Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children

Executive Summary

Families and the State

Two-way support and responsibilities

An inquiry into the relationship between the state and the family in the

upbringing of children

The Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children (the Commission)

was established in April 2004 to consider the relationship between the state

and the family in providing children with a humane and caring upbringing in

the 21st century. It was established by the National Family and Parenting

Institute and NCH (previously known as National Children’s Homes), with

support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The Commission considered the developing boundaries between the state

and the family, what is supportive on the one hand and insufficiently

supportive or detrimental to human rights on the other. It addressed three

core questions:

How and to what extent should the state intervene in the care and

upbringing of children, and what kind of reciprocal responsibility, if any,

does it have to support families?

To what extent is it right for parents to be held responsible for the

actions of their children? Where should their responsibilities begin and

end?

How far and in what way should the role of the state in supporting and

intervening in families be formalised and made transparent?

Values. The Commission’s recommendations have been informed by these

values:

A recognition of the importance of families in all their various forms as

the environment in which most children are brought up and cared for.

A recognition that families, as well as having the potential to offer a

caring environment, can also be a place where people experience

violence and abuse, and may not, in certain circumstances, serve the

best interests of the children living in them.

A recognition that families mediate between people as individuals and

the wider community, and have an influence on society as a whole.

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Following from the above, an acceptance that the state has a role to

play in supporting and regulating families, in respect of their impact on

both society and individual family members, and children in particular

because of their vulnerability.

A recognition that, notwithstanding the above, many changes and static

features in family social and demographic trends are not and should

not be subject to significant influence by the state.

A recognition that, because of their vulnerability, the wellbeing of

children should be the paramount consideration in constructing family

policy. This entails the adoption of an “ethic of care” in the development

of family policy.

A recognition of the need to reduce inequities within society and to

address discrimination associated with, inter alia, ethnic, cultural and

social background, disability, gender and sexual orientation.

In determining the dividing line between family autonomy and legitimate state

intervention, and the scope of the state’s obligations to support families, the

Commission has been guided by two internationally accepted instruments

establishing the dimensions of human and children’s rights – the Human

Rights Act 1998 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

1989.

Evidence. The Commission has considered evidence in relation to:

demographic and social trends indicative of family life as it is lived;

the impact of supports, regulations, interventions and other aspects of

the interface between the state and the family on the wellbeing of

children;

the views of children, parents, support agencies and the wider public.

It has also conducted a consultation with policymakers, service providers,

researchers and other interested organisations and a series of focus groups

with parents from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Background to the establishment and work of

the Commision.

While outcomes for most children are good, there are nevertheless legitimate

anxieties over the stress experienced by some parents and its implications for

family relationships. Care in the context of employment is an ongoing tension

that is acute around the needs of young children. There are behavioural

issues and safety concerns within communities and families, and a growing

number of young people with mental health problems. Child poverty and

disparities in outcomes in education and health must also be on the agenda

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for redress in a society with a commitment to provide the best start in life for

all children.

These multiple anxieties have prompted the Government to undertake

initiatives across the family policy domain ranging from support service

enhancement through to criminal justice measures that reinforce parental

responsibility and children’s agency. Reacting to this high profile programme,

reservations have been expressed in some quarters that the Government has

not been able to respond in sufficient measure to the support needs of

families, on the one hand, while on the other it may also have become too

interventionist in family life.

There is a difficult balance to be struck between the caring and control

functions of the state, a tension that is particularly significant for the

governance of the family. The Commission has taken a step back from the

emotionally charged debate around families to assess the evidence. Building

on the strong commitments to relationships that exist in today’s families, it

makes recommendations in relation to the delivery of a measured,

proportionate and caring response from government that is mindful of the

needs and interests of children, parents and the wider community.

Content of the Executive Summary

In relation to each significant area of policy there is a brief summary of the

issues considered by the Commission followed by the principles it proposes

should inform public policy. Recommendations derived from these principles

are drawn together from across the policy areas in a final concluding section

of the Executive Summary.

Evidence of the Impact of Upbringing on Children’s Outcomes

Family relationships and their implications in terms of children’s wellbeing are

complex. Genetic as well as environmental factors need to be understood and

taken into account, as do bi-directional effects – the impact of parents on their

children and vice versa. Nevertheless it is clear that parenting and the

environment in which children are brought up matter, and that the risk factors

and optimal care standards in upbringing are understood. These are reflected

in the Government’s Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need.

Principle

The Commission’s assessment of the standards of care required to promote

children’s wellbeing points to the need for the following core principle to underpin

public policy.

The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need, with its

supportive approach grounded in child development research, should

constitute the corner-stone for government policy in relation to

expectations for the care of children. The state’s role should be to

support these standards of care through universal and targeted

services, through promoting an economic and social environment that

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is conducive to families being able to give children adequate care and

in some, more limited, circumstances through regulating family life.

Regulation

Child protection

There will be occasions when a child needs the intervention of the state in

family life without parental consent. This is the sense in which the term “child

protection” is used here. Having considered the scope of child protection

needs across physical and emotional abuse and neglect, and evidence of the

impact of state intervention, the Commission has concluded that the following

principles should inform policy.

Principles

In child protection cases intervention may be needed that does not

require the consent of the parent. The principle of minimum

intervention should be adopted, restricting intervention to cases where

children are at risk within the definition of the Children Act 1989.

The state’s expectations of standards of care for children who are

adopted, fostered or in institutional care should encompass a high duty

of care secured through a system of stringent checks and therapeutic

services.

Prospective parents and caring for children after parents separate

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n order to safeguard the interests of children, some element of state

regulation is needed in respect of adoptive parents and assisted conception. It

is also needed to determine the caring arrangements for children after parents

separate. In making its proposals as to the nature of such regulation, the

Commission has been guided by the evidence relating to children’s outcomes

in these particular family situations.

Principles

In terms of regulating prospective parents and parental contact, an

approach is needed that involves an assessment of the risks and

benefits to the child. It should not be unduly restrictive, but the

overriding concern should be to safeguard the welfare of the child.

Thus:

Checks on prospective adoptive parents should be principally concerned with

child protection and the overall welfare of the child. They should not be

unnecessarily rigid and inhibit adoption by giving disproportionate

consideration to matters such as age, sexuality or religion of potential

adoptive parents.

Assisted conception clinics should be required to adopt the same acceptable

standards of counselling and assessment. Operating from a problem solving

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rather than bureaucratic perspective, these should involve enquiries of

prospective parents and their GP, and if a significant problem is identified,

other pertinent agencies such as social services, in order that the clinician

should be satisfied that there is no foreseeable substantial medical or social

risk to the child. An effective monitoring process should be established to

ensure that these standards are applied.

The legal and social support response to the issue of contact between

children and parents post separation should be to optimise contact with both

parents, subject to the primary consideration of the welfare of the child and

the need to provide the child with a stable home environment.

Physical safety and the family

The preservation of children’s safety is, or should be, a core function of caring

for children. However, this is an area of government policy where there is a

considerable degree of imprecision.

Safety and physical discipline. While recognising that there are distinctions

to be made between different levels and frequency of the use of smacking,

overall, the evidence relating to child outcomes from physical punishment is

negative. There are significant concerns in relation to child abuse and

behavioural outcomes. There is also a human right for a child, like an adult, to

be free from inhuman and degrading treatment. Despite these concerns

relating to child outcomes and human rights, the defence of reasonable

chastisement can still be used by parents in relation to charges of “common

assault”. The Commission regrets this state of affairs.

Safety and supervision. Regulation for parents and other carers in respect of

children’s safety requires greater clarification, particularly in relation to the age

at which it is deemed safe for a child to be unattended.

Principle

The preservation of children’s safety and freedom from “inhuman and

degrading treatment” should be a primary concern of government.

Management of children’s behaviour

With measures such as the Crime and Disorder Act (1998) and Anti-Social

Behaviour Act (2003), the Government has sought to tighten personal

responsibility across the generations. A central problem arising from recent

developments in juvenile justice is the growing contradiction between the

effective lowering of the age of criminal responsibility to 10 through the

abolition of doli incapax, which implies that children over the age of nine have

the same knowledge of what constitutes crime as a mature adult, and the

simultaneous raising of the presumption of parents’ responsibility for their

children’s offences. In particular the abolition of doli incapax and the coercive

nature of parenting orders have created a new reality of dual responsibility for

juvenile crime. This inconsistency blurs the crucial distinction between

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parents’ duty of care and their responsibility for conduct. The Commission is

of the view that the lines of criminal responsibility should be redrawn to

achieve a proper balance between legal and moral obligation.

In developing an appropriate set of principles to inform the state’s relationship

with families in managing children’s behaviour and protecting the community,

the Commission has examined the legal implications and evidence in relation

to:

children’s psychological development;

parents’ capacity to control their children’s behaviour;

the Scottish precedent of welfare-orientated Children’s Hearings;

and options to enhance informal social controls.

Principles

Government policies concerned with the management of children’s

behaviour should embrace the principles of minimum intervention and

enhanced support for families in difficulties due to the offending

behaviour of their children.

Parenting support should become available for parents of children of all

ages as part of the implementation of broader family support strategies.

There should be an emphasis within parenting support services on

encouraging parents to take broad responsibility for the actions of their

children and on imparting to them proven strategies to help them in

handling children’s difficult behaviour. Policies for reducing antisocial

behaviour and truancy in children should seek to divert parents and

children away from prosecution, with due consideration given to

identifying and dealing with the underlying causes of behavioural

issues.

Offers of support, rather than coercion, should be the initial response to

families coping with children’s behavioural difficulties. However, where

such support is declined, and dependent on the seriousness of the

case, coercion to accept support, for example through parenting

orders, may be required (see Family Services below).

Account should be taken of children’s psychological development in

determining the age of criminal responsibility and the flexibility required

in order to establish whether a young person is capable of criminal

intent.

Clarifying Policy

The Government’s expectations of standards of care in the upbringing of

children are insufficiently defined, and where definitions can be inferred from

legislation and statutory intervention, they are sometimes based on

approaches at variance with each other. In particular, contrasts can be drawn

between caring and welfare approaches on the one hand, and more clearly

enunciated expectations of responsibility in the criminal justice field on the

other. There is also a lack of clarity over who bears caring responsibilities,

and the degree to which they bear them.

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There is an obligation in the interests of open government and human rights

to set out the government’s expectations of parents/carers, providing

transparency about the sorts of issues that will be taken into consideration in

depriving a parent/carer of their caring responsibilities.

Principle

There is a need for consistency, clarity and public information in

relation to the Government’s expectations of standards of care in the

upbringing of children.

Family Support

The state’s role in supporting the upbringing of children encompasses the

whole environment in which a child grows up. It ranges from relationship

support, parenting education and health services through to financial matters.

It includes addressing the structural causes of relative deprivation and

remedial responses to counter hardship. It is concerned with the multiple

faces of parents’ lives as they impinge on children, for example parents’ role

in the work place and adult caring relationships. It is also concerned with the

commercial and communal environment that impacts on children's upbringing.

The Commission is of the view that there is a need for the state actively to

promote a shift in social ethos towards an ethic of care, with caring

relationships between parents and children supported across social relations,

including governmental and commercial concerns, and civil society.

The Commission is also of the view that, in order to realise an ethic of care,

and to enhance trust and a partnership between the state and families, both

parents and children should be widely involved in the development, shaping

and delivery of services that have implications for children’s upbringing.

Family Services

Family services support the emotional wellbeing of children within their

families and directly target the parent/child relationship. They include

information, advice, parent/child leisure and learning activities, befriending,

group-work, counselling, therapeutic facilities, couple relationship support,

help with special needs and the monitoring of children’s wellbeing. They range

from low-key universal services to intensive targeted provision.

Following a review of research into the impact of family services, service

availability and users’ perspectives, the Commission has developed a set of

principles that encompass the scope of services and entitlements, investment

priorities and process issues, and the relationship between service providers

and users.

Principles

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A balanced menu of universal and targeted services should be

available to all parents (see box Menu of Services). While investment

in universal services and a preventative approach is to be supported,

consideration should also be given to resource limitations and the

importance of ensuring that children in need or at risk receive sufficient

support involving expert facilities where required.

Menu of Service

Universal services should:

provide information and advice about child development and the

services that are available to support families in bringing up children;

enable welfare services to monitor and identify situations where further

support is needed;

foster a culture where families are encouraged to accept support in

bringing up children which is appropriate to their needs.

They should be available to every family as a legal entitlement, and families

should be supported to use them.

Universal services should support families and monitor the wellbeing of the

child at the key stages of vulnerability and change in a child’s life.

Birth. Pre and post-natal support should be provided universally during this

period including support from midwives and health visitors, and a post-natal

class to address child development and support service issues.

Child development. Child development checks should be provided regularly

though early childhood and in to secondary school. These would enable

parents, children and professionals to identify any developmental, behavioural

or emotional issues in a universal, non-stigmatising service facilitating access

to remedial assistance or treatment.

On-going information. Information on child-development, support services

and significant issues for parents as young people grow up should be

provided through workshops at key transition points in nurseries, children’s

centres and on entry to primary and secondary schools. Access to information

of this nature should also be available as and when the parent identifies the

need for it through help-lines and children’s centres. This support should be

offered to other carers acting in loco parentis, for example grandparents who

undertake a caring role.

Targeted services should meet needs that go beyond universal services.

Recipients include:

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families where a particular issue-related service may support their

caring role;

families where children fall within the definition of being in need or at

risk and who require specialist support facilities.

These services should be available to every family where there is either a self

or professionally identified need. Access should be facilitated by integrating

services into mainstream provision, customising their use, reviewing referral

mechanisms, enhancing ease of use and periodically reviewing the

relationship between support and needs through national and local needs

assessments.

The menu of targeted services should include:

facilitated and self-help parenting groups or courses beyond universal

provision;

individual counselling/support in home or clinic;

special needs support (disabilities; mental health; behavioural and

learning issues);

other respite support;

child protection;

Relationship support/couple counselling

Taken as a whole, the range of services should relate to children of all ages. It

should include support for mothers, fathers, grandparents acting in loco

parentis and other social parents, and all cultural groups should be catered for

appropriately and inclusively.

Account should be taken of the differing capacity of families to take advantage

of services. There are particular issues for socially disadvantaged families,

and there may be service barriers where there are cultural or language

differences. Strategies for developing sensitive, culturally competent services,

easily available in terms of physical access and backed up by outreach work

are needed to redress this imbalance. A higher level of investment will be

required relative to the general population.

The Government’s Green Papers Every Child Matters and Youth Matters,

underwritten by the Children Act 2004, intend a similar range of provision,

although there are concerns that under-resourcing may hamper

implementation and there is no offer of a legal entitlement to universal

services as recommended by the Commission. The Commission’s proposal

for an extension of child development checks as a support and monitoring

facility is a further significant addition to the Government’s programme.

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In order to provide optimal services, there should be a focus on the process of

implementation and the development of individual and service competence

and accountability.

There should be minimum invasion of families’ privacy and an emphasis

placed on the development of trust between providers and the families they

support.

The Material Environment and Growing Up

Public sphere

The state is responsible for investment in a range of physical environments that

impinge significantly on children’s lives, such as road safety, the creation of safe

walkways, recreation spaces, high standard school buildings and the like. It also has

regulatory powers in relation to planning and delivering the spatial environment, and

in respect of health and associated consumption. Regulating the marketing and

retailing of alcohol and tobacco and the standards of food in schools are significant

examples here. These matters affect children and they need a high status lobby

structure in order to ensure that their interests are adequately addressed.

Principle

The material environment in which children are brought up requires a

high level of scrutiny, and powerful advocacy is needed in order to

protect the interests of children in this sphere.

Private sphere – Families and Poverty

The reduction of child poverty and the structure of cash benefits for children, linked

as they are with economic redistribution, are highly controversial matters. They are

influenced, not only by government, but also by the wider economic environment and

importantly by families themselves. The state’s protective role in these circumstances

is difficult to establish. For these reasons, and because of the deleterious impact that

poverty can have on children’s lives, the Commission has examined this issue in

some depth.

The Commission has examined the evidence of the impact of poverty on child

development and has concluded that, whereas poverty may not directly cause

children to have problems, it is nevertheless important because it makes effective

family functioning harder to achieve. It engenders stress and puts barriers in the way

of social integration. It is also associated with poor health outcomes. Both relative

and absolute poverty have this adverse effect on families.

There has been widespread concern over the extent of family poverty in the United

Kingdom. The Commission has considered whether this concern is well founded, and

has concluded that it is. Currently an accepted definition of poverty is income that is

below 60% of the median level of the population at that time. Assuming normal

population statistical distribution rates of income generating human potential, such as

intelligence and health, a 60% threshold based on the mean should result in some

2% of the population falling below the poverty line. However, as measured in 2002

the proportion of children in poverty in the UK was found to be approximately 30% –

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more than 10 times higher than expected1. The evidence points to disadvantageous

societal influences that make it very difficult for many people to achieve their

potential. If child poverty is to be addressed, the state needs to not only guarantee

minimum income levels for families with children, but also to consider ways in which

escalating income differentials in society might be tempered. The former is

achievable and the Commission makes recommendations to help secure this end.

The latter is subject to global economic trends that are difficult to control. It should

nevertheless remain an aspiration of government to shift society as far as possible in

the direction of minimising children’s relative deprivation and to secure for citizens a

more equal start in life.

The Commission has reviewed current measures to tackle child poverty. It

considers that the reduction of child poverty, with its potential for long term

positive outcomes for society as a whole, should form a consensus objective

and that there should be a long term programme broadly endorsed across the

political spectrum. It proposes the following set of principles in relation to the

monitoring and redress of child poverty to inform such a programme.

Principles

The state should systematically provide, through its taxation and

benefits system, some transfer of resources to people with children.

The level of this transfer should overall be greater for people on lower

than on higher incomes, but should not be negligible for the majority of

the population – i.e. people on middle incomes should feel that the

state is making some significant contribution to the cost of bringing up

their children, even though the bulk of this cost remains with them.

Such a system should broadly keep pace with living standards over

time.

Governments should seek to guarantee a minimum level of income for

families with children, based on prevailing living standards and rising in

line with those standards.

The foundation for an acceptable minimum should be some form of

independent, systematic measurement of what is adequate, informed

by public views of what everyone should be able to afford in today’s

society.

The state’s role in supporting families should include reducing the

negative impact of low earnings through the provision of benefits

and/or taxation credits in order to remove disincentives to participation

in the labour market.

1 This figure is a substantial under-estimate of the level of poverty as it would

be occurring ‘naturally’ if there were no governmental benefits and subsidies

of various kinds.

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When attaching conditions to the receipt of out of work benefits by

parents, governments should consider the need to guarantee a

minimum level of financial support for dependent children.

The partnership between parents and the state in paying for children

should seek to offer parents choice and opportunity in balancing the

priorities of looking after their children and participating in the labour

market.

This partnership should aim for equity in the support offered to families

in and out of work.

The law on cohabitation should be amended so that children’s financial

position post separation is equally protected whether they are born to a

cohabiting couple or a married one.

Families should retain autonomy in how they provide for the everyday

material needs of their children, but there are circumstances where, in

the interests of children’s welfare, subsidies and support in kind may be

appropriate.

Policies for state support of families and young people should

acknowledge that children’s dependence on parental help does not

stop at any one age, and thus seek to assist young people from less

advantaged families to make effective transitions to adulthood.

Reviewing Family Support in the Context of

International Governance

The Commission has reviewed the implications of international governance

for family support in the UK, including instruments and case law associated

with the Council of Europe, the European Union, the United Nations

Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on

Human Rights. These instruments have been influential in the development

of family support policy and children’s rights in this country. However, they

require further integration. The absence of a rights perspective recognising

international governance in Every Child Matters is regretted. As a

consequence of this omission, there is a lack of entitlement of children and

parents to the services on offer.

Principle

Family support policy should be reviewed and developed

systematically on an on-going basis in the light of the expectations

placed on governments to provide support for the upbringing of

children established in international instruments to which the UK

government is a party.

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Recommendations

Physical Safety and the Family

1.The defence to a charge of common assault of reasonable chastisement by

a parent should be abolished. Parents should be supported in managing their

children’s behaviour through authoritative parenting practices (see

Management of Children’s Behaviour and Family Services below).

2.Guidance should be issued by the Department for Education and Skills, and

made publicly available to parents, in relation to:

the age of a child below which it would not be appropriate for him/her to

be left without adult supervision;

the minimum age at which it would be appropriate for a child to babysit.

Other factors in addition to age could be flagged up and examples given of

circumstances where exceptions might be made.

Management of Children’s Behaviour

The Law Commission should consider the framework of juvenile justice in

England and Wales in the light of the principles described above and the

following recommendations.

3a.The age of criminal responsibility should be raised to 12.

3b.A doli incapax presumption until the age of 16 should be reintroduced. This

would allow for the gradual and highly variable process of moral development

in children. A system should be adopted, as recommended by the Scottish

Law Commission, of normal immunity from prosecution until the age of 16,

with an equivalent to the Scottish Children’s Hearings introduced based on

the principles of, and the experience gained from, family conferencing,

restorative justice and youth offender panels. A range of supportive and

remedial services to work with children committing offences and their families

should be available for deployment. The criminal prosecution route should be

the exception rather than the rule. One option for a “sliding scale” of maturity

would be for the presumption of incapacity to stand, unless proven otherwise,

for children aged 12-13, but reversed for those aged 14-15.

3c.Parenting orders should be restricted to parents who have rejected

parenting support offered to them on a voluntary basis. Legal sanctions, such

as fines and imprisonment, against parents on account of the misbehaviour of

their children should be restricted to parents of children who are below the

age of criminal responsibility and parents of children found to be incapable of

criminal intent.

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4.The criminal standard of proof of “beyond reasonable doubt” should be

introduced in respect of anti-social behaviour orders (ASBO’s), and the

anonymity of young offenders in receipt of them should be preserved.

Clarifying Policy

5a.The range of expectations, standards of care and responsibilities for

children’s upbringing contained in legal and quasi-legal documents, including

social care, education, criminal justice and financial sources, be collated and

reviewed by government with a view to developing a principled and consistent

approach, reconciling contradictions in policy and filling significant gaps. The

review should involve all government departments with a locus in family

policy, in particular the Department for Constitutional Affairs, Department for

Education and Skills, the Department of Health, the Home Office and the

Treasury.

5b.The outcome of such a review of expectations, standards of care and

responsibilities for children’s upbringing should be made available to the wider

public. The nature of this public information exercise should not involve

legislation, and the manner of its presentation should be informed by research

into parents’/carers’ views of helpful options.

Family Services

The principal government departments that would be responsible for the

implementation of these recommendations include the Department for

Education and Skills, the Department of Health, the Home Office and the

Treasury.

6.Children’s services authorities should be required to provide a menu of

universal and targeted services as described in Menu of Services above.

Parents should be legally entitled to universal services.

7.Implementation and Resources

The Government should develop a national implementation strategy for a

programme of family service enhancement. The strategy should be developed

in partnership with local government and other service providers.

Within that strategy:

a.Redressing deficits in the delivery of current core services should be

prioritised.

b.There should be an assessment of the relationship between demand and

the resources available for family services.

c.Taking into account differing locality profiles, guidance should be developed

for children’s services authorities in respect of relative investment levels

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across early prevention, support where children are in need, support where

they are at risk and local authority care.

8.Optimising Resources and Service Competence

Working with service providers, the Government should enhance the capacity

of practitioners to respond effectively to family support needs through

measures to improve individual and service competence and accountability. In

particular:

a.Where a child has been identified as in need, one professional within the

multidisciplinary network should be allocated responsibility for ensuring that

appropriate support services are provided.

b.Frontline workers in schools, nurseries and primary health care should be

trained in providing basic advice and support to children, couples and families.

c.Financial incentives within and between caring agencies should be

reformulated so that they do not encourage staff to close cases or to move

them to other agencies inappropriately.

d.Adult services should be required to consider the needs of children

associated with any adult they treat.

e.Investment in “service hubs” – children’s centres and extended schools –

should continue, while ensuring that alternative venues are also available for

the receipt of specialist services.

f.Parents should be involved in family service development and

implementation at every level through:

consultations on policy and service development;

parent advisory representation in relation to local strategic planning

and the operation of 'service hubs' in schools and children’s centres;

user involvement in service monitoring and inspection;

training for providers in effective approaches to parental involvement.

9.Monitoring and Child Protection

a.A national child welfare database should not be established.

b.Protocols for information sharing between professionals in order to protect

children, and the management of associated database systems, should be

drawn up by the Government in a way which minimises the risk of:

inaccurate information being held;

trust between families and caring agencies being undermined.

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c.Greater emphasis should be placed on the use of sensitive instruments to

monitor child welfare, such as the midwifery and health visiting service and

the child development checks provided throughout childhood as proposed in

Menu of Services above.

d.Guidance should be provided for the courts and welfare agencies so that

Care and Supervision Orders (Section 31, Children Act 1989) and Family

Assistance Orders (Section 16, Children Act 1989) are used more effectively

as interventions where children are identified as being at risk of significant

harm.

The Material Environment and Growing Up

Public Sphere

10a.The Children’s Commissioner should be charged with monitoring, and

making recommendations to government in respect of investment in and

regulation of the physical environment, marketing and consumption,

advertising and business operations, with a view to promoting children’s

health and safety and ability to lead fulfilling lives. The office of the Children’s

Commissioner should be expanded to enable this function to be undertaken

effectively.

b. Local authorities should be required by government to assess investment in

and the planning and development of commercial and public space and

housing with reference to the needs of children and their carers.

Private Sphere – Families and Poverty

The Commission is pleased to acknowledge that in a number of respects,

present government policy conforms to or is working towards the principles

proposed by the Commission in respect of families and poverty. These

principles would, however, benefit from being clearly stated in the context of

that policy, particularly those pertaining to the vexed relationship between

parents’ caring and earning roles.

As well as providing guides to policy development, the principles proposed by

the Commission point to the need for two overarching measures. The first is

to create a new mechanism to define what income children need to avoid

hardship. The second is to entrench a universal system of financial support for

parents in a way that does not allow it simply to wither as general living

standards rise.

11.The Treasury should establish an independent review body for the purpose

of defining income standards that reflect children’s right to an adequate

standard of living.

The key task of such a body would be to provide objective evidence to inform

the government in setting benefit and tax credit rates. Specifically, its duty

would be to state regularly what minimum levels of income are compatible

with an adequate standard of living for families with different compositions.

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The review body would bring together the present dispersed and irregular

attempts to set budget standards and could draw on a range of existing

methods to construct an official standard. Some of its possible features are

described in the main report in the box – A Family Income Standards Review

Body. In setting up and providing funding for such a body, the Government

would not be surrendering its legitimate right to make judgements about what

kinds of benefits and tax credits are affordable and compatible with other

objectives such as maintaining work incentives, as well as with its other

spending and taxation priorities. The Government would remain responsible

for decisions on credit and benefit levels. Rather, it would be creating a visible

standard of income adequacy and acknowledging the need to work towards

bringing every family above that standard.

12.The Treasury should make a commitment to up-rate Child Benefit and the

family element of Child Tax Credit (i.e. the basic amount going to most

families) in line with average earnings.

The proportion of national income devoted to making flat-rate contributions to

the cost of children across income groups should be standardised in this way,

otherwise there is a constant risk that such “universal” transfers supporting

parents will decline in value relative to other elements of income, as other

budget priorities take precedence. This occurred in the case of Child Benefit

in the 1980s and most of the 1990s, when at best it was up-rated by inflation,

and for a period in the late 1980s not up-rated at all, following the removal of

the statutory duty to consider such an up-rating in 1986. The result was that in

1997, Child Benefit was worth less in real terms than in 1979, even though

average earnings had increased in real terms by around 50% during that

period. The Commission is of the view that the social solidarity required to

sustain adequate protection for the worst-off children is strengthened if some

significant benefit is extended to every family.

Reviewing Family Support in the Context of International Governance

13.The element of international rights instruments (the United Nations

Convention on the Rights of the Child, the European Convention on Human

Rights and European Union and Council of Europe requirements) that has

implications for families and their interface with the state should be collated

and responded to by government in a periodic inter-departmental review of

family support policy encompassing:

support in kind including physical and mental health services,

education, childcare facilities, maternity and paternity leave and the

menu of services that constitute parenting support;

financial support, in respect of which government would also respond

to the findings of independent review body on family income proposed

at Recommendation 11.

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This periodic review of family support should be published in precis for

a wide public audience as part of a process of public information and

enhancement of public awareness.

14.In order to promote and safeguard the application of its tenets, the United

Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child should be incorporated into

domestic legislation.