WIREDGOV

The "children's trusts" created by the government after the death of Victoria Climbie have been confused and confusing, according to an evaluation by the Audit Commission published today, Wednesday 29 October 2008.

Five years after the green paper Every Child Matters and eight years after the child's death, "there is little evidence of better outcomes for children and young people" resulting from the requirement that local areas in England set up special panels to coordinate services.

But on the ground professionals are working together, often through informal arrangements outside the trust framework. Trusts get in the way: a third of directors of children's services say the purpose of the trusts is "unclear", and the uncertainty is hampering their efforts to deliver better services.

Progress has been made in bringing professionals together, but sometimes by navigating around the "centrally-directed approach". Local agreements worked better than external direction, the study found.

The Audit Commission's study is the first independent assessment of the government's scheme for bringing together the professionals involved with children. In the official inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie published in 2003, Lord Laming had complained about lack of joining up.

The Audit Commission study found too much time and energy being expended on "structures and process" at the expense of improving the lives of children and young people and their families. Whitehall had focused on "organisational blueprints" and different departments had taken conflicting lines in their guidance to councils.

In a blow to government hopes for streamlining of services locally, there was little evidence children's trusts had offered value for money improvements.

The government insisted they were given the ambiguous title "trusts", even though at the same time the label was being applied to completely different bodies operating in primary care and hospitals and adult social care - "care trusts" were introduced by the Department of Health in 2002. "This sowed the seeds of later and continuing confusion".

The government has been too prescriptive, the study concludes. "There is a tension in mandating partnership working; the greatest benefit comes from common ownership of problems, rather than merely responding to external direction".

The main findings are:

• Children's trusts have little if any oversight of budgets and money for children's services;
• The relationship between trusts and other local partnerships is unclear;
• Children's trusts are unsure whether they are strategic planning bodies or concerned with the detail of service delivery;
• In going ahead with trusts, the government seemed to have ignored the results of its own pilot study; and
• There is little evidence that mainstream money has been redirected by children's trusts.

The Commission recommends:

• Whitehall should remove barriers to local schemes of cooperation;
• Children and young people themselves should have more say in how children's services are designed;
• "Missing partners" should be brought in, notably GPs and agencies concerned with jobs and skills;
• Children's trusts should do more to involve schools and GPs, Connexions and other agencies; and
• Better integration of children's trusts with other local partnerships.

Notes to editors

1. The report on the death of Victoria Climbie by Lord Laming in 2003 recommended services for children and their families be better integrated. Following the green paper Every Child Matters, the government said local areas in England should have children's trusts, their legal basis established in the Children Act 2004.
2. Researchers questioned England's children's directors (eight out of ten of whom responded), leading councillors, health bodies, police, schools and voluntary bodies. They visited eight areas to review them in depth between November 2007 and April this year.
3. The Department for Children, Schools and Families is preparing new guidance on the operation of children's trusts.