The Children’s Plan

On the 12 December 2007, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) published ‘The Children’s Plan: building brighter futures’.

The plan sets out the Government’s ambitions for children and young people over the next ten years. It details how the DCSF will work with government, councils and other stakeholders to realise these objectives.

In December 2008, DCSF published 'The Children’s Plan: One Year On', restating its commitment to put children and young people at the heart of everything they do.

The Children's Plan: building brighter futures – on the DCSF website

The Children’s Plan: One Year On – on the DCSF website

Steve Walker, the Improvement and Development Agency's (IDeA’s) Principal Consultant for Children and Young People, outlines the main aims of the plan, and how it will affect local government:

• Main announcements and initiatives
• What the plan aims to do
• Implications for councils
• Useful links: where to find out more

Main announcements and initiatives

Main announcements in the Children’s Plan include:

• £225 million will be invested so that up to 3,500 playgrounds can be rebuilt or renewed and 30 new supervised adventure playgrounds, designed for eight to 13-year-olds, can be built in deprived communities.
•  £160 million will be allocated to improve the quality and range of places for young people to go and things for them to do.
• £100 million to extend the offer of free childcare places to 20,000 two-year-olds from disadvantaged families, building on the current childcare offer to all three and four-year-olds.
•  A ‘root and branch’ review of the primary level curriculum – lead by Sir Jim Rose – to ease the transition from early years into school will sharpen the focus on maths and English and give teachers more flexibility in the school day.
• Planning guidance will help councils develop more child-friendly environments, encouraging them to create more 20mph speed limit zones, particularly near play parks.
•  £18 million over the next three years will be invested in new home safety equipment, including stair gates and fire alarms, targetted at the most vulnerable families.
• £18 million will be invested in additional support for specific groups of children with special educational needs and disabilities.

Greater personalisation of learning, includes expanding the ‘testing when ready’ assessment method nationally. Parent-held progress records will be developed so that parents can track their child's progress in maths, English, languages, sport, music and other school activities. All children will have a named support teacher who will maintain regular contact with parents.

Some of the policy initiatives announced in the Children’s Plan

•  Working with the NHS and other partners, the DCSF and Department of Health (DH) will publish a child health strategy in spring 2008.
•  Child and adolescent mental health services will be reviewed to identify whether specialist support services can be improved for the growing number of children and young people with mental health needs.
•  An independent assessment will be commissioned to understand the impact of the commercial world on children's wellbeing.
•  An action plan, to be published in 2008, will tackle housing overcrowding and prioritise children's needs in housing decisions, especially the need to stay close to services like schools.
• Ofsted will be asked to lead a full review into the quality of special education needs provision, to start in 2009.
• The Government will invest £26.5 million on piloting new forms of teaching children excluded from school, including studio schools, which specialise in work-based learning and vocational training.
• Working with the Home Office, £66 million will be invested to target young people most at risk of offending.
• A green paper – in spring 2008 – will look at what happens when young offenders leave custody, and how to improve the education they receive in custody.
• A youth alcohol action plan will be published in spring 2008 – around the same time as the new drugs strategy – which will improve alcohol education in schools and consider the case for further action on alcohol advertising.

Priorities for 2009

The 'Children’s Plan: One Year On' sets out what DCSF intends to achieve in 2009 to make the Children’s Plan vision a reality. The department intends to enshrine in law its commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020, and publish a routemap for achieving that goal. The department also intends to:

• support social workers, teachers and health professionals to be ambitious, respected, and committed to partnership working and excellent practice
• give young people more local responsibility, and more of a say in the issues that affect them
• give every council at least £1m to improve local play areas, and involve families and children in improving neighbourhoods
• support schools in developing their role as a vital community resource, making it easier for them to work in partnership with parents, other schools and colleges, and wider children’s services.

What the plan aims to do

The Children’s Plan is underpinned by five principles:

1. Government does not bring up children – parents and families do – so government needs to do more to back parents and families.
2. All children have the potential to succeed and should go as far as their talents can take them.
3. Children and young people need to enjoy their childhood as well as grow up prepared for adult life.
4. Services need to be shaped by and responsive to children, young people and families, not designed around professional boundaries.
5. It is always better to prevent failure than tackle a crisis later.

The plan draws together a number of the themes and messages from existing policies – such as ‘Care matters: aiming high for disabled children’ and ‘Think family’ – and signposts several new initiatives. 

The plan marks a much wider remit for the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) than the former education department. This includes policies for family life that reach far beyond the classroom.

The plan emphasises the role that councils have as place-shapers in developing communities that are child-friendly and involve children and young people.

It also emphasises councils’ leadership role – through directors for children’s services and lead members for children – in providing effective strategic leadership to children’s trusts.

Children’s trusts are expected to bring together all services and agencies that affect children and young people. These include, for example, transport, planning and housing to deliver better outcomes for children and young people in all aspects of their lives.

The effectiveness of councils in providing strategic leadership will be monitored through local area agreements (LAAs). These emphasise councils’ role in driving improvement and sustaining effective partnerships.

To support this work, the DCSF will work with the Local Government Association (LGA). They will encourage the development of council-directed improvement programmes and capacity building.

Capacity will also be supported through the new Centre for Excellence and Outcomes. This will begin work in July 2008

A new programme to improve commissioning practice will be developed with council, health and voluntary sector partners to support children’s trusts in building world-class systems.

The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes will review the evidence base for what works, and will work in local areas and apply this in context.

The vision set out in the Children’s Plan sees schools as central to their communities. They will be designed differently and encouraged to make more effective links with the NHS and other services.

Child health services, social care, advice, welfare services and police will, where possible, be located on the same sites. This will ensure services are more integrated and more convenient for children and their families. 

Implications for councils

The Children’s Plan has a number of core messages that have clear implications for councils:

1. Providing safe and child-friendly environments

Councils must be certain that they have systems in place to ensure that all council services, affecting children and young people, are working together.

Councils should identify children and young people as a priority. They should consider possible implications for children and young people in all decision making processes. 

One way of achieving this is for councils to broaden current children’s trust arrangements. This should include all departments and agencies whose services affect children directly.  Their contribution to the safety and wellbeing of children and their environment should be incorporated in council’s children and young people’s plans.

Through the Planning for Excellence Network, the IDeA will work with those involved in planning for children and young people to help councils develop good plans.

2. Service Integration

The plan emphasises the importance of agencies, including the voluntary sector, working together. This will ensure that all children and young people and their parents who require support, receive it in a coordinated manner.

Particular importance is placed on planning. This includes processes for joint working –particularly through Contact Point and the Common Assessment Framework – commissioning arrangements and co-location of services, particularly in children’s centres and schools.

The IDeA will continue to help councils develop services by identifying, disseminating and promoting good practice. To support joint working, the IDeA will publish a toolkit to help multi-agency teams evaluate and improve their effectiveness.

The IDeA is planning a series of workshops on commissioning early in 2008.

The development of schools as integrated service centres goes beyond extended schools. Councils should consider the possibilities for co-locating services to support communities when planning their strategies for school development.

The IDeA will continue to update lead members with the Government’s plans for schools through their work with Training and Development Agency (TDA) and ContinYou.

3. Personalisation

The Children’s Plan emphasises the need for services – including education and social care – to be based on the child’s needs and stage of development, rather than age. Councils are encouraged to build their processes around the child rather than expecting the child to fit the process. The IDeA will continue to identify and disseminate good practice in this area.

4. Overcoming disadvantage.

A number of initiatives in the plan focus on children and young people who experience disadvantage.

Councils are expected to be able to identify children and young people experiencing disadvantage. This includes, for example, poverty, being looked after or asylum seeking.

Councils should ensure services and support are available so these children and young people can reach their potential.

The Government intends to use a variety of assessment tools to monitor councils’ progress in reducing inequalities and disadvantage. These include the new national indicator set, the NHS outcomes framework, local area agreements (LAAs) and comprehensive area assessments.

Through our Children and Young People (CYP) resource, Adults and children's services Community of Practice (CoP) and regional networks, the IDeA will gather and disseminate good practice from across the sector.

5. Improvement

The plan emphasises the strategic role that councils have in leading and driving improvement. It also acknowledges the considerable expertise in the sector.

The scope of change

The Children’s Plan brings together several initiatives. The IDeA will continue to support lead members for children’s services through the making children matter leadership academy and its regional networks. This will give members the opportunity to reflect on issues and share good practice.   

Useful links: where to find out more

Training and Development Agency website

ContinYou – changing lives through learning website

Children and Young People resource

Adults and children's services Community of Practice (CoP)

Regional networks

Adults, children, health and well-being programme

Page updated May 2010.