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Meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children in society requires behavioural rather than structural change, Audit Commission chairperson James Strachan told an audience of public and voluntary sector workers, writes Lauren Revans.

Speaking at a conference on whether children in the UK count, organised by 'Community Care' in association with the Association of Directors of Social Services and 'The Guardian', Strachan urged delegates to challenge children and young people’s minister Margaret Hodge over plans to prescribe change from the centre.

“In order to learn from experience, different localities will need the flexibility to introduce change that suits circumstances,” Strachan said. “It won’t always be structural change and major IT programmes. It will be about behavioural change and change in culture.”

Although he welcomed many of the changes outlined in the children’s green paper, Strachan warned of the dangers and distractions of focusing on structures alone.

He said the real test of whether children in the UK counted was whether services and the quality of life improved for the one in five children in society most in need or at risk.

Speaking at the same conference, Labour MP Hilton Dawson said it was “impossible” to say that children in the UK counted given the treatment of unaccompanied minors, children in custody, children with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups.

“Not one of us can say that, in the UK, every child matters because some palpably do not,” Dawson said.

The former social worker, who is committed to returning to the profession within the next three years, said the green paper provided “the greatest opportunity in the whole of our working lives” to transform the lives of children and build services around them.

He said he was amazed to hear social workers describe the green paper as a threat to their profession, adding that he welcomed children’s trusts and would “join in the party when social services departments are gone”. He said the green paper was, on the contrary, an opportunity to revitalise social work values.