Does Every Child Matter?

Understanding New Labour's Social Reforms

Catherine A. Simon, Stephen Ward

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136955815
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Every Child Matters represents the most radical change to education and welfare provision in almost two decades. This book moves beyond a descriptive 'how to' framework to examine the underlying political and social aims of this policy agenda.

The authors' analysis reveals that Every Child Matters represents the Government's attempt to codify perceived risks in society and to formulate their responses. In doing so, children are made the strategic focus of much wider social policy reform, the effects of which are first felt in education. Does Every Child Matter? explores the ramifications of this along three key lines of analysis:

• the restructuring of the state beyond its welfare functions
• changes in governance and the creation of new binaries
• a redefining of the education sector around the needs of the child.

This book provides a unique and insightful critique of Every Child Matters and its contribution to understandings of New Labour social policy. It locates the genesis of the policy in terms of its social, political and historical contexts and questions the validity of constructing social policy around issues of child welfare. Students, academics and researchers in education studies and education policy will find this book of great interest.

Chapter 1
The political origins of Every Child Matters

Introduction

We begin with the political background to the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda. The Victoria Climbié case and the subsequent Laming Report (HMSO, 2003) are often regarded as the reason for the Labour government’s introduction of ECM. The case did receive a high level of publicity and focused the attention of policy-makers and the public. However, New Labour (1997–2007) had already decided on the development of social policy and had begun the process of reform towards ECM immediately following the 1997 General Election. The thrust of social policy reform was to break the generational cycle of deprivation into which children and families can become trapped. Tony Blair’s 1996 declaration of three priorities, ‘education, education and education’, indicated the prominent position to be given to schools, and education generally, in promoting the new social democracy of what was called ‘the Third Way’ in politics.

The Third Way … draws vitality from uniting two great streams of left-of-centre thought – democratic socialism and liberalism – whose divorce this century did so much to weaken progressive politics across the West. Liberals assert the primacy of individual liberty in the market economy; social democrats promoted social justice with the state as its main agent. There is no necessary conflict between the two.

(Blair, 1998: 1)

Background

Every Child Matters (DfES, 2004a) and The Children Act (DfES, 2004b) were the legislative spine of a complex social policy which cut across several government departments and ministries. This is evident in the five outcomes of the ECM agenda:

• being safe

• being healthy

• enjoying and achieving

• economic wellbeing, and

• making a positive contribution.

The Treasury, the Home Office, and ministries such as Justice, Work and Pensions, Transport, Health, Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs all contribute to the ECM agenda; their work impacts significantly upon the five outcomes for children, young people and families. It would be naive to imagine that such an intricate reform agenda could be created in response to single tragedy. Rather, the Victoria Climbié enquiry, and the Laming Report (HMSO, 2003) with its 108 recommendations for improving child protection services, provided a popular rationale for the policy of social reform. This had been mapped out prior to the 1997 General Election and set in motion immediately thereafter (Rustin, 2004). Thomas and Hocking (2003) identify a host of ‘targeted initiatives’ introduced from 1997 ‘dedicated to reducing or eliminating negative impacts on children’ (p. 59). These were:

• traditional ‘education’ reforms to raise educational standards with the introduction of the literacy and numeracy strategies;

• attempts to create a more child-friendly health service;

• public service agreements for looked after children; and

• a commitment to eradicating child poverty.

New Labour’s first term of office 1997–2001 brought a range of initiatives:

• the National Child Care Strategy (1998)

• the creation of a National Family and Parenting Institute (1998)

• the Children’s Fund (2000)

• the Children’s and Young People’s Unit (2000).

All point to the repositioning of the child and family at the heart of social and educational reform.

Understanding policy

Education, society and politics cannot be considered in isolation, and appreciation of the close interrelation of these concepts, together with economics and cultural values, are essential to the understanding of policy development over time. Traditionally there have been close ties between educational and social policy development within the UK, although there are acknowledged differences in emphasis according to region, especially since devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Lingard and Ozga, 2007: 1). In this book we concentrate on central government and the English model of policy development and implementation.

There are several models or frameworks available which may be adopted as useful ways of understanding policy development and implementation. Taylor et al. (1997) suggest that policy analysis is about questioning what governments do: why and with what effects. Their three-point framework for policy analysis consists of:

• Context – the social, political and economic factors that have contributed to the formulation of the policy initiative: what were the problems or threats that government wished to address;

• Text – the content of the policy and how it is communicated. This is the domain of discourse analysis which seeks to understand the language and discourse types in a policy document to unearth the underlying political, social or economic assumptions;

• Consequences – how the policy is interpreted and implemented at all levels across departments and institutions down to practitioner level.

Taylor et al. also suggest a number of questions which help to focus the critical reading of policy and its implementation, including:

• How are the proposals organised? How do they affect resourcing and organisational structures?

• Why was this policy adopted?

• In whose interests? How have competing interests been negotiated?

• Why now? Why has the policy emerged at this time?

• What are the consequences? In particular, what are the consequences for both processes (professional practice) and outcomes?

Bell and Stevenson (2006: 12–13) add four further dimensions to this framework which help to identify and clarify the progression from policy formulation to policy in practice.

Policy formation

• The socio-political environment: Where does the policy come from? What are the overarching principles which drive it? Which are the dominant discourse types? First order values.

• Strategic direction: How is the policy shaped and defined? In what spheres will it operate, e.g. education, health, social services, youth justice?

Policy implementation

• Organisational principles: the parameters within which the policy is to operate, target setting, success criteria, patterns of control.

• Operational practices: organisational procedures, monitoring mechanisms, second order values.

Understandings of any given policy will vary. Those formulating a particular policy will have a different view of its content and values from those implementing or receiving it. Power relations and values underpin all policy. Who holds the balance of power and what are the value systems that dominate policy formulation and implementation are fundamental questions for those involved in policy analysis.

Understanding educational policy development in the UK

In reality policy development is not a neat and linear process; in the words of Bell and Stevenson (2006: 19) it is ‘fuzzy, messy and complex … the product of compromise, negotiation, dispute and struggle’. Furthermore, they argue that ‘policy can … be presented in part as the analysis of change and the way in which change is managed’ (2006: 22). Change and the pace of change has dominated policy discourse in recent decades, particularly since the rise of Thatcher’s New Right government in 1979, followed by New Labour and the ‘modernisers’ in 1997. What emerged through this ‘change agenda’ was the opening up of the state institutions of education, health and welfare to market forces and private investment. This was to alter the nature of these services and the manner in which they operated. Business models of standards, targets and accountability changed the relationship between those in government (both at national and local level) and those running or using the services.

What was known as the ‘social settlement’ (Clarke and Newman, 1997) based on understandings of the role of the ‘family, nation and work’ in the development of welfare policies and the construction of the post-war welfare state, was challenged and ultimately dismantled. The process began in earnest under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) with her neo-liberal economic ideology. Most of twentieth-century politics had been dominated by the thinking of the economist J.M. Keynes (1883–1946): an equal society where, through taxation, the state provided for the weakest and most vulnerable, ‘[Thatcher’s] plan was to reduce taxation, “roll back the state” and allow people to have greater personal control over their lives’ (Ward, 2008: 11). Policies promoting home ownership, and the privatisation of previously nationalised industries and utilities such as the railways, gas, electricity and the water supply, created a new generation of share-holders with a stake in all manner of services and industries from banking to manufacturing. Such was the zeal for privatisation that Thatcher was later to be accused by Harold MacMillan, one-time Conservative Prime Minister, during his maiden speech to the House of Lords in 1986, of ‘selling off the family silver’.

One consequence of neo-liberalism and the promotion of a ‘free market’ was the rise of ‘individualism’. It was no coincidence that during the 1980s the young and upwardly mobile were able to take advantage of the redistribution of wealth from state coffers to private pockets. ‘Thatcher’s children’ became synonymous with a preoccupation with competition, social capital, meritocracy and entrepreneurship alongside long working hours, high wages and consumerism, a trend which continued through the 1980s and 1990s. The self-centred, Randian perspective (Rand, 1964), and Thatcher’s belief that ‘there is no such thing as society’ (Woman’s Own, 1987) contributed to a widening of the disparity between the wealthy and the poor, with inevitable consequences for the most vulnerable in society, including children.

Every Child Matters: Context, text and consequences

As we have already seen, educational, social and economic policies are closely interrelated. When New Labour came to power in 1997 it continued the steady march of educational reform set in motion by 18 years of Conservative administration. Indeed, as Tomlinson (2005) points out, New Labour appeared to accept many of the underlying beliefs and assumptions of Tory policy-making during those years. Themes such as choice and competition, the rhetoric of ‘raising standards’ and the business model of leadership and management continued to shape New Labour policy from 1997. The driving force was a desire to remain competitive on the stage of the global economy. The rise of new technologies in the latter part of the twentieth century meant that Britain’s strong manufacturing base was no longer a requirement for global economic supremacy, and many such industries were destined to close, or to move where the workforce was cheaper. The new growth area was to be in service industries. Rather than be dependent on largely unskilled labour, the new ‘industrial revolution’ of the late twentieth century demanded a highly skilled and educated workforce, one that could be more responsive to the changing world of work and the need for a wider range of transferable skills. The government saw investment in ‘human capital’ as essential. This concept is that ‘human beings invest in themselves by means of education, training or other activities which raise their future income by increasing their lifetime earnings’ (Woodhall, 1997: 219). In turn, this calls for a commitment to both ‘knowledge and education’ (Tomlinson, 2005: 90) with investment in lifelong learning and the ‘subordination of education to the economy’, all of which were evident in New Labour policy from the outset.

Indeed, as Tomlinson asserts, the link between education and the economy typified post-Second World War education policy. The adoption of human capital theory – the assumption that investment in skills and capabilities will enhance production – ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The political origins of Every Child Matters
• Chapter 2 Modernising the welfare state
• Chapter 3 International comparisons
• Chapter 4 Sure Start
• Chapter 5 The five outcomes
• Chapter 6 Poverty and economic wellbeing
• Chapter 7 Child welfare and looked-after children
• Chapter 8 Citizenship and the new social order
• Chapter 9 Challenging parents
• Chapter 10 Multi-agency working
• Chapter 11 Redefining the education sector
• Chapter 12 Conclusion
• References
• Index