Committee
Finance Committee 15 January 2014
15 Jan 2014 · S4 · Finance Committee
Item of business
Early Years Change Fund
On behalf of the early years task force, I thank you for inviting us to discuss the progress of the early years change fund. As the task force’s co-chairs, Sir Harry Burns and I will represent its views. Unfortunately, our local government co-chair, Councillor Chapman, is unable to attend today and sends his apologies. The early years framework signified an important milestone in encouraging partnership working to deliver a shared commitment to giving children the best start in life and improving the life chances of children, young people and families at risk. The early years task force shares that commitment. Established in November 2011, the task force has the role of developing the strategic direction for the early years change programme and of co-ordinating policy across Government and the wider public sector to ensure that early years spending is prioritised by the whole public sector. In setting out its vision and priorities in March 2012, the task force made it clear that the establishment of the early years change fund signified a significant shift to preventative spend over the current parliamentary session. That is because the early years change fund is the first time we have collectively discussed a financial mechanism for delivering on the aspirations of the early years framework. Each year, the public sector spends £2.7 billion on children in their early years, and the change fund presents a huge opportunity and a good starting point for the Scottish Government, local government and NHS Scotland to fulfil their joint intention to shift resource to where it makes the most difference by supporting prevention and early intervention. The clear expectation set out by the task force is that, through the early years change fund, partners can consider how they can better support universal services to deliver better for children in their early years and their families; raise public awareness of the significance of the early years to children’s healthy development; and bring the totality of their resources to discussions on how best to deliver the aspirations of the early years framework. We know that from the outset the early years change fund has had an impact. For example, in its year 1 change fund return, Angus has told us of its plans to integrate education, early years services and social work family support services to provide locally based early intervention and prevention teams. That is but one example. Returns from all community planning partnerships have been overwhelmingly positive, providing us with strong evidence of a move towards prevention and early intervention. The early years task force always viewed the change fund as a good first step to achieving the longer term goals of prevention and transformational change in service delivery. Given its very nature as a change fund, its lifespan was designed to be limited. The funding commitments from health and local government will end in 2014-15, and the Scottish Government has committed £8.5 million to the early years change fund for 2015-16 to support the transition away from the change fund model. However, the fund’s impact and legacy will continue. Together with the task force’s wider work, it has enabled the development and establishment of the early years collaborative, which is the world’s first multi-agency quality improvement programme. The collaborative provides us with the method of continuing to ensure that the Scottish Government, health and local government embed prevention and improvement at a local level. Delivered at a national scale, this locally based work is helping us collectively bridge the gap between what we know works and what we do through improvement science to improve outcomes for our children and families. The ambition of the early years collaborative is nothing short of making Scotland the best place in the world to grow up. All 32 CPPs in Scotland have embraced the approach and are actively looking to build on the good things they already do and to learn from others to improve the outcomes for Scotland’s children with regard to stillbirth, infant mortality and the reaching of developmental milestones. Although it is still early days for this groundbreaking work, we are already starting to see that small changes are having an impact. In March 2012, the early years task force made it clear that its aim is to put Scotland squarely on course to shift the balance of public services towards early intervention and prevention by 2016 and to sustain that change to 2018 and beyond. The early years change fund has got us off to a good start, and the early years collaborative, as a vehicle for embedding this prevention and improvement, provides us with the way forward. Thank you, convener, for allowing me to make those opening remarks. We stand ready to answer any questions you have.
In the same item of business
The Convener (Kenneth Gibson)
SNP
Good morning and welcome to the second meeting in 2014 of the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament. First of all, I remind everyone to turn off their...
The Minister for Children and Young People (Aileen Campbell)
SNP
On behalf of the early years task force, I thank you for inviting us to discuss the progress of the early years change fund. As the task force’s co-chairs, S...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you, minister. You are probably aware of how this committee works—I will ask a few initial questions and then open up the session to colleagues around ...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
As I have said, the change fund was intended to be the mechanism by which we would establish the culture of change and encourage people in the 32 CPPs to bri...
The Convener
SNP
I fully appreciate that, but is there any evidence that it has delivered fully enough to allow us to downsize the available funds to such an extent over a on...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
As I have said, the change fund was designed to be limited in its lifespan. It has already led to some very good examples of prevention in action, and the co...
The Convener
SNP
You have already mentioned the early years collaborative. How does the early years change fund impact on that, and what do you expect the collaborative to de...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
I will ask Sir Harry Burns to talk in general about the collaborative, but I can say that the model for delivery, which will change from a deficit model to a...
Sir Harry Burns (Scottish Government)
Would it be helpful for me to describe what a collaborative is and how it works?
The Convener
SNP
It certainly would.
Sir Harry Burns
A lot of international evidence going back 40-odd years shows that early intervention transforms life chances by improving not only health but educational at...
The Convener
SNP
As you say, it is early days, and these things do not happen overnight. You say that you want to involve the front line. In the evidence that the committee t...
Sir Harry Burns
The patchiness is absolutely what we would expect. The whole point is that we do not dictate to people what local circumstances require them to do. People wi...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
The—
Sir Harry Burns
However, it is the best way to deliver what we want. Sorry, minister.
The Convener
SNP
Let the minister have a word. Laughter.
Aileen Campbell
SNP
The collaborative exists and the momentum behind it is incredible. Even though there is a national approach, it is respectful of the local approaches that wi...
The Convener
SNP
I will ask one more question and then allow colleagues to come in, as they will want to explore some of the issues in greater depth. In our report on the d...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
We have asked each local authority to provide returns on their activities. That was taken forward by a sub-group of the early years task force headed up by D...
The Convener
SNP
Monitoring and evaluation are important. If we are going to eliminate some of the patchiness, we need to know that there is a degree of commonality in the wa...
Jamie Hepburn (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP)
SNP
The submission that the Government has provided says: “The Change Fund is the first time that we have collectively discussed a financial mechanism for deliv...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
The task force and the change fund are about bringing people together and people bringing the totality of resources to the table. The early years change fund...
Jamie Hepburn
SNP
Before the change fund and the new approach, was there little evidence of that type of collective working, or was it patchy across the country?
Aileen Campbell
SNP
It probably would not have been so consistent. There have always been pockets of good practice around the country, but we need to make it the rule rather tha...
Jamie Hepburn
SNP
You referred to the figure of £2.7 billion, which is also mentioned in the submission. We are focusing on the change fund, which is a lot smaller but, in rel...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
Yes. It is important to recognise that the key players that we are talking about had not sat round a table together before the task force was set up. Of cour...
Sir Harry Burns
On the question whether the current way is better than the old way, I worked in health boards for a decade or so and I found the old way intensely frustratin...
Jamie Hepburn
SNP
The paper that the Government provided refers to the “objective of our joint early years change programme and our ... work on the Early Years Collaborative”...
Aileen Campbell
SNP
There has been a culture change, not least that by which the task force has allowed us to get together to ensure that we are working holistically to improve ...
Sir Harry Burns
The high-level outcomes that Scotland has agreed on are: reduce infant mortality by 15 per cent; reduce the number of children with developmental delay at th...