Four ways the government can deliver on its new early years strategy
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/four-ways-the-government-can-deliver-on-its-new-early-years-strategy/
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/four-ways-the-government-can-deliver-on-its-new-early-years-strategy/
This week, the UK government published ‘Giving every child the best start in life’, which sets out its strategy for the early years. It aims to deliver the target set out in the Opportunity mission of 75% of children reaching a good level of development by the age of five by 2028. The strategy includes some important new commitments, including the expansion of family hubs, improved maternity and health visiting, a digital offer and a local outcomes framework. As attention now turns to implementation, we suggest four immediate ways the strategy can deliver on its aims.
The expansion of family hubs to cover all local authorities is welcome news. We know place-based support can work in improving outcomes for children; Sure Start led to improvements in health, education and youth justice and resulted in long-term cost savings. As the government rolls out additional hubs, the precise location of these hubs will matter a lot to both impact and cost-effectiveness. Nesta’s analysis of existing family hubs shows that children eligible for free school meals living near a hub funded by central government are more likely to reach a good level of development than those supported by a local authority ‘self-funded’ hub. On this basis, the expansion of centrally-funded hubs is obviously a good thing, but putting them in places where children need them most will be critical.
Sources of evidence and information to shape decision making on this question should include:
It’s also the case that the success of Sure Start was due in no small part to the level of funding it received. The money earmarked for family hubs within this new strategy - £500 million over three years - falls far short of the £1.8 billion a year made available for Sure Start at its peak, and is only around a fiftieth of projected annual spending on free childcare places by 2028.
Government may not have this level of money to spend, but it can still ensure it spends its modest upfront investment effectively as it rolls out family hubs, taking a 'test and learn' approach to identifying and scaling what hubs should deliver, to whom and how. Pioneered in government by the Cabinet Office’s ‘Test, Learn and Grow’ public service reform programme, the approach would help to identify what works so future investment can be spent most effectively.
We know that many families do not receive timely support during the earliest months and years of their child’s life. In England, 16% of babies miss their 9-12 month review and over 20% of toddlers miss the 2-2.5 year check. Some families are simply unaware of the support that is available to them or how to access it, and others may be inadvertently being directed to parenting support services that just aren’t effective.
Rather than just aiming to improve critical services such as maternity care, health visiting and parental support - as set out in the strategy - the government could take this opportunity to identify, communicate, and support the commissioning of an evidence-based ‘core offer’ for children and families, containing a mixture of mandated services and others that could be flexed to fit local contexts. Nesta’s research reveals that among 135 different parenting programmes on offer, many of those currently being delivered by local authorities do not have evidence of impact.
If the government identified the most effective parenting interventions and amended guidance to support local authorities to commission them at scale, this would deliver high impact at a low cost. Closing the gap between what works and what’s implemented would both improve outcomes for families and value for money.
The expansion of hubs and the creation of a digital service (which will provide guidance, link families to their local hub and contain a digital version of the ‘red book’) should create easier physical and digital access to services, support and signposting. The piloting of a unique child identifier – to allow data to be shared more effectively and accurately by linking records together – is also a positive development, particularly if the government goes further and supports the development of common data collection and sharing standards across local authorities.
There are easy and low-cost ways to ensure this digital offer actually enables families to engage early and receive better continuity of care than at present. For example, extending the Tell Us Once scheme to cover birth registration as standard, in addition to death registration – already used by over 90% of local authorities – would ensure the local authorities and their associated family hubs have an early point of engagement with families.
Some local authorities have already created roles within their hubs that are dedicated to building relationships with families and acting as a single point of contact to direct them to the right support. The expansion of family hubs presents an opportunity for the government to explore how these ‘family navigator’ roles could be implemented in all family hubs, so families are able to engage with the full range of physical and digital services.
Finally, digitisation can transform service delivery. For example, AI-assisted speech and language therapy tool Ogma enables speech and language therapists to support four times the number of children with speech and language problems, compared with unassisted therapists. Online parenting programmes also have the potential to reach parents who are unable to access in-person services or who have a preference for virtual delivery.
Creating a national ‘good level of development’ target is one thing, but ensuring everyone knows how to reach it is another. The ongoing development of a Local Government Outcomes Framework, referenced within the strategy, could help to align services and improve data tracking but in order to be useful it should be based on a clear and shared theory of how progress towards the good level of development target happens, and therefore how a specific local authority can work towards it.
The absence of an overarching national outcomes framework setting out the ‘outcomes along the way’ creates a vacuum which is currently filled by a patchwork of disconnected local frameworks, leading to conflicting incentives and inconsistent approaches. The strategy is an opportune moment for the Department for Education to define what good looks like along the way to a ‘good level of development’. Doing so will ensure the parts of the early years system can align and add up to more than the sum of their constituent parts.
A national outcomes framework is also low-hanging fruit. The sector is crying out for it and it doesn’t have to be built from scratch: there’s already extensive work underway through the ‘Common Outcomes Framework’ for example, and validation and adoption are just the next steps.
The government’s early years strategy is an ambitious and welcome commitment to improving support for children and their families during the critical years of early childhood. But success in delivery will depend on the effectiveness and coherence of what’s delivered, particularly given constrained resources.
This means:
The strategy lays the foundations for a long-term, nationwide system of coherent and effective family support; now we need to make concrete progress.
