Rt Hon Ed Balls MP

EVERY CHILD MATTERS

Speech by Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) — 18 July 2007

It’s a great honour to take on this new role and new responsibility as the first Secretary of State for the Department of Children, Schools and Families.

This new department brings together for the first time ever in one place all policy on schools and standards, children’s health, sport, youth justice — including the Respect agenda — as well as wider policy for children and families.

And because play — one of your recent campaigning priorities — is a central part of any happy childhood and essential to learning and development today, I am pleased to announce that I have agreed with James Purnell, Secretary of State at DCMS, that we will now take on dual responsibility for play as well.

Our aspirations are straightforward and ambitious:

• Every child deserves to be safe and loved and have a healthy and happy childhood, free from harm
• And every child should have the chance to make the most of their talents and fulfil their potential.

To do this, we must:

• Provide excellent universal services for all children and their families
• Be able to identify potential problems early, before things go wrong
• And when children are at risk, do something quickly to help children and their families get back on track.

Today’s children have opportunities that their parents and grandchildren could not possibly dream of when they were growing up. They are more affluent. They go to better schools. The internet opens new worlds in people’s living rooms. More parents working means higher income levels. Children are safer. The number of children who die on the roads or as a result of accidental injury or sudden infant-death syndrome has declined. Many childhood diseases can now be prevented or cured.

But it’s a fast-changing world. We all lead more complicated lives, with new risks and challenges. And many children and young people are not benefiting from what should be an age of opportunity for all children.

It isn’t right that some children are prevented from getting a good education, from spending time with their friends, from taking part in activities like sport and music, because of poverty, because of a disability or because they are in care.

It isn’t right that the basic health needs of some children are not being met; that disabled children and their parents sometimes have to wait months, even years, for basic pieces of equipment; that, too often, children in care go to the worst schools and rarely see the best side of the NHS. And it simply isn’t right that children from poorer backgrounds are 13 times more likely to die as a result of accidental injury and 37 times more likely to die as a result of fire.

Last week, in my statement in Parliament, I launched a consultation on a Children’s Plan, which will set out the long-term goals for this new department.

There is great expertise in this room and, indeed, across the country to help us address these issues, and I want to work with you to do this.

Today, we also launch our consultation on ‘Staying Safe’, which will be the start of a very important debate about what we all need to do — parents, politicians, employers, practitioners, children and young people — to ensure the safety and well-being of every child. And in this speech I want to set out how we will use all the means at our disposal, working together with proper consultation, to deliver our goals.

Building on success

We start from a track record of real progress, and I pay tribute to the hard work and commitment of many of you in this room and many like you working in children’s centres, schools, local authorities, health services and voluntary-sector organisations across the country that have already started to transform services for children, families and young people.

Ten years ago, there was very little about government policy that was family friendly. Now, we have flexible working for parents, greatly increased maternity leave and pay, plus the introduction of paternity leave and our national childcare strategy. We have invested heavily in early years, because we know that what happens in the first five years of a child’s life has a huge amount of influence on everything that happens afterwards. We have rising standards in our schools. We have made progress on child poverty, teenage pregnancy and youth re-offending rates.

With your help, we are putting children at the heart of our reformed welfare state; one that moves away from the paternalistic ‘one size fits all’ model, which dictated the lifestyle choices of parents and paid too little attention to families, to one where we empower families and put children at the centre. It is based on the principle of progressive universalism, which means providing excellent services for all children and families and more support for those who need it most.

Some commentators claim that there has never been a worse time to be a child in this country. I reject this view. Of course, we face real challenges, but this pessimism fails to recognise the new opportunities children have today, and it undermines the dedication of parents and the immense passion and commitment of many in schools and children’s services to give children the best possible chance in life.

Yes, child poverty did double between 1979 and 1997 to the highest level of any European country. But over the past decade, we have seen the fastest fall in child poverty of any European country. And we have set an ambitious goal to abolish child poverty within a generation.

The fact is that there are children in the same borough, on the same streets sometimes, and even going to the same schools who have radically different experiences shaped by family income, family environment and poor health.

The scandal is not England vs Sweden, but Blackbird Leys vs Headington. It’s Harehills vs Roundhay. It’s North Kensington vs South Kensington. There remain significant barriers to progress which we need to overcome.

There’s an exceptionally large achievement gap that’s strongly correlated with poverty, gender, ethnicity and disability. We know that early intervention and the early years are critical. And we still have much more to do to ensure that our excellent network of Sure Start Children’s Centres is reaching out to families who need most support, promoting early learning and providing a safe place where parents can get the help they need.

We need to do more to join health services with other services for children and young people. Despite a concerted effort both centrally and locally, there are still disabled children who have to wait six months or more for a wheelchair or a toilet seat, and children in care who simply don’t get the support they need to deal with often acute mental-health problems.

There are too many young people who start by truanting and causing disruption in school, and who only come to the attention of the authorities when they start offending — children for whom an ASBO or juvenile detention is the beginning of their interaction with the state rather than the last possible resort, when all other measures have failed.

Over the last four years, Every Child Matters has been integrating services for children and young people at the local level. The Treasury/DFES children’s services review concluded that we needed to get better at early intervention and to get under the skin of some of the very deep-rooted, complex challenges that many families are facing — not to stigmatise them as problem families but to support and respect them and their children.

This is why the Children’s Fund has been so effective — supporting projects that specialise in early intervention and prevention. They are improving the skills and emotional well-being of parents, and they are improving relationships between families and professionals.

The Children’s Fund was due to end in March 2008, but I can announce today that it will continue, and we will invest £396mn over the next three years to be distributed through local authorities.

Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)

There is more to do. And the new department provides the national platform to take Every Child Matters to the next level and really transform the way we support children, with the principle of prevention at its heart but recognising that supporting children, young people and families in the community is integral to helping all children, promoting excellence and closing the achievement gap in schools.

The name of the new department sets out our priorities: It’s the children in the Department for Children, Schools and Families that define our mission. It is by understanding their needs that we will ensure that every child gets to make the most of their talents. It is schools that are at the centre of delivery, working with children’s professionals and other public services. But it’s families that have the most important influences on children’s life chances. It’s parents, carers and grandparents who do the most difficult and important job and who we need to help and support.

Schools and standards

In my statement to Parliament last week, I said that we would renew our focus on school standards, putting standards before structures. We do children no favours if we are anything less than rigorous about standards in English and maths.

We must back the professional judgement of teachers and empower them to instil good behaviour in the classroom, so that the education of the many is not disrupted by a minority of disruptive pupils.

Promoting excellence in teaching and tackling disadvantage demands we personalise teaching and learning and back strong, innovative leadership in schools.

Schools and children’s policy

But children are only at school for around 14 per cent of the time. What happens before they reach the classroom and outside the school gates is, and must be, of great concern to schools and their partners. If, for one reason or another, some kids can’t or don’t want to learn it makes it harder for everyone else in class.

Look at the typical school bus at the end of the school day — a bus carrying 50 children. Around 29 of the children on that bus will leave their school with five or more good GCSEs compared to 22 in 1997; 22 will go on to university compared to around 16 in 1997. But 5 children on the bus will drop out of education and training at 16 and are unlikely to find work quickly. Two of the girls will end up pregnant. At least 2 children will end up in trouble with the law. Five children — 10 per cent — will already have a diagnosed mental-health problem; 9 will be classed as obese; 14 will be living in poverty; 3 will regularly witness domestic violence; and 1 might be going home to a double-shift of caring for their siblings and a disabled parent.

There’s an old-fashioned view that demands we choose between standards in the classroom and focusing on children’s overall well-being. I reject this view. It is a false choice. As all the best schools know, you cannot raise standards and close achievement gaps without focusing on all the needs of every single child and tackling every obstacle to their learning.

No wonder the best head teachers tell us that breakfast clubs, school trips and extended school activities are essential to improving motivation, behaviour, attendance and results. No wonder schools involved in the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning programme tell us that, by focusing on the whole child, classrooms are calmer, pupils get on with each other and other adults better and that there’s less bullying. In other words, kids are happier and they are achieving more because they are happier.

And with 10 per cent of children with a diagnosed mental-health problem, I can also announce today that we will invest an additional £60mn in supporting schools to work with mental-health practitioners and others to improve the emotional well-being of pupils. In particular, getting mental-health experts working with teachers on the school site to identify problems and provide children and young people with support.

I want to champion a grown-up relationship between schools and professionals in children’s services and government and focus on what matters — the outcomes of children and young people.

Early intervention and prevention

So the best schools are already at the heart of this Every Child Matters Agenda, helping us to intervene early and tackle the barriers to learning. I want this to be true of every school, because the school is the only public-sector body that regularly sees all children

It is teachers who are often the first to notice if something isn’t quite right; who can recognise that there may be reasons why a child is frequently late, struggles to concentrate or regularly comes to school poorly equipped. Schools are more than collections of classrooms. They have a vital role to play in identifying where families and children need extra help.

This is why extended schools are a popular idea for both schools and parents and children. Last week I announced an additional £265mn for extended schools to support disadvantaged children and their families.

Through providing a greater range of services, and through working with other partners, they redefine what it means to be a community school — a resource that works hard for the whole community. And we need to reflect this in our wider capital programme.

But schools can only play this role if they have strong relationships with other children’s professionals. Too often, school staff tell me that they end up plugging the gaps that other children’s professionals should be filling.

Only recently, I was hearing about a Year 7 boy whose father committed suicide while in prison. The boy was deeply distressed and exhibited severe behavioural problems. The school’s response to this was to contact local health services, to get this boy some expert help before his problems escalated. They told the school to contact CAMHS, because it was too serious for them to deal with and he needed expert help. CAMHS told them there was a nine-month waiting list. The school explained this boy’s situation again, only to be told by CAMHS that he would have to attempt suicide before he could be moved up the waiting list. This is not early intervention.

I understand the pressure many services are under. But Every Child Matters cannot work if some parts of children’s services work on principles of early intervention and others are in crisis-management mode.

And time and time again, as I saw on the disabled children’s review, where children and families have chronic needs, they too often slip down the priority list, because the system is focused on dealing with crises not preventing them. Again, this is not consistent with the principles of early intervention.

I recognise that there will always be challenges over resources, particularly in social care and particularly in health services. But this isn’t just about money and staffing levels. It’s also about leadership, judgement and effective partnership.

If you compare outcomes for children in care across different local authorities, it is not the authorities that spend the most money on children in care who get the best outcomes. Similarly, compare performances on reducing teenage pregnancies in different local authorities. The defining factor is not money; it’s whether PCTs, local authorities and schools are strategically focused on outcomes of children and young people and whether different services work together seamlessly.

Family policy and safeguarding

But we must remember that by far the most powerful influence on children’s lives is family. What parents do (or don’t do) will always be the defining influence in a child’s life.

But to be clear, my view is that we should support all parents, regardless of background or circumstances. Of course, we recognise the importance of marriage, but this is a complicated world. Families come in all shapes and sizes. There are no simple solutions, and a family policy that penalises and stigmatises children and families is not fair and will not work. Just as there should be no first- and second-class schools, there should be no first- and second-class kids. This government supports all children, all schools, all parents and all carers. There will be no return to the rocketing rates of child poverty in the 1980s, and no return to the back-to-basics of the early 1990s.

In my view, our responsibility is to provide support, guidance and information, not to dictate family structures. What we need to do is to provide early support at an adequate level and intervene only as a last resort.

As I said earlier, we live in a fast-changing world full of opportunity but one which can seem bewildering and even frightening to parents and carers.

The internet, as well as providing opportunities for children and young people, also poses new risks. Obesity is on the rise as some children’s diets deteriorate and children exercise less. Balancing work and family life is a daily challenge for parents and carers, with families being more widely spread and networks of support more disparate.

How we approach these risks in many ways defines the relationship between government and parents. The government must act to protect children from exploitation and abuse. There are times when the government needs to intervene forcibly — on an issue like persistent truancy, for example, or if a child’s safety and well-being is under threat. There are areas when the government and others needs to enforce minimum standards — such as TV advertising, the internet or nutritional standards in school. But it is not the role of government to substitute for the judgement of parents, as they struggle to strike the right balance between protecting children from direct harm and encouraging them to learn, play, explore and develop new skills.

The role of government is not to second-guess parents but instead to provide guidance, support and information.

So today we are publishing ‘Staying Safe’, a major consultation on how we can improve the safety and well-being of children and young people. We want to kick-start a debate that involves all of you and particularly the children, young people and families you work with.

We cannot wrap children in cotton wool; this is not protecting children. It denies them vital opportunities to learn and develop. It stunts their independence and will impede on their abilities to navigate risks for themselves as they grow up.

The fact is that the most at-risk children are the most risk adverse in terms of aspiration and ambition. We cannot underestimate the extraordinary importance of allowing children and young people — particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds — the opportunity to take part in positive activities like volunteering, music and sport that enable them to build skills and confidence.

So, in the coming weeks, we will be asking parents:

• How safe do you think children are?
• How good are we at giving children and young people the opportunity to explore and understand risks for themselves?
• Have we got the balance right between keeping children safe and also allowing them freedom to develop?

I look forward to hearing more from you on this in the coming months.

I want the voices of all parents to be heard — and those of children and young people themselves — as we look ahead to the challenges we face together.

‘Staying Safe’ is part of our wider consultation launched last week in advance of our new Children’s Plan. As I mentioned, we also need to think about how we can work together to deliver this huge agenda in the context of this complex new world.

I said earlier the driving mission of this new department is to break out of the false divide between, on the one hand, policies to promote educational achievement and, on the other hand, policies to promote well-being. So to inform the children’s plan, I have asked Jo Davison, Director of Children’s Services in Gloucester, to co-chair the group that will look at all services for 0–7 year olds. Sir Alan Steer, Head of Seven Kings High School in Ilford, who led on our review of school behaviour, will co-chair the group on 8–13 year olds and Jackie Fisher, Chief Executive and Principal of Newcastle College, will co-chair the 14–19 group. We will have, for example, experts from youth justice on the group that looks at 0–7 year olds; children’s health practitioners discussing the national curriculum; and a primary head on the 14–19 group.

I want these groups to consider:

• Prevention — how universal and targeted services can work together better to head off problems before they start
• Personalisation — how services can tailor their support so that all children can reach their potential
• A positive childhood — how the role of parents and various services can provide a happy, healthy and safe childhood for all
• Families — the role families play in each phase, and how we can support them.

Conclusion

This is a challenging agenda. As the Every Child Matters department, our collective responsibility is to make this an age of opportunity for all children, not just some children.

I am an optimist. I believe that that every child has talent; that children can rise above the worst of all possible starts and exceed even the highest expectations of those around them.

We should reject the pessimism that would tell us that there has never been a worse time to be a child and that many children are doomed before they even start. This is not true.

Our task is to improve the life chances of all children and young people. This is how we will build fairer, safer communities, a more prosperous economy and the future of our country.

Biography of the Rt Hon Ed Balls MP

Ed Balls is the new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. He was appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury on 5 May 2006. He has been a Member of Parliament for Normanton since 2005.

Mr Balls was a teaching fellow at the Department of Economics, Harvard 1989–90, and an economics leader writer and columnist for the Financial Times 1990–94.

He was Economic Adviser to the then Shadow Chancellor Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP 1994–97; Secretary, Labour Party Economic Policy Commission 1994–97; Economic Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 1997–99; Chief Economic Adviser to the HM Treasury 1999–2004; and Research Fellow, Smith Institute 2004–05.

Ed Balls has had a number of works published, including ‘Towards a New Regional Policy’ and ‘Reforming Britain’s Economic and Financial Policy: Towards Greater Economic Stability’ and ‘Microeconomic Reform in Britain: Delivering Opportunities for All’.