League tables can be a force for good if given more care

But what can league tables actually tell us? Anyone listening to David Cameron or the national media could be forgiven for thinking that the care tables deal purely with adoption. They do, of course, also cover the quality of all care placements, school attainment of looked-after children and outcomes for young people leaving care. 

The care tables are good in principle, but poor in their current execution. It is certainly in the interests of openness and transparency to lift the lid on
performance for children in care across the land. This is a group that continues to suffer a shamefully raw deal.

But as they stand, the tables are a pretty blunt measure. They conceal a multitude of different local circumstances; for instance, employment opportunities for care leavers will depend in large part on the local economy as they would for the general population. As for adoptions, the speed
of children being given families doesn’t take into account how many of these adoptions break down.

The result is that the care tables have been greeted with considerable scorn. But this needn’t be the case.

If the tables were part of the government’s strategy to raise media awareness of falls in adoption levels, they probably worked. But data should be collated and used to inform and improve. In future, care tables should take in a host of other factors in order to provide a more complete, accurate picture.

As for league tables for youth services, again, transparency over the level and quality of provision is good in principle. It could be a question of too little too late, since many local authorities have chosen to slash their youth service provision. But if young people are the assessors, we might be onto something.