The government's proposal to roll out children's trusts across the country by 2006 before the model has been evaluated has been criticised by leading figures in social care and education, writes Amy Taylor.
Speaking at a conference on children's trusts, Christine Davies, corporate director of education and culture at Telford and Wrekin Council, said that evaluation of the pathfinder children's trusts - only announced in July - was essential before the children's green paper proposal went ahead.
"The government needs to evaluate the success of children's trusts before rolling them out across the country," she said.
Helen Goody, social services and health programme manager at the Local Government Association, agreed that it was “a bit premature to roll something out when you don't know how it is working”.
Goody also expressed concerns about the government's target to have trusts across the whole country by 2006. "Partnership working is about giving up stuff and it takes time, you can't do it unless you trust the others around the table," she said.
Andrew Christie, assistant director of children's services at Hammersmith and Fulham Council, which is piloting a children’s trust, agreed that the target was "ambitious" and doubted it would be met. He added that a lack of evaluation would mean that trusts had to "learn on the go".
Davies described how the education sector would need some time to get used to jointly commissioning services with health and social services, as required under the children’s trust model. "Education has come late to the commissioning process and it has got some learning to do," she said.
She added that, although some of the education sector was sceptical about how trusts would benefit them, she saw education as having a lot to gain. She said the new structure would help the sector to address issues such as mental health and behavioural problems experienced by pupils.
