Children Now - Liberal Democrat Policies for Children

Written by Annette Brooke and published in Children Now on Wed 8th Sep 2004

Childcare: We welcome the Government's investment in and expansion of child care and look forward to it being expanded even further. In particular, we are committed to increasing access to affordable childcare so that more parents can choose the most suitable and appropriate arrangements for their circumstances.

We believe in the need to raise the quality of childcare, by introducing professional qualifications for childminders and nursery school assistants. Young children are as much in need of contact with highly trained teachers as older children, and they benefit just as much from such contact.

We support the Government's financial assistance with childcare but consider the 'Childcare Element of the Working Tax Credit' to be far too complex.

Nurseries: Lib Dem policy is to introduce Early Years Centres in every community, with access to day nurseries for babies and young children, and pre-school care and education for children up to the start of primary school.

We opposed the Child Trust Fund, which provides a sum of £250 to every new baby redeemable when they are 18 years old. These financial resources would be better spent on early years' education now, and we would use the savings of £250 million per year to invest in early years. Evidence supports the fact that investment in early years prevents the need for other support in a child's later life.

Parenting: Lib Dems believe that the most influential people for every young child are its parents. Liberal Democrat policies focus on providing the support necessary for parents to care for their children, for example by making parenting classes more generally accessible to parents wherever they live, without stigma. By providing Early Years Centres for every local area, where parents can choose to go for routine services and help and advice about any problems they face, such as education, health, social services, housing, benefits and employment, their needs will be better met in an inclusive and supportive environment under one roof.

Play and sport: Children are learning from the moment they enter the world, and everything they experience is educative. It is important to recognise that very young children learn best through play and exploration, and that successful early education should focus on enjoyment rather than on forcing children to acquire formal skills from a very early age.

Pressure on schools to prepare children for SATs taken at the age of seven, puts too great an emphasis in some schools on formal instruction for passing 'tests' at an early age - they should be scrapped. There is a lot of evidence, particularly from Scandinavia, that too early a start to formal school can be counter productive in the long term.

We want to encourage more 'active play' in schools to ensure that all children enjoy some kind of physical activity. If children are introduced to a wide range of sports and physical activities at school age, and are encouraged when they are interested in or good at such activities, they are more likely to continue with sport outside school and when they have left formal education.

Contact: Liberal Democrats believe in the principal of equality of parenting responsibilities, where it is safe to do so, but consider that the needs of the child should come first in all circumstances. This may mean that it is not always in the child's interests to split access equally between both parents if the stability and security of the child's home and school life might be compromised.

Each case should be assessed individually, preferably with a team of professionals who are familiar with the details of the family's case and background.

We also very much welcome the government's consultation on 'Parental Separation' and its proposals to introduce more 'mediation' between parents to overcome disputes to avoid conflict and minimise any negative impact on children.

Sure Start: Liberal Democrats fully support Sure Start, and wish to see such programmes extended more widely and more quickly giving access to many more deprived areas. We welcome the commitment to Sure Start and Children's Centres given in the budget and the summer's comprehensive spending review, but wish the government had committed this funding earlier. Evidence suggests that spending on early years support, dramatically reduces the need for more family intervention and support in later years, proving that such investment is long-term and worthwhile.

Our Early Years' Centres would work much in the same way as the Government's Children's Centres. We want to see Early Years Centres serving the 50% most deprived council wards in the course of one parliament and to cover the whole country in two parliaments, catching the many 'pockets' of deprivation existing across all communities. This builds substantially on the government's initial commitment to cover only 20% of the most deprived wards.

Child poverty: We fully support the government's ambition to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and to halve it by 2010, and we welcome the many generous government policies intended to help families living in poverty.

We recognise that the Chancellor's system of Tax Credits has helped thousands of households living on low incomes get off benefits but we fear that the system is enormously complicated for families. Tax Credits are not received immediately when people need them and therefore the system is not as responsive as it might be to people's immediate needs and changing circumstances.

Unless the government addresses the housing problem, the benefits system and household debt urgently, many of its generous policies to address child poverty will fail.

Child health: We support the Government publishing a National Service Framework for child health but we have long criticised them for being slow on tackling important issues relevant to children like obesity.

We call for at least two hours per week of exercise/sport in schools, and on focusing government sport funding on participative activities which improve health. We have developed a range of transport policies to ensure that opportunities for walking, cycling and use of public transport are built in at the design stage encouraging more walking and cycling to school, and parents would feel that their children were safer from traffic and crime.

In terms of provision of food in schools, we have developed a range of policies to ensure that children understand food and what makes for a healthy diet and to require schools to develop nutrition policies in terms of school meals, vending machines and other food available at school. We would also extend 'breakfast clubs' to ensure that children, particularly the most vulnerable, start the day with an adequate meal.

Mental health: We have long campaigned for government action to improve Child and Adolescent Mental Health services, which are patchy in provision and where waiting times are often very long. Our health policies call for the promotion of mental health services, especially in schools. We recognise that early intervention with help and services for young people with mental health problems can and will reduce worse problems in later life, including homelessness and crime.

We want to encourage better partnerships between health professionals and the voluntary sector at local community level to tackle the public health issues surrounding mental health.

Asylum: The Liberal Democrats opposed and continue to oppose moves which would cause children of failed asylum seekers to be taken into care. We also oppose detaining children in removal centres.

Extended schools: The concept of extended schools has long been one that Liberal Democrats have supported. To use primary school buildings, facilities and playing fields beyond the school day make good sense. However the Government's proposals lack as ever the clarity over areas such as funding where schools have very tight budgets within which to work. There is also a question of authority - will head teachers retain responsibility for those offering activities on the site and will they be expected to manage them? The thorny question of child protection must also be tackled when a much larger group of adults comes into contact with children. However there is huge potential to provide a one stop shop to support families with a combination of education and child care which could prove extremely valuable. For young children we must guard against Government's tendency to over-prescribe and make sure that activities are fun, are varied, allow for exercise and creativity - extended schools must now mean more formal schooling to meet Whitehall targets.

Truancy and bullying: There is no doubt that for individual children and their parents bullying is one of their worst fears. The effects can destroy lives and certainly destroy the enjoyment of learning. As ever the Government talks of 'tough action' without fully understanding the problem or examining the solutions. Most bullying goes unreported and unnoticed so it is hard to get tough there! The majority of bullies have been the subject of bullying themselves so harsh punishment is hardly appropriate. Much bullying is regarded by the perpetrators as 'fun' or bolstering 'self image - and is not seen as bullying. The Liberal Democrats believe that the basis of any good anti-bullying initiative is the development of a 'no blame' culture to allow early disclosure and action without stigmatising the bully or making the victim a target for re-crimination. We want to see schools promote anti-bullying as part of a school ethos (in the staffroom too) rather than a response mechanism when things go wrong.

We have of course had 'tough' policies on truancy before and they have come to nothing. The Liberal Democrats accept the need to reduce the number of students out of school each day but again wish to target the causes of truancy. Most research indicates that the bulk of truancy arises from disaffection of what is on offer at a school and the increasing inability of children to cope. Much of the bravado around truancy hides a lack of self image for children with the school setting. We have long argued for a curricular approach to truancy - creating learning opportunities that turn children on to learning and not off school. This may also necessitate alternative learning situations to help re-integration such as off site tuition, distance learning and even home tuition.

Disablity and school inclusion: The Liberal Democrats believe it is the right of every child with a special education need or disability to be educated alongside their peers where this is compatible with the wishes of the child, the parents and crucially their education. Disability must not be seen as an excuse to segregate children but neither should education policy be an excuse to include them. A careful assessment of need should be made by appropriate professionals, agreed with parents and regularly monitored. The Liberal Democrats would retain and crucially enhance the role of special schools. We want these schools to be seen as centres of excellence and research centres attached where possible to university departments. Special schools should provide crucial research data and act as specialist advice centres, distilling good practice into the mainstream sector.

Looked-after children: We feel strongly that looked after children deserve and need much more support. The 'quality protects' policy was an excellent initiative but we recognise that much more needs to be done. Overall educational results for looked after children are very poor. In 2003, only 53% of looked after children obtained at least one GCSE or GNVQ, compared with 95% of all school children. It is also a matter of great concern that 37% of boys and 43% of girls who have been in custody as young offenders had previously spent time in either a care or a foster home. It is therefore vital to place a duty on schools to provide additional support to ensure that looked after children can meet their potential and to provide effective services to prevent exclusion from school and offending behaviour.

Child protection: We welcome the replacement of area protection committees and the introduction of Local Safeguarding Children Boards with responsibilities on a statutory footing.

Anti-social behaviour: We have consistently supported anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) but have argued that they must be accompanied by a package of support measures in order to change or modify behaviour. Whilst we supported a great many measures in the government's Anti-Social Behaviour Bill, we voted against dispersal orders and curfews as we received no firm assurances that preventative and diversionary measures would be introduced at the same time. We had great concerns that depending on how they were applied, they could cause even more alienation amongst young people.

Liberal Democrat policy is to work with local authorities, young people, their parents, the police and other agencies to be tough on the causes of ASB. We recognise that sanctions are also necessary, and in particular when a criminal act takes place, it should be dealt with appropriately.

School independence and funding: The Liberal Democrats do not want to see the further demise of LEA's but wish to see their role critically change. It is crucial that crude central funding formulas do not give the impression of greater independence. Schools have significantly differing cost bases not only in terms of their real estate but also their student body. This is why we have advocated a funding policy based on activity with an element of local cost built in. Our policy of minimum entitlement (activity) with maximum flexibility determined locally would mean that our most disadvantaged schools and children are not sacrificed on the altar of independence.

Information sharing: The Liberal Democrats support the principle of a simple 'information database' with objective data for children but have very many questions and concerns about how this will work in practice. There is very little information on the face of the Bill, and we would wish for much more detail on how the government proposes it would work.

More professional training for social workers and multi-agency teams, together with smaller case loads and a better status for social workers would help them work with children and families and address child protection needs more effectively.

Children's trusts: We welcome the development of Children's Trusts and believe that a more integrated and holistic approach to meeting child and parent needs can be better facilitated, including close involvement of the voluntary sector in these partnerships.

It will be necessary for the government to make sure that children's services are adequately funded to enable local authorities and all the relevant agencies to work together effectively.

We would like to see the evaluation of the Pathfinders to see how any conflicts between the priorities of health, social services and education providers are resolved.

Children's services: We welcome closer working between education, social services and health professionals. We are pleased that the government responded to representations to give flexibility to local authorities to work toward a new structure which will work best for the delivery of their local services, and which ensures a clear line of accountability with the appointed Director of Children's Services and lead member.

Smacking: Liberal Democrat party policy is to remove the defence of reasonable chastisement, and effectively ban 'smacking' of any child by any adult. We want to see that children have the same rights as adults against any physical assault.

In particular, we want to introduce policies to encourage more 'positive parenting' and more support services available to families. We believe that these policies will help to reduce harm and violence against children, as it has in other European countries, and in the longer term will lead to a culture and social change in Britain where children's rights and protection are placed first. We also hope that by putting an end to any violence against children, violence by children and by adults can be prevented in later life.

Sex education and sexual health: We have developed policies to ensure that all young people, including children, receive more and better quality sex education and sexual health education with the aim of promoting sexual understanding and responsibility and reducing teenage pregnancies and problems of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).

We also support policies to target sexual health messages to key groups of people, particularly teenagers.

Liberal Democrat policies to cut STIs would focus on higher priority for contraceptive services, including advice on the full range of contraceptive options to be available in all GP surgeries; free condoms in GP surgeries and other sexual health service providers; improved access to emergency contraception, including in a pharmacy setting.