Sure Start

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, the point of having much more information available to parents is that we hope that that will empower them to have more say in the system. We are also looking at trialling payment by results in Sure Start children’s centres, which we think will lead to better services, targeted more on those suffering from the greatest disadvantage. This approach will, I hope, improve the quality of the services delivered through this vital part of early years provision.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is some correlation between the removal of a number of preventive services at local authority level, Sure Start centres being one, and the rise in the number of children who are coming before the courts? This October, a record number of children came before the courts and then went into care. Do the Government not have a view about the need for local authorities to continue to improve their preventive services to keep children with their families rather than having the high level of removal that is happening at the moment?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree on the importance of that. We must do all that we can to try to keep families together and children with their families. That strikes me as being vital and that is one reason why the Government are looking at ways of trying to trial more support for parents, looking at ways of putting extra funding into Relate to keep families together and, more generally, looking at the whole adoption system and the range of support that we make available for children. However, I agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of that.