Dear Secretary of State for Education
blog | Words Matthew Horne | 15 Jul 2024
Congratulations on winning the General Election, and being appointed to the Cabinet. The next five years will undoubtedly be very challenging for children’s services and the education system. Expectations for change are high, yet the public finances are in bad shape meaning there is less money to invest than everyone would like.
Innovation Unit has spent the last 15 years supporting the development and scaling of some of the most promising innovations focused on reducing child poverty, keeping families together, and raising educational achievement. Below, we have highlighted three commitments from your manifesto, and shared some lessons from our work, and particularly some of the connections that we see between each of these commitments.
1
Labour will open an additional 3,000 nurseries through upgrading space in primary schools, to deliver the extension of government funded hours families are entitled to.
We are working with some incredibly innovative and ‘mission driven’ not-for-profit childcare providers. We encourage you to locate these new places in existing childcare deserts where there is very limited provision, few special needs places and where high fees make childcare unaffordable to those on lower incomes. ‘For purpose’ childcare providers deliver great quality childcare, for lower fees, in lower income communities – they are tailor made to address the inequalities you are concerned about. However, many of these innovative providers are currently too small, and lack the financial capital to scale up. We would love to see your department set ambitious targets to grow ‘for purpose’ childcare providers (such as social enterprises) as a proportion of the sector, with stronger long term policy incentives and help to improve their access to philanthropic capital so they can grow.
2
Labour will work with local government to support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption, as well as strengthening regulation of the children’s social care sector.
We have worked with some of the most promising innovations in children’s social care over the last 10 years, supporting 70+ innovation projects to develop and to scale. At the core of the most successful innovations is a small set of underlying (and well evidenced) principles: taking a strengths based and restorative approach with families; starting with the needs of families (rather than the risks); and addressing the root causes of domestic violence, drug and alcohol misuse, and adult mental health problems. Working in this way helps families to turn their lives around, keeps families together and keeps children safe.
Changing the culture in social care is really hard, especially when the media, politicians and Ofsted are unsupportive. We argue that you should create stronger infrastructure for collaboration and sector led innovation at a sub-regional and regional level. Examples of this can be seen in our work with the North West region and Greater Manchester in areas such as early family help, adolescent safeguarding, and children’s homes.
3
Labour will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. This will complement our plan for Young Futures Hubs, which will make sure every community has an open-access hub for children and young people with drop-in mental health support.
Over the past five years we have been helping to implement Living Well mental health Hubs in 15 places nationally. This approach to adult community mental health is delivered through local hubs inspired by innovations in south London and Italy. The evidence from the evaluation shows that providing flexible, easily accessible, community-based mental health services significantly improves outcomes that matter most to people. We argue that this model should be extended to support adolescents, and reduce the cliff edge between child and adult services. We also argue that any mental health hub for young people should be codesigned with and by young people.
We really welcome the ambition set out in your manifesto. We have a wealth of experience and insights that can support the successful implementation of these policies. We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with your team to ensure that these commitments translate into tangible, positive outcomes for children and families across the UK.
Warmest Wishes
Chief Executive