WEDNESDAY 2 FEBRUARY 2005

MR TOM JEFFERY, MS ANNE JACKSON, MS SHEILA SCALES, MS ALTHEA EFUNSHILE, DR JEANNETTE PUGH AND MR MARK DAVIES

  Q460  Mr Chaytor: What sanctions will there be realistically for those who finish up with zero stars or whatever the rating system is going to be?

  Ms Scales: The legislation has extended to children's social services, the intervention powers that the Secretary of State has had in education since 1998, so as a very long fallback there will be powers to intervene. What we are hoping is that the strategic advisors that we were talking about in their regular dialogues with these local authorities will be able not to wait for the inspection because there will be annual assessments and star ratings of local authorities on the same criteria, will be working with them to identify what the problems are and hopefully offering the sort of targeted support that they are going to need to tackle those problems. There will be a range of approaches much as we have had in the past in the education service but with a very stern fallback power.

  Q461  Mr Chaytor: Going back to the question of the role of schools and the impact of all this on schools, in retrospect would the Children Act have been stronger had it included a statutory duty on schools to co-operate with other agencies? Just as the Act was going through, the Department was publishing its consultation document on enabling schools to apply for foundation status which, as Jonathan pointed out earlier, will lead to greater managerial autonomy. Looking from the outside it does seem that we have two trends moving in exactly the opposite direction here. Was that intentional or was it accidental?

  Mr Jeffery: There was a rationale that the duty to co-operate is placed on the strategic planning and commissioning bodies and that they will be dealing—and the children's trust arrangements will be dealing—with a very diverse world. Twenty-three thousand or so schools is another matter. That they are absolutely at the heart of Change for Children is not in doubt, but whether they are there by virtue of a duty to co-operate or all the other levers that we have described is what has been the focus of the debate. They stand alongside a huge array of people in the statutory, private and the voluntary sectors who will all need to contribute to this local system of Children's Services. I think the Minister would say that only time will tell and we will look at this as it goes along, but the current signs are, as I say, an enthusiasm for schools to be engaged.

  Q462  Paul Holmes: Back on the question of the database, if you have a hundred or a hundred and fifty different authorities developing their own databases, how are you going to ensure compatibility so they will actually read into a national database?

  Dr Pugh: As I may have mentioned earlier, we will be developing a national standard for them so that they are all operating to a single standard. It is crucial that they are interoperable so the system will be designed in that way.

  Q463  Paul Holmes: So if the national standard is not there yet some of the trailblazers might have to scrap everything they have done so they fit a national standard later on.

  Dr Pugh: There is an issue of the transition of the trailblazers. We have written to all of the trailblazers and invited them to come and work with the team on the development of the national model. Every single trailblazer has responded enthusiastically to that request. We have also established a local authority group now bringing in the wider set of local authorities and are having a range of events additional to the regional events that Sheila mentioned earlier, drawing all of the local authorities and trailblazers together. Yes, there will need to be some adjustments in some of the trailblazers to a national model once that is established.

  Q464  Chairman: It is interesting that from the initial questions that Paul and I asked—and Jonathan to some extent—that where you have actually said that money will have to be spent on the IT system, it is actually on child protection. You are going to have a register of every child in the country in order to find out if there are problems in a very small number. You are not going to use that database for anything else but finding out if a child is threatened in some way. We started off by saying: "Is this going to end up just about child protection?"

  Dr Pugh: I think it is broader than child protection; it is about making sure that all children are receiving services that they need. Those additional needs may not necessarily be in the area of child protection; it is not a child protection database, that is not what it is about.

  Q465  Chairman: Success is never having any data on the child, is it not?

  Dr Pugh: We will always have the basic data on the child. The success will be how much more quickly and effectively practitioners can identify who they are.

  Q466  Chairman: But this Committee is saying to you that other witnesses have said that that will still come from face to face well-trained teams.

  Dr Pugh: Indeed, but in order to communicate with someone you need to know who you have to communicate with.

  Q467  Chairman: How are you going to get a unique number for every child?

  Dr Pugh: We have been discussing with out team and with colleagues in other government departments and with Misc9(D) how we should arrive at the unique identifying number. We are due to go back to Misc9(D) in April with a recommendation.

  Q468  Chairman: There is not one, is there?

  Dr Pugh: There is not a unique identifying number, no, and I know that is the subject of some debate. We do all have a National Insurance number.

  Q469  Chairman: That starts at the age of 16.

  Dr Pugh: It becomes live at 16; it actually exists before then.

  Q470  Chairman: From birth?

  Dr Pugh: Yes, from birth, unless you are a child in care. We are looking at all the issues around how we can establish a unique identifying number because the feasibility study that I mentioned earlier that was carried out last year recognised that unless we have the ability as part of the system to have a unique number or some unique identifier for a child then the system will not operate effectively because there are issues of multiple identity and so on.

  Q471  Chairman: Most of us have been members of Parliament for quite a long time and have always trusted the health visitor to be very perceptive very early on. They have always had a unique entry into a domestic dwelling. They could go into the home in a way social workers, as I understand, could not. Are the laws around that going to change in terms of access into domestic residences?

  Mr Davies: I do not think we have any such plans. They are a crucial part of the local workforce.

  Mr Jeffery: There was a very helpful report by the former Chief Nursing Officer last summer on the role of health visitors, midwives and other children's nurses which did place health visitors absolutely centrally in the Every Child Matters agenda and in children's centres as they come together there in all sorts of ways.

  Q472  Chairman: They have always been crucial. Are you so sure about GPs participating, co-operating and seeing themselves as team players?

  Mr Davies: I think in a sense we ought to stop thinking about GPs and think about primary care because the traditional arrangements for the GP practices are becoming increasingly rare. GPs and primary care will be delivered under a different range of contracts by different people as well. Very often you will have primary care practices, for example, which have no GP involvement whatsoever. We need to think about the broader issues around primary care and the delivery of primary care in the community and the engagement of other professionals, and health visitors often are part of that team. There is always a feeling that GPs are the last people to get on board the bus as it leaves the bus station and I think we need to think a bit more widely about the role of primary care because the model of an independent contracting GP often will not be single-handed. I have no reason to think that primary care practices are not part of this and do not want to be part of this; all the evidence shows that they want to be part of this system. It is not easy but we are quite positive about the approach that we are taking.

  Chairman: Good. It has been a good session and we have learned a lot, which is the most important thing. Thank you very much for your attendance; it will very much add value to our Committee's report.