements to submit a wide range of information in their MAPs and to engage properly with other local agencies. Local authorities have responded positively to the quality protects programme and are working closely with the Department, the social services inspectorate and the regional development teams to improve their children's services.
Many of the development needs that emerged from the management action plans were familiar from earlier inspections, joint reviews or special studies. However, the MAPs exercise was different in that the analysis of local need and the priorities for action were set by local authorities themselves. At the same time, clear links were made in some areas between the local quality protects plan, the priorities of other local partners, and national objectives. There were many examples of good practice and of creative projects, especially in areas such as care leavers and the education and health of looked after children.
However, it is disappointing that local authorities too often lack the capacity to integrate those projects into a convincing strategic framework. The authorities that can do so are characterised by good senior leadership, a culture of openness and reflection, and positive experience of managing change. Unfortunately, those authorities are still in a minority.
Management action plans were often best in their handling of placement choice issues, which is encouraging because that is central to the aims of quality protects. It is also the priority area on which local authorities plan to spend the largest part of this year's grant—nearly 39 per cent. of the £75 million. Management information has been identified almost everywhere as a major development need, and 13 per cent. of the grant is to be spent on it. Listening to children is also an area that needs more development, and 7 per cent. of the grant will be devoted to that priority. Promoting real participation by local authority members also requires development. In the light of our commitment to improve support for care leavers, I was pleased to see the plans for more expenditure on that group, which will take about 12 per cent. of the grant.
Throughout the year, we will help local authorities to implement their management action plans. The national overview report provides the baseline for the national programme of work that we are currently developing at the centre. In the summer, we shall publish the national work programme, which will clearly set out what we will do nationally to support local authorities with the implementation of their quality protects plans. The national work programme will be supported by regional development plans, which will be taken forward by the regional development workers.
Turning briefly to the future, in October, we will issue a circular to local authorities, setting out the requirements for their MAPs and progress reports for next year. The plan is to build on the work done this year and to ensure that local authorities make the progress that they are committed to bringing about. In the autumn, we will issue allocations for the grant for next year, subject to parliamentary approval.
The quality protects programme is a major programme of change and reform. It is a vital opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of vulnerable children that needs to be seized by all those responsible—by central; and local government working in partnership, by the national health service, by education, and by the voluntary and independent sectors. We need to ensure that we listen to what young people themselves have to say about their experiences of the services that they have received, and how we can improve those services. The Government are determined to ensure that quality protects will make a real difference to the lives of the most vulnerable children in our society.
10.9 am
Mr. Stephen Day (Cheadle): I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), would want me to apologise to the Committee for her absence. Knowing her as I do, I am sure that she has a good reason for not being here. If she had been here, she would have confirmed, to the Committee's great relief, that we do not intend to divide or detain it.
10.10 am
| 
