National Indicators and the Local Area agreement

The local authority is led by the governments National Indicators (NI’s), guidance and initiatives. This is seen in the more formal strategy of the Local Area Agreement which the local authority negotiates with the Local Government office GO East.

In the Local Area Agreement there are 5 themes:

• Growing our economy
• Protecting and enhancing our environment
• Delivering good health and wellbeing
• Raising the aspirations of our children and young people
• Building cohesive and stronger communities.

There are 198 NI’s, 69 of which relate to children and young people.

National Indicator Set

Of the 69 NI’s relating to children 16 are statutory and must be included in the LAA.

16 Statutory National Indicators

The other negotiated NI’s for the C&YP theme will relate to areas that need improvement.  The C&YP theme is lead by a partnership known as the Children’s Trust.  This partnership includes Health, Police, Youth Offending, Voluntary Sector, Young People and any other  partner needed to deliver the theme outcome.  The local authority is measured against the indicators in the Comprehensive Area Assessment inspection.

ECM Outcomes Framework Chart 08

Children & Young Peoples Plan (C&YPP)       

The statutory inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie (2003) led the government in 2004 to publish the Green Paper “Every Child Matters” . The Children’s Act of 2004 identified a shared responsibility and the need for effective joint working between agencies and professionals to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

Every Child Matters – the aim is for all children, whatever their background or their circumstances, to have the support they need to: be healthy; stay safe; enjoy and achieve; make a positive contribution and achieve economic wellbeing. Every local authority must produce a Children and Young People’s Plan. It is reviewed on an annual basis.

The plan outlines the priorities for the Children’s Trust.  The Trust through measurement against NI targets will identify areas for improvement. The Children’s Trust structure will be different in every local authority but it will reflect the Every Child Matters outcomes.  All the 69 NI’s under the C&YP theme are allocated to 1 of the 5 ECM outcome and these indicators are performance monitored.  The ECM outcomes will be managed by sub groups of the Children’s Trust.

In Bedford Borough there are 3 sub groups Healthy (ECM Be Healthy) Safe (ECM Stay Safe) Aspire (ECM Enjoy & Achieve, Making a Positive Contribution, Achieving Economic Wellbeing).

In Central Bedfordshire there are 5 sub groups each one linked to an ECM outcome.

These groups are all multi agency and will develop strategies and work plans which identify the areas of improvement.   The strategies and work plans are on the VOCypf website and minutes of all the local authority groups are available from the VOCypf Offcer.

Services for children, young people and families fall into 3 categories:

Universal - for example education, primary health care.

Targeted - for example drug and alcohol, mental health

Specialist – for example looked after children, complex health care.

The local authority and its statutory partners will deliver some of these services, others will be purchased by the statutory authorities individually and some will be purchased via the Children’s Trust structure.  Services may be commissioned on a long term basis (good practise would suggest a contract term of 3 years), block purchase or spot purchase.  Purchasing may be through a tender process usually used for larger contracts or through a bidding process.

There are a number of services which are always needed by a local authority for example out of county specialist placements.  There will be other services which are purchased to support an identified need which with targeted intervention may then be reduced.

Commissioning

Each of the local authorities has a commissioning board / executive which is a sub group of the Children’s Trust. This group is responsible for the commissioning of services to support the delivery of the Children & Young Peoples Plan which will be delivered through the plans drawn up in the ECM outcome groups. The Heads of Service are responsible for the actions needed by their service to deliver the outcomes of the C&YP Plan..

The voluntary sector has the opportunity to bid for contracts which are advertised.  They may also be able to promote a new or innovative service which supports the local authority where the need for improvement has been identified.  This will assist the authority to meet its targets.

There may also be a need for local authority involvement in voluntary sector bids for funding.  This may be in the form of a letter of support, letter of endorsement or match finding.  Match funding may be “Benefits in kind” or financial. The Children & Young Peoples Plan, plus the ECM outcome sub group delivery plans will help to identify the current drivers for each local authority.

The Voluntary Organisations for Children, young people & families (VOCypf) has representation on all of the groups in both Bedford Borough and Central Bedfordshire. VOCypf are currently collecting the strategies and delivery plans for each local authority.