YES - NEIL BENTLEY, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SERVICES, CBI
High-quality, reliable and responsive children's services help giveyoung people the best start in life. To achieve the Every Child Mattersoutcomes, the skills of all sectors must be harnessed throughcompetition and a mixed market. This allows different providers to forminnovative partnerships and show their commitment to quality care. Amixed market can challenge existing provision, develop better controlover the quality and consistency of services and focus on value formoney.
NO - DEBRA ALLCOCK TYLER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DIRECTORY OF SOCIALCHANGE
A major problem with a mixed market is its almost inevitable drifttowards a contract culture. In contracting, your job is to satisfy theterms of your contract and the client is the contracting party. When weengage in that contracting relationship it shifts our view of ourclient.
Voluntary and community organisations need to meet the terms of thecontract and if the needs of the user change to something outside theseterms, the organisation is unable to legitimately respond to them.
YES - CAROLINE ABRAHAMS, PROGRAMME DIRECTOR, LOCAL GOVERNMENTASSOCIATION'S CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE'S BOARD
No one sector has a monopoly of good practice - the statutory, voluntaryand private sectors all have parts to play. Working in partnershipthrough children's trusts and local area agreements, it is the job oflocal authorities to have a strategic overview in their areas.
They have to orchestrate and bring out the best of what every serviceand organisation has to contribute, so children and families are offeredthe help they need.
YES - ELAINE PEACE, UK DIRECTOR CHILDREN'S SERVICES, NCH
However, it's not about the type of provider, it's about their abilityto deliver services, particularly to vulnerable and hard-to-reachgroups. We've moved away from the idea of public sector good, privatesector bad to a mixed economy, but different providers have differentstrengths, which have to be evaluated. The voluntary sector has anadvantage in that it has an understanding of how to engage withvulnerable and disadvantaged groups.
