Official Report: Minutes of Evidence
Committee for the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, meeting on Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr Mike Nesbitt (Chairperson)
Mr A Attwood
Ms B McGahan
Mr Alex Maskey
Mr S Moutray
Mr J Spratt
Witnesses:
Mr Maurice Leeson, Department of Health
Mr Tony Rodgers, Health and Social Care Board
Children's Services Co-operation Bill: Health and Social Care Board
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): The two gentlemen joining us today are Tony Rodgers, who is the assistant director of social care, and Maurice Leeson, who is the children's services planning professional adviser. Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us. I invite you to make some opening remarks.
Mr Maurice Leeson (Health and Social Care Board): Certainly, Chair. I would like to make some remarks based on the paper that was submitted. First, we are pleased to be here to address you. As you know from the paper, the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) convenes the multi-agency children and young people's strategic partnership, which supports the development and implementation of the current children's services plan.
The Children Order 1995 and the 1998 children's services planning order require the Health and Social Care Board to produce a children's services plan, so we currently have that responsibility. The board, in preparing and updating that plan, has a responsibility and a duty to consult widely: the trusts, education and library boards, district councils, voluntary organisations, the Housing Executive, the Probation Board, the police and other relevant Departments.
The guidance to the order, which was published in July 1998, identifies a range of purposes of the plan, many of which appear quite consistent with what is proposed in the current private Member's Bill: for example, establishing a high standard of coordination and collaboration between health and social services boards and trusts and other agencies and organisations that have a contribution to make to the effective provision of local services. Currently, there is no statutory duty to cooperate, but there is a requirement for the Health and Social Care Board to produce the children's services plan and to consult very widely on is content.
In general terms, the Health and Social Care Board is very supportive of the principles behind the proposed legislation. Many parts of that legislation are reflected in the current children and young people's strategic service plan. We realise that there needs to be further consideration, particularly of clause 4 and the proposed amendments to the Children (Northern Ireland) Order. We are aware that some concerns have been raised, but, in general terms, we support what has been proposed.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Thank you very much, Maurice. Am I hearing you say that you support the Bill and that it is, effectively, largely what you already do but would simply give that further statutory effect?
Mr Leeson: Quite a number of parts of the proposed Bill are, in fact, things that already happen. In particular, we already produce a children's services plan, which is reviewed annually — the guidance suggests that the plan be produced every three years; we are required to consult a wide range of organisations, which are identified in the Bill; and we already convene the children and young people's strategic partnership to consider what the issues are. So, yes, much of what is proposed is already there, but one critical difference is the statutory duty to cooperate.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I think that, looking at the proposed Bill for the first time, some members had an instinctive concern that the additional duties, particularly the paperwork, that it would place upon your board might be onerous. Is that unfounded?
Mr Leeson: We already produce a plan, so producing a children's services plan is not additional. We already complete annual reviews, convene the partnership in order to facilitate consultation with a wide range of agencies and report on the outcomes of our activities. Generally speaking, from the point of view of the Health and Social Care Board, it does not add significantly to what we already do through the children's services planning order.
Mr Tony Rodgers (Health and Social Care Board): I think that the construct of the plan may have some additional emphasis or may change in some ways, and we would want to give further consideration to that as the Bill progresses and look at what the implications might be. It might take a different shape, and that might have some additional implications for us. As Maurice said, we do a lot of the work at the minute, but we feel that there may be some changes that we want to give consideration to. The proposed legislation gives an increased impetus and increased focus and probably, if I am honest, a statutory duty places an obligation on everyone to give it more serious consideration and perhaps more serious investment of their time, energy and, ultimately, funding.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That is what I am trying to tease out. If it becomes law in its current form, or in the form that it might evolve into, does it have resource implications for your board? Specifically, do you envisage asking for additional resource and funding?
Mr T Rodgers: It is difficult for us to quantify that at this stage, but there may be some additional resource implication. It is a question of whether some of that might be offset, because it is also clear that there are potential efficiencies in the nature of the plan, who subscribes to the plan and how that is reflected in other agencies and Departments. Whether or not one offsets the other, our view is that there are some efficiencies. There is reference to pooled budgets and to other agencies and Departments contributing in kind. It is about how that support can be provided.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I get it. I am asking how long a piece of string is, to an extent, but you do not anticipate, at the end of the process, saying that you need additional staff, maybe a double-digit number, or hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Mr Leeson: We have met Steven Agnew and discussed the intent behind the Bill. We shared with him our initial views, and we submitted a paper to him that described how, we felt, the legislation could impact on the work that we do.
Mr Leeson: Yes, we were satisfied with the engagement. He was able to answer some of the questions that we had about what was being proposed.
Mr Leeson: As Tony said, as the process develops — obviously, the Committee will take other evidence as well — and as the Bill begins to shape up, I am quite sure that we will need to have engagement with a number of people.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): The primary relationship that interests us today is between you and the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership (CYPSP). Will you tell us about the CYPSP?
Mr Leeson: The CYPSP was set up four years ago to be a regional forum for chief executives of organisations concerned with the well-being of children and young people. Its membership includes trust chief executives; senior members of some councils — from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE); the police; probation and the Youth Justice Agency. The idea was to create one place where there could be a singular senior management focus on issues affecting children. It was decided to have one body covering all of Northern Ireland because, before the review of public administration (RPA), there were four children and young people's committees, one in each of the board areas. The guidance to the children's services planning legislation requires us to set up a body that will enable us to develop a plan. After RPA, it was determined that the most efficient way to do that was to have one body covering all of Northern Ireland. The intention is to promote integrated planning and commissioning and greater levels of cooperation amongst all the organisations involved with children and young people.
Mr Leeson: No, sorry. I should have clarified that it also includes voluntary and community organisations. We have places on the CYPSP for three voluntary organisations, three community organisations and three organisations that represent the interests of the black and minority ethnic (BME) community. We fill those places by advertising and encouraging organisations to apply. We also have a number of other groups. There is a whole structure behind that. I am not sure to what extent you would like me to go into that, but, for example, five outcomes groups at trust level bring together senior members of staff from the voluntary and community organisations to look at how best to work together to promote outcomes in particular areas. As I said, there is wide representation.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I ask because I am interested in the extent to which you are achieving joined-up government, which is something of a holy grail. It seems that this is perhaps a model that is well worth looking at as an effective means of engagement.
Mr Leeson: Yes, we feel so, and we have been able to bring together quite a wide selection of people. There is a wider structure behind it. Inevitably, when there is one body, the other parts of the structure are intended to reflect much more of a bottom-up aspect to the process and also to ensure that we engage as wide a range of people as possible in the delivery of services.
Mr Leeson: My relationship?
Mr Leeson: The board chairs the partnership, and people like me support the partnership. It is a very constructive relationship. The intention behind it is, as I said, to assist in our duty to produce a children's services plan.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Concerns have been raised that, if the Bill were to go through in its current form, it would confer significant power — perhaps too much power — on the Health and Social Care Board. Do you have a view on that?
Mr T Rodgers: We do not necessarily see it like that, although I understand how it might be viewed like that. How the partnership has worked to date, and how we envisage it working in the future, is that it is very much about collaboration. I am repeating myself, but the proposed legislation is about giving it that greater focus, direction and impetus. The challenge to date, if we are frank, is that there have been very positive relationships within the partnership and probably significant sign-up to the overall strategic direction, but it has not gone as far as we would like on the ultimate vision and taking a further step. That is particularly true of the concept of pooled budgets and its possible machination, whether that is money or in kind, and all of us signing up to that and forging ahead in a similar direction. That is what I was referring to earlier when I talked about increased efficiency and streamlining. At times, all of us — I include the board in this — have a preoccupation with our own brand as opposed to a brand that is about the strategic planning and direction that is, ultimately, in the best interests of children. If we can crack that, we will make considerable investment and progress.
Mr T Rodgers: That is the issue. Subscribing to where this is going through a statutory duty to cooperate moves that on a step further. It increases the emphasis on monitoring and sign-up and, perhaps, on promoting a sense of shared governance and a sense of shared ownership, as well as on reporting mechanisms. With that, there is the potential that we can move it on a step further and that progress, which has perhaps been stilted at times, will be much greater.
Mr Leeson: No, the CYPSP is not a legally constituted body. It has no legal form; it is a partnership. There is a statutory responsibility on the Health and Social Care Board to produce a children's services plan and to consult the range of agencies that I referred to on the development of that plan.
Mr T Rodgers: The CYPSP has a statutory origin. It was formed under statute, but it has no statutory duty to cooperate. The board has an obligation to form and chair the partnership.
"the partnership has decided to collaborate in the use of funds that come to the individual statutory agencies on the CYPSP ... so that we can use our funding and resources better together than apart."
How does that work in practice?
Mr Leeson: It is fair to say that we are on a very difficult journey. That is the aspiration of the partnership. There are examples of where we have been able to put together pots of money from different organisations to commission services previously commissioned by a single agency. However, the vision of creating a wider sense of a shared pot is one that we are still working towards. We very much focus with our outcomes groups on getting organisations to sit down and be clear with one another about what their individual priorities are, what their individual plans are for the year ahead and to begin to look at whether there is potential for people to do more together. It is a difficult journey, and there have been occasions when we have been able to do that for individual issues, but, as for a general sense of pooled budgets, we are not there yet.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Maybe the most important thing that you said there, Maurice, is that it is a journey. Does that indicate that it is a hearts-and-minds battle and that you are trying to convince people of the benefits of sharing?
Mr Leeson: I think that people are convinced of the benefits. However, it can be difficult sometimes to reconcile the individual responsibilities of agencies to their Departments with a collective sense that this is what we should all do. That presents a challenge, and it is one that we have been working our way through.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): When we look at Steven's Bill and the provision for the pooling of resources by Departments, are there lessons that we can read across from your experience?
Mr Leeson: We are very supportive of the idea. The feedback that we get from many of our partners in the voluntary and community sector is that they are often working to put together a number of funders in order to create one service. Much of the feedback that we get is that it would be easier for us if we were to see more money directed to the front line and seeing if statutory budgets were pooled more often. Therefore, they were making one application for money to deliver a particular priority as opposed to several applications to different statutory organisations in order to do something. So, we would be very supportive of the approach being considered. Through the early intervention transformation programme, we saw one example of where Departments have put money together to deliver some of that.
"The current lack of coordination means that much time and energy is wasted, so we aim to improve coordination, both locally and for particular groups of children and young people."
Can you give us examples of how a lack of coordination has arisen and how you have tackled and improved it?
Mr Leeson: We have tackled and improved it for the outcomes groups by creating a space in which the various organisations can come together to share their individual priorities. How we have conceived that is to say that, at that level, there needs to be a space in which discussions take place where I can say, "This is a priority for us going forward", where dialogue can be had with representatives of provider organisations from the voluntary and community sector and other statutory sectors and feedback can be given.
In describing the journey earlier, I was saying that we sit down and are very clear with one another about what we are doing and search in that for the potential to work together. That has been the big gain to date. Having got that working side by side, the next logical step for us is to say "Can we take the next step?", which is pooling budgets and working more closely together.
Mr Leeson: It is a very challenging proposal. Whilst I do not profess to be an expert in these matters, with accountability for funding one of the things that we looked at very early on in CYPSP is how you create a shared budget in which you satisfy the quite correct expectations of agencies for how the money is managed. We looked at it and developed a model around a point in one organisation becoming the lead and then that organisation exercising accountability on behalf of others. It is a challenging process that is quite different from what we have been doing until now.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): You indicated that further consideration would be needed on the proposed amendments to the Children (NI) Order 1995 to ensure that the intent behind the proposed legislation is reflected in its enactment: can you expand on that? What needs to happen?
Mr Leeson: Having spoken to Steven, I know that his intent was to put the CYPSP on a statutory footing, and the vehicle chosen to do that was through an amendment to the Children Order. One of the things that we wanted to look more closely at was the fit between what was being proposed and whether it would fit in with the Children's Order. We think that we need to give a bit more thought to how that would work. The Children Order focuses on children in need, whereas, as we understand it, the proposed Bill looks at all children. I am not saying that it is impossible, but it was just a note of caution on our part that we needed to be absolutely clear that the two things would fit well together.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I based many of my questions on your Northern Ireland children and young people submission, which was planned for 2011-14 but of course, now, we are in 2015. Is there going to be a plan for —
Mr Leeson: Yes. We have the first draft of a plan, which was shared with CYPSP the last time that we met. We are in the process of developing that.
Mr Leeson: The guidance to the legislation encourages us to dovetail the children's service planning cycle with other planning cycles. We would like to move the children's service plan more into line with the comprehensive spending review and the Programme for Government. Our members have been reflecting to us that it was very difficult for them to agree priorities and then, maybe, there would be a Programme for Government the following year that might request us to do something different. We will be looking at another three-year plan, but our intention is to do a more substantive version to bring it in line with the new Programme for Government and comprehensive spending review cycle. My answer is yes, I am doing a three-year plan; however, I would like to move to a position in which it more closely follows that cycle.
Mr Leeson: Yes. We have just finished the review. Again, the report was shared with CYPSP at its last meeting.
Ms McGahan: How old is the children's services planning guidance document?
Mr Leeson: It is from 1998.
Ms McGahan: For example, where it refers to statutory agencies under the collaboration and consultation heading, it mentions the RUC not the PSNI. It is quite old.
Mr Leeson: I have no details of any plans to update it. It is not part of the legislation; it is the guidance that goes with it. We have to reflect the fact that some of the descriptions of bodies are out of date, but we work to amend that in our own documentation.
Mr Maskey: Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. There seem to be two aspects of the proposals in the Bill. Everybody so far has expressed general agreement with the intention behind the Bill; there is no question about that. I am pleased to hear the way in which you have described some of the productive engagements that you have already had under the current arrangements.
On the one hand, it seems that the Bill is doing a lot of things that are already being done and there are no additional outcomes. You have to do reports, but it does not tell you on what basis you have to do a report, nor does it, in my opinion, add great value to what might be in those reports. To that extent, it looks for greater monitoring and reporting but does not make a difference to what the outcomes might be.
On the other hand, it seems to suggest ceding more authority to an arm's-length body to develop plans. I cannot remember the exact phrase, but it was about your board having the power to elaborate and modify or change the plan within a certain period. What are the parameters of that? That brings you into possible contention with Departments, for example, which have statutory authority to decide what their responsibilities are. Why would they cede authority to what is, in effect, an arm's-length body?
Mr Leeson: We see the plan as a shared plan developed by the agencies and not as a Health and Social Care Board plan. In fact, our guidance emphasises that a children's services plan should be a shared plan and not a Health and Social Care Board plan that everybody else agrees to. In our reading of the legislation, we feel that what is being proposed is, equally, a shared plan. We accept that there may be drafting issues that may possibly create the situation that you described. Our view is that this is a shared plan whereby organisations agree that there are priorities, that we agree on those and that we agree on what needs to be done to deliver it. The legislation clearly sets out an expectation that we collaborate and cooperate to the fullest extent to deliver priorities. It begins to set clear expectations.
Mr T Rodgers: In this process, it will be within the parameters of the legislation how much authority is or is not vested in the Health and Social Care Board. You can modify —
Mr T Rodgers: Yes, you can modify it if there is a concern. As Maurice said, and as I referred to earlier, we see this as being about collaboration — indeed, it always has been — but a statutory intent will give greater drive and impetus to get us to a different place from where we are. There is no doubt that at different times we come with different agendas, sometimes vested agendas and sometimes different priorities. This will give us an impetus to have greater focus on the shared vision for children and what it is that we are collectively signing up to for children and to commit to that, whether it is in kind or in resources, so that we all understand how it will be monitored and what parts we all play.
Mr Maskey: I am playing devil's advocate here, because I have not made my mind up on this at all. As I said earlier, I share everybody's opinion on the Bill and everybody is on the same wavelength. However, I wonder were we to cede further authority in the Bill — you cannot really answer this; I am just trying to tease it out in my own mind — could that possibly have the effect that some agencies and Departments will regard this as a negotiation place for resources and will put such and such a person onto that body? I am just trying to think about this out loud. If I want to cooperate, I will cooperate, but if it becomes a platform for negotiating something, I might decide to send somebody else, if you know what I mean. I wonder whether that could impact on the free cooperation that you are expressing, which we were very encouraged to hear.
Mr Leeson: I do not think so, as one of the positive things that it does is to lay down a clear expectation of us. In the current climate, with all the difficulties and challenges that we face, there is an expectation that we will work together to the fullest possible extent of our different mandates to deliver good outcomes for children. I understand your point, but I go back to my own view: the advantage of this is a shared vision as opposed to people feeling that they are being shoehorned into an arrangement that will not work for them. Our experience to date has been that we can deliver that shared vision. As I said, the sense in which this describes what is expected of us is helpful.
Mr Attwood: I apologise for being a wee bit late; I missed some of your presentation. My view is that the best way to create certainty and avoid doubt is to impose statutory obligations. Our society has demonstrated over many years that it is only when we create statutory obligations on equality or rights that that becomes the vehicle to drive change and maximise outcomes. That is the general perspective that I bring to these issues and that is why I think that the Bill is the right approach, not least given the scale of child poverty and the scale of other risks that children face. We have had evidence of that in the last 24 hours in other places. I want to make sure that you are both on the same page on this because I got a sense from Maurice that this is what we are doing already whereas the language from you, Tony, seemed more elaborate: increased focus, catalyst, more time, energy and, on the far side of all that, potentially more funding.
Mr T Rodgers: We want to be clear that a lot of the work that is progressing is positive. I am articulating a view that more could be done and that this legislation provides us with that opportunity. We do not want in any way to be critical of our partners. We are doing a lot of good work, but we are quite clear that more can be delivered.
Mr Leeson: Perhaps I did not express myself clearly. I wanted to point out, in response to the question "Will this create an additional burden?", that a variation of many of the things proposed is already being carried out. Unless the legislation changes significantly, there is not a huge difference in some of the processes that we have.
It has a great benefit in making clear what expectations are. When we look at what works in tackling the difficult problems that we and others face, increased cooperation and collaboration always comes back. We see here the ability to match the goodwill and the engagements that we have had with this much clearer legislation on duties and what is expected of us.
The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I get the impression that you, the Department and the sponsor of the Bill believe that, with some amendments, this will be a significant improvement on how we do business and the beneficiaries will be children and young people.