Every Child Matters fails hard-to-reach families

Chris Hough, a PhD student at the University of Cumbria and an Ofsted inspector from 2001 to 2005, said national targets were too prescriptive to meet the needs of a lot of families.

Hough studied local authorities with a higher proportion of children getting welfare support.

"It seems the actual process of identifying those hard-to-reach groups does not work as well as it might and the indicators need to be re-assessed," she said.

Hough said the most successful multi-agency work happens when local authorities look beyond measurable targets or indicators and take other factors into account, such as bereavement.

"In one instance, a whole new framework of indicators was pioneered that identified families that clearly needed support but historically had not ‘scored' enough government-prescribed indicators to trigger support," she said.

Hough also said she did not think a national database would help local authorities to find and keep an eye on the needs of the most vulnerable children.

"The current system is predicated on the collection of data, or ticks of the box. Judgements are made according to points scored."

She said instead authorities should look at the key factors in information sharing and come up with new conclusions on what is needed to support children.