What have the Lib Dems done for us?

It is nearly two-and-a-half years since those famous five days of intensive post-election negotiations resulted in the coalition agreement. Now the Liberal Democrats are preparing to stage their annual conference, with coalition tensions on the rise. But in a Tory-dominated government, what impact on children’s policy can be attributed to the junior partner in the alliance?

Sarah Teather, as children’s minister at the Department for Education (DfE), and Paul Burstow, as care services minister at the Department of Health, have been the Lib Dem protagonists on children’s issues, only to be removed by David Cameron in his reshuffle.

While it is impossible to neatly disentangle certain policy areas as purely Conservative or purely Liberal Democrat, some bear the influence and resolve of the smaller party.

PUPIL PREMIUM
What is the policy?
The Lib Dems’ 2010 election manifesto called for £2.5bn of additional annual funding to support England’s most disadvantaged pupils.

What has the government done?
The pupil premium was introduced in 2011 and allocated based on the number of pupils eligible for free school meals and in care. The total funding for 2012/13 is £1.25bn, the equivalent of £600 for each eligible pupil. Funding is set to rise to £2.5bn a year by 2014.

How is the policy working in practice?
The idea emerged in large part from a working paper in 2002, Learning from Europe: Lessons in Education, authored by Professor Richard Grayson and Nick Clegg, then a Lib Dem MEP.

Grayson is now critical of how it is working in practice. He says its purpose in supporting disadvantaged pupils is severely undermined by wider school budget cuts and the removal of the education maintenance allowance. “I concede that the situation would be even worse without it, but you can’t call it a premium any more,” he says.

A survey by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) released in May suggests that half of all heads believe the premium has not made up for losses elsewhere.

Schools have the freedom to decide how they spend the premium and Clegg has pledged that Ofsted inspectors will look “forensically” at this. However, NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby says: “There is a fear of not being able to prove it is helping disadvantaged pupils, so many schools are opting for one-to-one tuition since it is easy to show where the money is being spent. But £600 for a pupil doesn’t go very far at all and maybe buys just 10 or so hours of one-to-one tuition, which is not the most cost-effective way of using the money.”

Martin Johnson, deputy general secretary at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, adds that heads are finding it difficult to locate evidence of what interventions work best: “Getting access to the wide array of academic research that is available can be hard.”

The Education Endowment Foundation’s free online toolkit is one attempt to bring this research together. Its evaluation manager, Camilla Nevill, explains: “We look at models such as investing in teaching or breakfast clubs, measure it against the available evidence and show whether it is cost-effective.” It identifies peer tutoring, where pupils take on teaching roles, and meta-cognitive (sometimes known as “learning to learn”) strategies as examples of support that has “high impact for low cost”.

Further evidence of whether schools are successfully using the money to benefit disadvantaged pupils should emerge early next year when a DfE evaluation and Ofsted survey are released.

CHILD DETENTION
What is the policy?
The Lib Dems pledged in their 2010 manifesto to end child detention, a policy that made it unequivocally into the coalition agreement: “We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes.”

What has the government done?
In December 2010, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg closed the family unit at Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire. He pledged to put an end to all detention of children for immigration purposes by May 2011 and create a “totally new process for families in the immigration system”. This has included the opening of Cedars, a “pre-departure accommodation” facility near Gatwick Airport that is operated by the UK Border Agency.

How is the policy working in practice?
According to latest government figures, 23 children were detained under the Immigration Act in July 2012, 12 of them in Cedars and 11 in Tinsley House, also near Gatwick. Of those held, four were under the age of five.

Judith Dennis, policy officer at the Refugee Council, says: “Quite simply, detention of children for immigration purposes has not ended.” She says the closure of the Yarl’s Wood unit is an improvement and acknowledges that Cedars “offers a far better environment”, but adds: “Children are still being locked in and we believe that their detention for any period of time is unnecessary and harmful.”

Dennis also believes that the number of children being detained may be even higher due to UK Border Agency officers wrongly identifying older children who arrive in the UK on their own as adults. The Refugee Council’s report in May, Not A Minor Offence, details Home Office figures showing that during 2011, there were 354 asylum applications from those who claimed to be children but whose age was disputed by the border agency.

Kamena Dorling, policy and programmes manager at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, says it continues to be concerned that Cedars is simply a “rebranding” of the Yarl’s Wood family unit. During 2011, 99 children were detained at either Tinsley House or Cedars and 20 in adult immigration removal centres. Thus far in 2012, 113 children have been held in detention, says Dorling. She points out that child detention is limited to a maximum of one week, but says those working with families are reporting problems with “access to legal advice, healthcare provision and the use of force”.

Dorling adds: “The negative effects are well known. We call on the government to live up to its commitment and ensure that the practice is stopped completely.”

EARLY YEARS SUPPORT
What is the policy?
To improve support for families with young children by increasing the entitlement to free childcare, ensuring more men work in early years settings and slimming down the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

What has the government done?
Under former Lib Dem children’s minister Sarah Teather, the eligibility criteria for free childcare were widened. As well as three- and four-year-olds, from September 2013 around 150,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds will be entitled to 15 hours of free childcare, rising to 260,000 by 2014, funded through the dedicated schools grant. A slimmed-down EYFS comes into force this month. The government is due to respond later this year to Professor Cathy Nutbrown’s independent review of early years qualifications, which called for increasing entry-level qualifications to raise standards and make childcare more attractive as a career. It is now up to new Conservative junior minister Elizabeth Truss to pick up the mantle in early years.

How is the policy working in practice?
The government’s decision to fund the free entitlement through the dedicated schools grant, rather than the early intervention grant where money was not ringfenced, has been welcomed. Daycare Trust chief executive Anand Shukla says: “This protects the money and will go a long way to reducing child poverty.” Ten local authorities are piloting the 15 hours offer of free childcare to 1,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds from this month, following separate trials in other areas.

But Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, says consultation between councils and providers on the two-year-old entitlement has been patchy. She says: “In some areas, providers are reporting that they are proactively involved with councils on rolling this out, but others have had no contact.”

Providers also continue to be concerned that they will not be fully reimbursed for the cost of offering the free hours to disadvantaged two-year-olds, based on their experience with the free entitlement for three- and four-year-olds. A Pre-school Learning Alliance survey of providers found that 62 per cent do not receive enough money to cover their costs of the free entitlement for this existing group. Tanuku says: “Helping disadvantaged two-year-olds requires additional resources. There are also additional costs for providers, as staff are more likely to spend time off-site at social care conferences, for example.”

The revised early years framework, which slashed the number of learning goals for children from 69 to 17, came into effect this month. Shukla has been impressed by the “well-run” consultation on the revamp and says “the early signs are positive” that it will be easier for staff to manage.

However, there has been no progress to address gender imbalance in the sector. According to the latest government figures, the proportion of men working in full-time childcare remains at just two per cent. Tanuku adds: “Not only do pay and qualifications in the sector need to be reviewed, but a fundamental change in attitude and perception in society as a whole is required.” 

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
What is the policy?
The Lib Dem manifesto called for improvements to special educational needs (SEN) provision as part of a wider principle “to unlock children’s potential and to ensure that they can succeed in life”.

What has the government done?
The SEN green paper, Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability, was released in May 2011. It pledged a single education, health and care plan for children and young people; personal budgets for parents of children with SEN; and partnerships between organisations supporting children. Pathfinders in 20 areas have been testing these measures, and this month the government announced draft SEN provisions to be included in next year’s Children and Families Bill. 

How is the policy working in practice?
Teather had been a driving force in government to improve SEN support, but admitted to education select committee members shortly after the green paper was released that “trying to get the health service, along with education and social care, to join up together [would be] difficult”.

A year on and Christine Lenehan, director of the Council for Disabled Children, says there is still a problem with bringing professionals together to support children: “They have different priorities and cultures and that situation hasn’t been resolved.” She adds that some pathfinder areas have also experienced difficulties in “managing the expectations of parents”. In one pilot area, Wiltshire, parent Debbie Sayers is considering legal action against the county council after it declined to consider her bid for a personal budget for her son’s speech and language therapy. She says that under the terms of the SEN pathfinder, the council must consider her application; the council is disputing this, with a spokeswoman saying: “We are looking to keep the pilot small and that is not an area we are testing.”

Despite such problems, Lenehen is supportive of the coalition’s focus on SEN reform. She says: “It’s a good path that the government is going down. They have raised disabled children up the political agenda and a lot of what is being proposed is not costly.”

The draft provisions of the Children and Families Bill place a duty on councils and health trusts to jointly commission services for SEN children, promote services for disabled children and provide personal budgets for parents of SEN children. Lenehen says: “If you use language such as ‘duty’ then it builds a sense of priority, particularly among the councils that are not embracing partnerships and choice for parents.”

Jo Campion, head of campaigns at the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS), is less optimistic. “The Children and Families Bill  provisions still lack teeth,” she says. “Already there are equality laws that say families need to be consulted before changes are made to SEN services. But time and again councils are not consulting parents when they plan to cut services. What is to stop councils from ignoring this bill as well?”

Wider government cuts to SEN support are also hindering efforts to improve services, she says. According to the latest figures compiled by NDCS, one-third of councils will be cutting their special education support for deaf children by March next year. “Half of these cuts will result in fewer teachers for the deaf,” warns Campion. “The others include cuts to training. Teachers of the deaf will be vital to implementing assessments and joint plans. How can that happen if there aren’t any specialist teachers left?”

CHILD MENTAL HEALTH
What is the policy?
All children and adults with mental health issues should have access to therapy and support at the earliest opportunity.

What has the government done?
Former Lib Dem health minister Paul Burstow launched the No Health Without Mental Health strategy in February 2011. This pledged £400m to improve access to therapy for all adults and children and focused on the importance of early intervention.

How is it working in practice?
The government has allocated £54m until 2015 to the children and young people’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. The first areas to offer this were announced last year, with more unveiled this summer.

While children’s mental health charities welcome this investment, they are concerned about how it will be implemented in the face of cuts to child and adolescent mental health services. Rhian Beynon, head of policy and campaigns at Family Action, which is part of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, says Burstow “deserves credit”, but adds: “The cuts mean money is having to be focused where problems are getting out of hand, and we are not seeing the investment in early intervention that is needed.”

Biddy Youell, chair of the Association of Child Psychotherapists, is concerned that IAPT will not be able to adequately support those with complex therapeutic needs. “One of our concerns is over the range of support that will be offered,” says Youell. “Already we are seeing a reluctance among trusts and councils to spend money on the more complex support.”

Barbara Rayment, director of Youth Access and chair of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, says: “There is work going on to increase the range of therapy on offer, but it is too early to say whether it is already improving access. IAPT has real potential, but it has come about at a time of cuts to the voluntary and youth sector organisations that can deliver that early support.”

Rayment adds that the coalition’s focus on localism sometimes puts up another obstacle: “It is all very well the government saying that young people’s mental health is a priority, but if the local area does not think so, not much can be done.”

Barbara McIntosh, head of children and young people’s programmes at the Mental Health Foundation, laments the strategy’s lack of focus on supporting new mothers with post-natal depression and their infants. “There needs to be a much greater shift in government funding towards mental health support in early years if they genuinely want to focus on early intervention,” she adds.