Schools may be offered financial incentives

Schools may be offered financial incentives to get them to take
on vulnerable pupils in the future, MPs heard today,
writes Amy Taylor from the Every Child Matters
inquiry.

Hodge

Children’s minister Margaret Hodge told the Education and
Skills Committee Inquiry into the planned reforms of children
services that financial incentives were a possibility but that she
hoped they would not be necessary.

Hodge rejected arguments that the government’s inclusion
agenda for schools conflicted with schools’ wishes for pupils
to obtain high academic standards. She said that children would
only be able to reach these if their needs in the other parts of
their lives were met. “The Every Child Matters agenda is an
integrated part of the standards agenda,” she said.

Hodge went on to tell ministers that rumours that the
children’s information-sharing databases would cost £1
billion were wildly wide off the mark. She said that estimates
suggested that the actual figure would be in the “very very
low hundreds of millions”.