discounted against later savings?Will some serious modelling and analysis of the matter be commissioned inside or outside the Treasury? If we areto invest in early intervention, pre-emption and prevention, we need to devise tough financial tools to enableorganisations such as our local strategic partnership to borrow against future savings, perhaps
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using venture capital, bond issues or public works loans. That might best be considered on an individual accountbasis. If a potentially under-achieving person is allocated, say, £1 million of public expenditure over their lifetime,can that be front-loaded to save some of that £1 million? One Nottingham would be more than happy to pilotsuch a project if the Treasury team felt that it would be useful.Another area where we would be keen to partner the Treasury is performance management. That applies atnational level where a light-touch public service agreement on early intervention should be agreed with all therelevant Departments if public expenditure is genuinely to become less reactive, but refocused on ametaphorically healthy diet rather than ever larger dollops of comfort food in respect of public expenditure. Whenthe Government impose statutory duties on localities, they need to be affirming not confining, and a spur not abreak to activity.At local level, incredibly able local partners drown under middle England targets as well as inspection andaccountability regimes that suffocate local talent and hand-crafted solutions in favour—in the case of my localstrategic partnership—of 1,000 local area agreement, floor target action plan, community strategy boxes that wemust tick. I am privileged that I can—and do—fight back on such issues. However, no local career publicservants have that luxury. Indeed, until innovative and creative thinking on early intervention is sanctionedofficially by the PSA and performance management regimes, it can be seen even by the best local chief officersas a threat to be controlled rather than an opportunity of which to be taken advantage.I shall leave for another debate an excursion into the vital local issues where most public services areincreasingly administered with little or no real democratic governance. However, cultural and democraticevolution need to lie alongside financial creativity if our efforts are to be sustainable.Nottingham is pioneering the vision of early intervention city through a package of measures comparable to thosefound at Greater Littleton in Denver. Some are already under way in Nottingham, including the teaching of socialbehaviour at primary schools based on the foundation of the social and emotional literacy programme that theGovernment are rolling out; the nurse-family partnership to which I referred earlier; intensive family support forthe 50 most difficult families; and an effective parenting skills programme.In addition, local and national partners could consider other locally led but evidence-based programmes, includingpre-parenting skills for teenagers so that they understand the responsibility of raising a child and how to buildand maintain personal and family relationships, and an effective mentoring scheme, perhaps like the successfulbig brother, big sister scheme in the USA. Other possibilities include the roots of empathy scheme, under which aclass adopts a baby to develop empathetic behaviour, and the teens and toddlers scheme, which is favoured bythe Cabinet Office. Finally, health services, the police and children’s services could share data so that we cancatch people at the earliest possible stage. Whatever package
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is agreed, it will focus relentlessly on the causes of problems and will be driven by local and national partnersworking together.We will deliver every aspect of the partnership locally, and Departments are committed to doing so nationally. Wenow need the Treasury to come to the party—we need to move from schemes to services. The prize is to finishservicing the endless stream of problems and to break the intergenerational cycle of underachievement throughearly intervention. All that I ask the Minister to do today is to commit to engage in a serious continuing dialoguewith me and the steering group of local and national partners—our kids deserve nothing less. If the Treasury cangive that commitment, we will be able to do some extremely good work together, with tremendous positiveconsequences not only for youngsters, but for their parents and our society.
1.16 pm
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ed Balls):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member forNottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on securing the debate; he has been generous in the amount of time that he hasgiven me to respond. It is a great relief to be able to have this debate today, because it had to be rescheduledon a previous occasion, when the House finished its business early. My hon. Friend was unable to be here forthat debate, because he was in Nottingham in his role as chair of One Nottingham, the local strategicpartnership. He was meeting a team of Ministers who had gone up to see the work that he was leading inNottingham on these very issues. I am happy to give him the assurance for which he asked and to say that theTreasury, like the other parts of the Government with which he has discussed the issue and which have visitedNottingham, is happy to engage with the detail of these matters.As my hon. Friend says, the key issue is to ensure that decision making and spending are properly co-ordinatednot only across Departments at the centre in Whitehall, but at local level. I have always been a champion—as aMinister, and before that as an adviser—of the role that local strategic partnerships can play in bringing togetherdifferent agencies locally to make policy work more effectively. Over the years, however, we have all learnedthat partnerships work only if there is strong and effective local leadership to bring that co-ordination about, andmy hon. Friend is demonstrating effective leadership at a local level. As somebody who grew up in Nottingham, Iam pleased to see it prosper, but I understand that it still faces very real challenges, inequalities and divides interms of income and opportunity. I am therefore pleased to see my hon. Friend providing leadership inNottingham, to hear and understand details of the concept of Nottingham as an early intervention city and tohave the opportunity to respond to some of my hon. Friend’s points in this debate.As my hon. Friend says, each child deserves a secure, safe and happy childhood and upbringing, and that is thebest way to support later development and to allow children to fulfil their potential as they become adults. Asmy hon. Friend says, without a good start young people can enter a vicious cycle of poor outcomes, which theypass on to the next generation. Although we have done a lot since 1997 to support parents and
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communities and to make significant improvements in the lives of all children, it is still the case that not allchildren are benefiting equally. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds, including from a number of wards in myhon. Friend’s constituency, continue to face greater barriers to realising their potential than children from other,often more affluent families. As a Government who care about opportunity for all and about every child havingthe best start in life, we have a responsibility to address those issues.
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