Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who has taken a strong interest in this matter. I have heard him speak in the House on behalf of his constituents on a number of occasions, and once again he comes up with an excellent idea, which we shall follow up.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The Government’s own figures show that Somerset’s rate of access to superfast broadband is only 41%, which hardly meets the needs of rural businesses and residents. Connecting Devon and Somerset allows bids from other suppliers in the Dartmoor and Exmoor national parks, but I understand that, because of the reason of screening of information, only BT, as a monopoly supplier, will be able to bid for the second phase. I have written to the Competition and Markets Authority; will the Secretary of State do the same and investigate exactly what has happened?

[Sajid Javid]

As my hon. Friend raises a specific issue, I will have to take a closer look at it. I am glad that she has written to the Competition and Markets Authority, but if this is a competition issue, it should be dealt with by the independent regulator. However, if there is more that she thinks I can do, I shall take a closer look.

Post Office Mediation Scheme

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Arbuthnot]

My hon. and learned Friend makes an interesting point. The thing that I am worried about most is that it is often impossible to find those flaws in the software that could have caused some of these problems. Second Sight’s interim report did not find major problems with the software, but as I said at the beginning that does not mean that such problems did not exist.

To my mind, the Post Office’s behaviour towards MPs gives some credence to the complaints that have been made by sub-postmasters about its behaviour towards them; if the Post Office can treat MPs like that, how will it deal with people who are frightened and bankrupt? Somehow in all of this saga, although it is hard to think that it would be possible, the Post Office has managed to tarnish its own reputation still further, while again tarnishing the reputation of sub-postmasters.

As right hon. and hon. Members know, I have handed on the mantle of this campaign to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), and I am very pleased to see him in Westminster Hall today. That is partly because I will not be standing in the general election next year, but it is also because, frankly, I no longer trust the Post Office and I will not be negotiating with it further. I did not, as some newspaper reports suggested, withdraw the support of 150 MPs, because I have no right to do so. I withdrew my own personal support and what right hon. Members and hon. Members do now is, of course, up to them.

However, there are other avenues that need to be taken. We need a review by the Government, because we own this organisation. That review must be entirely independent of the Post Office, which has shown it cannot be trusted on the issue. Possibly there should be a special ombudsman.

In my letter to the chief executive of the Post Office, I asked for three things. I asked for no further destruction of documents, and by documentation I mean not only the documentation for those people who are within the mediation scheme but the documentation for those people who have not managed, for one reason or another, to get into the scheme. They have been mentioned already.

I hope the Government can prevent the Post Office from pleading the statute of limitations, because sub-postmasters’ legal actions—some of them caused by the behaviour of the Post Office—should not be barred by the passage of time. I hope that the Post Office and the Government can agree that hon. and right hon. Members should be briefed by Second Sight, not on individual cases, but on the way the mediation scheme has gone.

I wrote a letter to the Post Office at the beginning of last week asking for these things, but I have had no response.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend has already mentioned that evidence needed to investigate complaints by the applicants should not be destroyed. Might he, in his position as leader of this debate, make sure that the Minister asks that the Post Office guarantees that the material gathered and produced by Second Sight remains in Second Sight’s possession and that control of it cannot be given up and that it cannot be destroyed if or when the Post Office instructs Second Sight to do just that?

Ofsted

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I wish to make a short contribution, and the title of the debate enables me to do precisely that. I want to raise a matter on behalf of a constituent.

The debate relates to the accountability of Ofsted, and we all hope that Ofsted inspectors do their work in a fair, constructive and objective way. However, occasionally, judgments can go awry, and they sometimes have a serious impact.

A constituent submitted concerns to Ofsted about her son’s school and his treatment in that school. She was assured by an Ofsted inspector in writing that Ofsted had not revealed to the school that she had made a complaint. However, she has had sight of official documents showing that Ofsted did make the school aware that she had been in touch with inspectors.

I would like to ask the Minister specifically how my constituent and I can challenge Ofsted about its behaviour, which is unacceptable, a complete breach of trust and contrary to the whole notion of whistleblowing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s insight, analysis and recommendations as to what more we can do to ensure that children who need their voice to be heard have the requisite support from people who can provide them with the guidance and trust that are often lacking among other professionals. I am happy to talk to him about his suggestion. We have had some extremely exciting bids in this area through the innovation fund programme, which I will be able to say more about in the coming weeks. As I say, I shall be more than happy to discuss the subject with him in due course.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Somerset county council has withdrawn regular checks on children educated at home, stating that it will contact families only if it is

“advised that Elective Home Education is not happening or is unsuitable.”

Does the Minister recognise that it is necessary to check systematically so that children at risk are identified, along with parents and carers who need support to deliver education, because otherwise school is often the only place where children at risk can have contact with other adults?

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Lady refers to the recent Ofsted inspection in Somerset and the need for Somerset’s children’s services to make marked improvements in its response to ensure that children are safe. The example she has given is an element of that on which it needs to improve. I will not comment on the specific work that needs to be done, which has been well documented. She knows, as do her colleagues across Somerset, that I am determined to do whatever it takes to ensure the children in Somerset get the support and care they need so that they have a safe and fulfilling upbringing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I am sure that pizzas were not being delivered last night to the Labour women’s dinner, which I gather took place at the Imperial War museum. No doubt the hon. Lady will want to join me in congratulating the museum, which is so ably led by Di Lees, on its magnificent refurbishment, which has introduced the world war one galleries.

I am pleased to confirm that we are bang on target for our roll-out of superfast broadband. We expect to deliver it to 90% of premises by early 2016, but I expect that, given the pace of the programme, we shall exceed that target. The mobile infrastructure project is a pioneering project which has already brought many benefits to rural areas, and I am pleased to see that the super-connected voucher scheme is well under way.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I spoke to the Minister again in July about broadband in my area, and showed him the map of the proposed coverage. It seems that exchanges just a couple of miles away from main roads such as the A38 and the A370, where fibre-optic cables were laid years ago, cannot be connected, and—to use BT Openreach’s description—the “poor-quality cables” around new cabinets that have been fitted in places such as Wells mean that previously generally reliable but slow services running at 750 kilobits have become desperately unreliable and pathetically slow, at about 250 kilobits. There is no point in changing the provider, because all the signals are carried over the same wires. What do my constituents have to do to get superfast broadband?

[Mr Vaizey]

We are delivering superfast broadband to Devon and Somerset, and under our programme, which is worth some £50 million, it will reach 90% of premises. However, as my hon. Friend says, this is a very complex engineering project which involves very complex work. I am particularly happy to praise the work that BT has done in many areas where it is already well ahead of schedule.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

Schools and local authorities are delivering on this policy. We have allocated an additional £150 million for 2015-16. In addition, local authorities have a budget for improving maintenance of £1.2 billion to call on, if they wish to do so.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Minutes of a meeting of governors at the Duke of York’s Royal Military school held on 26 November last year note that the Ministry of Defence, the school’s sponsor “were not keen” to be involved with military academies due to “reputational risk”. Will the Secretary of State elaborate on what that reputational risk comprises, say whether it applies to all military schools sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and enlighten the House about what discussions have taken place between her Department and the Ministry of Defence?

[Mr Laws]

We support the contacts between the military school and state school systems. I am happy to look at the points that my hon. Friend has raised and to write to her about them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn). [Interruption.] She has had one go; that is enough. May I say, however, that I echo entirely what the Minister has said? This House is losing far too many outstanding Members, and far too many outstanding female Members.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

There is a conflict of interest when abuse is alleged in independent and military fee-paying schools, in that the interests of children as possible victims are pitched against those of the schools, which want to protect their reputation in order to maintain fee income. Will the Minister look again at introducing mandatory reporting by staff who become aware of abuse allegations to a designated local authority officer, rather than simply requiring the reporting of abuse to a senior teacher or manager in the school?

[Mr Timpson]

The Working Together guidance, which was revised in 2013, makes abundantly clear the responsibility of all professionals who work with children to keep them safe. The evidence, internationally and from experts such as Eileen Munro, makes it clear that mandatory reporting does not necessarily make children safer and that it can have unintended consequences. We continue to look at the arguments, but at the moment the Government are not convinced that mandatory reporting is the way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Elphicke]

I, too, have a long history with the Bill, having served in Committee, and being here for its final Commons stage today. It has been a real privilege to watch a master class from my hon. Friend the Minister in how to pilot a Bill with great dignity, courtesy and endless quantities of patience.

I also wish to pay tribute to the shadow Minister, who is no longer in her place but performed her role in Committee with great aplomb. She has handed over to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), whom I pressed earlier on the subject of childminders. It has been a pleasure to serve on this landmark Bill, and it will also be a pleasure to see it brought into force.

I shall concentrate on one basic statistic. In 1986, the employment rate for mothers whose youngest child is under three was 25%. Today, it is 56% and rising. That matters because it says everything about how the world has changed. If so many more women are in work—more than half of all mothers with children under three—child care is instantly an issue. That is why I raised the issue of childminders. In my constituency, if a family is above the benefits threshold but cannot afford £10,000 or so a year for a nursery, it has a real problem. That is why childminders are so important for that intermediate child care and why I make the case for the need to consider people in that salary band. There is a lot of deprivation in my constituency, and many people in low-skilled, low-paid work are in that position.

It also means that, because both partners are in work, parental love, affection and child care have to be juggled. Involvement in the child’s life has been transformed in the past 25 years: fathers are more involved with their children. Both parents are more involved with their children than ever before because of social change. That is why I welcome the changes in the Bill that relate to parental leave. Shared parental leave is a recognition of how the world has changed so very much.

I have raised the issue of contact many times in this place: the rights of children to have access to their parents. I thank the shadow Minister for using that formulation, because it is very important. It is a damning statistic that, of the 3 million children who live apart from a parent, 1 million have no contact with a parent three years after separation. That is really tragic, particularly given the way the world has changed. One parent, who was heavily involved in a child’s upbringing, is suddenly no longer there at all. That is destabilising to the child. That is why, in times past, I brought in a Bill to this House to enforce contact properly and place a duty on all. The right is not the right of the parent, but the right of the child to know and have a relationship with both their parents: the right of the child to have access to their parents.

This massive social change over the past 25 years matters so much because not all our judiciary are young people living the lives of modern parents seeking to get by. Not all academics or our social work establishment are young and as aware as they could be in their daily lives of this particular situation. It is for that reason that I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on her passionate, heartfelt and deeply thoughtful speech. She is absolutely right in all she says. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on taking up this case originally and putting it forward.

The statistic on the involvement of both parents in the life of their child is particularly relevant to clause 11, which states

“unless the contrary is shown, that involvement of that parent in the life of the child concerned will further the child’s welfare.”

I, too, share the concerns raised today that the amendment originally tabled by Baroness Butler-Sloss in the Lords Grand Committee risks watering that down. I recognise my hon. Friend the Minister’s assurances when he says that he is confident that the amendment does not alter the meaning of the clause or its intended effect. I hope that that will be reflected in the guidance issued to the family division, and that the family division will take note of that. It is really important that this principle is not ceded, particularly given that Baroness Butler-Sloss included not just the irrelevant issue of the division of a child’s time that resulted from the Norgrove report getting distracted by the Australian experience and the issue of the direct and indirect access.

It would not be right to have a situation in which the only contact for a parent who has been heavily involved in a child’s life is a phone call at Christmas, a book of photographs or the odd letter exchange. That does not constitute a right to know and a relationship with both parents. The right of children to have access to both their parents is essential. It matters because they may wish to turn one parent or to the other parent for mentorship, guidance, love and affection. We should enable that to happen. We should recognise that the world has changed.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Of course, children will have access to their further family through both parents, so it is critical that they have an absolute right to direct, physical contact, and that should be a presumption, unless there is a proven safety reason.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tessa Munt]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Timpson]

Very briefly.

[Tessa Munt]

Will the Minister clarify absolutely that the presumption is that children should always have a right to have access to both parents, unless it is proven that it is not safe for them to be with one parent or the other?

[Mr Timpson]

As I made clear earlier in the debate, the paramountcy principle still holds in this case, as does the need to ensure that the child in question would be safe. That has to be the case, but what kicks in under those circumstances is the presumption that the child will have a relationship with both parents. That is an important change that we should all support.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to share some well deserved thanks.

Children’s Centres (Somerset)

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I have asked for this debate because I have been contacted by parents and carers, contractors, staff and members of the advisory boards connected with three of the children’s centres in my part of Somerset—Cheddar, Wells and Chilcompton.

Sure Start children’s centres are there to protect and help the youngest in our communities, to support and help families, and to invest in the future by providing the very best start for all. In a bid to cut its budgets even further, Somerset county council has acted appallingly, proposing restructuring that will put the most vulnerable at risk and plunge those in rural areas into deeper isolation. It seems to be systematically working to undermine and undervalue the amazing work that children’s centre staff are doing to help and support young families in Somerset. In its flawed consultation exercise, the county council claimed that it needed to review children’s centre provision because

“some Children’s Centres are not performing as well as we would like”.

Rather than being honest and open with the people of Somerset about the fact that it wanted to cut 40% of the children’s centre budget, the council has sought to undermine public perceptions, no doubt seeking to whip the public into demanding the closure of children’s centres.

The mainstay of the county council’s argument is that children’s centres underperform according to Ofsted’s headline data. The council claims that only 37% of Somerset’s children’s centres have received an Ofsted grading of “good” or “outstanding”, whereas the national average is 69%. The council concludes that the 37% Ofsted figure gives it good evidence that children’s centres are not delivering help to the most vulnerable. That is simply not true. Before jumping to any conclusions, I ask the Minister to ask this more fundamental question: why are only 37%, supposedly, of the children’s centres in Somerset getting an Ofsted grade of “good” or “outstanding”? When one asks that question one gets a revealing answer.

Two children’s centres, in Wells and Chilcompton, have recently had an Ofsted inspection. When they received their feedback and report, they were commended on their delivery of support to vulnerable families across a wide and rural reach. Ofsted said that the critical services they delivered to the most vulnerable were deemed as “good”. However, when Ofsted scrutinised the support and data that the children’s centres received from their county council, they were deemed as “requiring improvement”. The county council has failed the children’s centres, not vice versa. The county council’s consistent failures led to an overall Ofsted grading of “needing improvement”, which failed both the children’s centres and the children of Somerset.

Wells and Chilcompton children’s centres are not alone. Shepton Mallet children’s centre had exactly the same outcome last year. Somerset county council is using its own incompetence as a cover for cutting services to the most vulnerable families.

Virtually every improvement suggested by the improvement plan for Chilcompton and Wells children’s centres after the October 2013 Ofsted inspection requires action by the county council, and each of the four action areas for improvement has major implications for it. The first improvement needed reads:

“Sharpen the monitoring of participation rates across all services to ensure the most vulnerable and in particular potentially isolated families can access the full range of services”.

The action required states that the local authority should

“develop and disseminate tracking tools from point of access, to show outcomes and progression”.

The second improvement needed reads:

“Improve the quality of all evaluations”,

and the action required states that the local authority should

“set clear performance indicators”

and

“implement CAF and Signs of Safety in CC’s and agree protocols with partner agencies”.

The third improvement needed reads:

“Improve the impact of leadership”,

and the action required states that the local authority should

“provide clear, simple and concise data which is more accessible & understandable to staff, to support planning and to improve outcomes”

and

“develop partnership agreements where county and district boundaries exist”.

The fourth improvement needed reads:

“Improve the role that the cluster advisory board plays in the support and challenge to the cluster”,

and the action required states that the local authority should

“devise and deliver training”

and that the local authority

“demands that Advisory Board Chairs are trained to lead an AB. But as yet there is no training course available”.

Fundamentally, under the Ofsted framework, it is absolutely impossible for a Somerset county council children’s centre to get anything better than “needs improvement”, and that is not a basis for changes to the service. Somerset county council must not be allowed to blame these failures on children’s centre staff, because they are the very people who are working so hard to keep children in Somerset safe.

Under the council’s proposed structure, the village of Chilcompton will sit in a reach from Farley Hungerford to Lydford—a distance of some 30 miles from north to south—and from Shipham to Rudge, which is 35 miles from west to east, with one manager and two deputy managers. That inevitably means that some vulnerable families will fall through the net.

Generally, these are successful universal services. For example, Wells children’s centre had 539 children registered in the past three months and 332 using at least one of the services in the same period. In October alone, 195 children and 304 parents and carers came to the centre. There are eight to 10 open cases with specific interventions in place at that single children’s centre.

There have been repeated promises since November for a new consultation. I hear repeatedly that the council has not yet made a decision about individual children’s centres, but its failure to make a decision about their future means that significant numbers of referrals are falling away. Why would an agency refer parents and carers to children’s centres, possibly for a six-month programme, when the service’s existence past 31 March is under question?

The council has moved on apace with the restructuring of children’s centre services. However, it keeps having to amend and revise its plans, because it finds that its proposals will not work. Fortunately, the council seems to have started to understand the importance of supervision and management, but that adds extra staffing costs to its model, and it cannot explain which budgets will need to be cut to meet the extra costs.

[Mr Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She is talking about cost, and I wonder whether she will momentarily engage with this thought of mine? Everybody understands that the county council needs to be as cost-efficient as possible and, on the face of it, there may be some short-term savings to be made. If, however she looks at a town such as Wiveliscombe in Taunton Deane, which has a purpose-built children’s centre, with a new doctors’ surgery being built next to it, a whole apparatus of services are available to people in that small town and the surrounding communities, of which the children’s centre is an integral part. There may be some short-term savings, but my suspicion and fear is that, overall, there will be long-term costs that are not just social, but financial, from having buildings empty and services not fully utilised.

[Tessa Munt]

I could not agree more. In a number of cases across Somerset, children’s centres are next to surgeries and schools. With a universal service, it is very easy for children and parents to get used to accessing the services that they need on an ongoing basis. Children get used to going into the surgery or the school, and it is an easy move for people to access everything that they might possibly need.

A county council report has revealed that, as many contracts are due to end in March, there is not enough time to investigate any alternative provision. Incompetence and a lack of planning mean that provider agencies are pulling away, and are quite rightly refusing to deliver services on a month-by-month extension. No one can be expected to work with such a level of uncertainty. I understand that the agencies are handing services back to Somerset, which means further costs, because partner agencies pay their family support workers more than the council does and such transfers mean that salary arrangements have to be honoured.

One of the main planks in the argument for change was the promise that there would be 30 more front-line family support workers. However, the proposed job description has added a new line, stating that family support workers are to work with children and young people between the ages of nought and 19. The county council had promised 30 more support workers for children between the ages of nought and four, but it is now watering down that service even further. The council promises one thing, and then once again cuts back on its promises behind closed doors.

[Mr Browne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for indulging me for a second time. On those promises, it seems extraordinary to me that elections for Somerset county council were held only just over six months ago, and I do not recall that any leaflets came through my door from the party that now runs the county council promising that if it had a majority, it would close children’s centres. That seems to have been sprung on the people of Somerset, after we had the opportunity to vote, when I assume that most people in the county thought that they were voting for a programme for four years, and we are now only six months after the election.

[Tessa Munt]

I have to agree again. It is fair to say that from what one can discover, the plans to cut £1.4 million from the children’s centre budget were brought forward in January or February last year, but were suppressed prior to councillors achieving re-election to the county council. It was only—very shortly—after that that the plans became evident. It seems desperately unfair on the electorate, and on the most vulnerable people who need to access the services.

Family support workers need a different skill set when they work with older children and young adults. Although I acknowledge that working with such young people is terribly important, to ask a family support worker who is gifted, skilled and qualified in working with nought to four-year-olds to work across a much larger age range dilutes their expertise and devalues their work.

It has been suggested that the decisions have already been made and that councillors have instructed officers not to work on extending the contracts because the children’s centres are likely to close. I wonder how the county council can say that it is putting £1 million into front-line services, while at the same time it is making a cut in funding of £1.4 million. Savings are being made by cutting senior service managers, children’s centre managers, day-to-day line managers and lead centre officers, as well as by reducing the number of buildings that are used. As my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) pointed out, many of those buildings were specially designed and are adjacent to schools and doctors’ surgeries so that children are familiar with where they will start their education and become used to popping into the surgery.

Not even the data quoted by the council are accurate. The council’s report states that the new Mendip east area will have 1,655 children aged nought to four. However, the data provided by the county council to the children’s centre state that there are 2,189 children of that age. Either the county council has lost 534 children in one district or the council is over-reporting the number of children in a district to the children’s centre, making it utterly impossible for the centre to reach its 80% registration target.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady will recall that when there was a statement about flooding in Somerset this afternoon, there were several Members who represent Somerset in the Chamber. However, now that we are debating the scandalous, treacherous cuts that are being made, there is not a single Conservative Member from Somerset in the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tessa Munt]

Yes, exactly. We do have one Conservative Member in the Minister, although she is not from Somerset. I thank the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) for pointing that out.

On the 80% registration target, it seems likely that the county council is aiming to make it appear as though the children’s centres are failing and to thereby make cuts a more attractive outcome.

Questions are being raised about the proposed savings. My personal feeling is that consideration should be given to the fact that the county council is sitting on massive reserves. That is money that we pay in council tax to the county council, among other councils, for it to deliver services, not to become a bank or a savings institution.

Alongside the savings that the county council is proposing, there will be additional costs, such as mileage claims from staff who have to travel across vast rural areas, additional insurance costs and hall hire. As my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane pointed out, buildings that were designed specifically to be children’s centres will also be wasted. Those elements will far outweigh the money that will be saved on the heating and lighting for 18 modern, purpose-built children’s centres. Closing those buildings is an absolute waste of taxpayers’ money. A better option, which I do not think has been pursued, might be to offset some of the costs of the children’s centre buildings by hiring out rooms to other providers, such as those who provide music lessons.

The county council considers that it can use other venues to deliver children’s centre services. We need to know whether proper risk assessments have been carried out because most community buildings are not fit for that purpose. That is why the children’s centres were built specially in the first place. Most community buildings do not have the levels of security and privacy that are needed for the sensitive work that has to be delivered.

The county council’s consultation was described by some as farcical and its independence has been questioned. The questions were not objective or fairly balanced, but were heavily loaded to make people say yes to cuts and yes to cutting rural centres in particular. There were questions such as, “Should we place resources in places where there are more children?” That will of course produce an answer that favours urban children’s centres. However, users in such areas can often walk to services or take a bus, unlike children who live in rural and isolated places in our county. The consultation was more concerned about ethnicity, sexuality and spirituality than the services delivered by children’s centres themselves. Many participants commented, but their comments have gone unanswered, and were not shown in the text of the report.

Rather than cutting funding and services, Somerset county council needs to engage actively, and to value and support the vital work that children’s services are doing in Somerset to improve the lives of young people. What has worked well locally has been early identification for families in need of universal services when access to those services has no stigma attached. Many of those services will not be available following the proposed changes. In rural areas, that will mean that many families will not have access to any services. With more family support workers and fewer managers to support the care, guidance and support given to targeted families with the greatest need, children could be put us at risk. With so many department leaders at the county level on temporary contracts, there is a lack of stability, the effects of which are felt at all levels.

I would like to quote from three letters I have received. One is from Hayley, who describes herself as

“a mum who’s feeling let down and helpless”.

She described the marvellous service at the Valley children’s centre in Cheddar, which was earmarked for closure by Somerset county council, and wrote:

“I went along to the informal ‘drop-in’ meeting, which I saw at least 40 families attend…When we asked the staff there what was happening, they told us they couldn’t discuss anything as they had been told by their bosses that they couldn’t get involved or share their opinions at all, which I found awful as their jobs are on the line here too…I was told that all services would be diverted to Highbridge as our area apparently ‘doesn’t have enough families in need’…As a non-driver, there is no bus from Cheddar or Axbridge to Highbridge at all. In fact, we’d have to take three buses to get there, and even that wouldn’t work as, like me, many of us need to be back by 3 pm to get our other children from school. I found the Cheddar children’s centre a lifesaver. I live in an isolated, very small town and don’t drive, so the children’s centre was, and still is, the only place I can get to within walking distance, as I cannot afford the buses.”

The second person I will quote is Victoria. She was really pleased that, after just three weeks, 400 signatures had been gathered to stop the Valley children’s centre from being closed. She said there had

“been no direct contact from Somerset County Council…nor any further information given about decision making…We have invited Councillor Nicholson”—

the lead member of the council on this—

“to a community cafe on Wednesday 5 February…but the invite has gone unanswered.”

Finally, Sue wrote:

“Children’s Centres give parents the tools for those relational building blocks and many other life changing benefits too, influencing two generations simultaneously, in a way that no other infrastructure organisation is set up to do. In Somerset I suggest that Children’s Centres are being deliberately set up to fail, or at the very least to be subsumed into the nebulous recesses of the ‘Early Help Strategy’ and disappear without trace in a couple of years’ time, without having delivered the promised improvement in services…but it is clear that wholesale reduction of numbers of Children’s Centres and their scope and influence is either planned or already taking place.

If the government is to seriously explore and address big social questions like family and community relationships, it doesn’t need to re-invent the wheel. The infrastructure is broadly there, but it needs to be understood, valued, nurtured and funded. So many people making crucial decisions at the moment really have no idea what Children’s Centres are or what they do, or the long-term cultural changes that they can bring about—but this needs time. If they are abandoned now, the waste of investment over the last 6 and more years will be absurd. They must be provided in the same way as schools, social services or health services, and accessible to all families. The inspection parameters are as stringent as any of the above!”

In Somerset, unfortunately, the county council’s child protection services’ Ofsted rating is the lowest, at inadequate, following an inspection in the middle of 2013. That is a catastrophic fall from the outstanding rating at which Ofsted inspectors judged child protection under the previous Administration in 2009. The whole closure plan is ill-conceived and, frankly, dangerous, so serious questions need to be asked of Somerset county council.

I wish to ask the Minister about how the county council responds to the Government’s assurances on their family, children and young people webpage that finances have not been cut, and that enough funds are available to councils to maintain children’s centre services as they are. Will she intervene and satisfy herself fully that the children of Somerset are best served by the county’s obsession with cutting services and costs, and banking the savings?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) on securing the debate. I agree with her about the vital work that professionals in children’s centres do.

Across the country, we are seeing a record number of parents and carers using children’s centres: more than 1 million last year. That shows the Government’s commitment to children’s centres and their important work. They provide crucial support for children and families: pre-natal and post-natal care, parenting classes, stay and play, and networks for parents. The Government are clear that they should be for everybody in the community, not just for some. In our guidance that we put out last year, we made it clear that local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that children’s centres are accessible to all parents.

There has been a debate on whether children’s centres should be targeted or universal. I believe that unless they are universal, we will not find the parents who need them most, and they may not come to them. It is therefore important that centres are accessible and within easy reach of parents so that all parents feel that they can use them and become part of that network. That is why, in our guidance, there is a presumption against the closure of children’s centres.

I agree, too, with my hon. Friend’s comments about integration with other services. There is clearly a lot of opportunity for better integration with health and education services in the locality. Some children’s centres—for example, one I visited recently in Watford—have a midwifery service for antenatal care. Other children’s centres provide birth registration and post-natal care. That is helpful for parents, because it provides one place for them to go to for help and advice—everybody goes through the door to register a birth, and they then become part of a parental network. That can extend to help on all kinds of issues: employment, finding a nursery place for their child and a place in local schools. All those can be accessed via children’s centres.

We are looking to councils to think of better ways to provide services that are local to parents and that integrate well with health services. With the Department of Health devolving health and wellbeing boards, there will be more opportunities for local authorities to integrate those services better, to get better value for money and to put more services on the front line, rather than spending money on bureaucracy. There is an opportunity —we have seen this across the country—for health services and children’s centres to work more as networks, in hub and spoke models, so that they are accessible to parents, while we gain efficiencies in management and the services they provide. Our guidance was clear that the key focus has to be on improving outcomes for children and families, and that is what the aim of children’s centres should be. However, we want them to achieve that in a universal fashion.

[Tessa Munt]

It is clear that the county council has not supported children’s centres in Somerset with the right data and information, and that therefore they have had catastrophic inspections results from Ofsted, but how can anyone judge how good a service is when it is downgraded because of the administration, yet the service delivered by staff is superb?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I want to come to the point about Ofsted. Last week, I spoke at a meeting of the all-party group on Sure Start children’s centres. At the moment, there is an issue with Ofsted inspections—not with their quality, but with how children’s centres are inspected. I am in discussions with Ofsted, but I think it would be more sensible to look at the overall early years support services provided by local councils through children’s centres, rather than at centres individually. A lot of councils are moving towards more of a network model, but the important thing is that parents and children can access centres and good services, and that centres reach as many people as possible. The current model—where statutory children’s centres, but not branch centres, are inspected by Ofsted—is probably not as effective as a council-based model, and I think that that is pertinent to my hon. Friend’s point. We are working on a slightly different inspection model for precisely the reasons she outlined.

I was asked where budgets were coming from. We have increased funding for early intervention from £2.1 billion to £2.5 billion in this Parliament, while the Department for Communities and Local Government has a fund for which local authorities can bid to reconfigure services in a way that suits local communities, although I have been told by Ministers that not many applications have been received from children’s services looking to reconfigure. This is an opportunity for forward-looking councils to think about how they can do things in a way that suits families, including though better co-location with GP surgeries, schools and local community facilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I have been able to identify the school and the steps being taken. I know that my hon. Friend has been in correspondence and the Secretary of State is aware of the issue. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and to write to him with those details so that we ensure that all that can be done is being done.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

In conjunction with the need for inter-agency working, will teachers be given the duty of reporting child abuse when they come across it, and will there be a duty to report that to the local authority without any qualification whatever?

[Mr Timpson]

The new statutory guidance is crystal clear about the responsibilities of all those who work with children, including in schools, and if they have a concern about a child’s welfare, safety or care they should report that to the appropriate authority. We do not believe that making failure to report a criminal offence will improve the protection of children. There is international evidence that suggests that that can make children less safe, but of course we always keep these things under review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a very acute point from a Member of Parliament who, I know, is passionate about education. I will do everything I can to ensure that all the elements that made the London challenge and black country challenge a success apply to schools in his constituency through collaboration and a culture of excellence. I look forward to talking with him about how we can work together to ensure that his championing of high educational standards can be extended across the black country.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State consider yet again the inclusion of British sign language as a GCSE subject? It is appropriate for those students who are less academic and is, after all, a language someone can use throughout the whole of their life.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

The Secretary of State can use it!