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Chapter 6: Overall Assessment of Sure Start Scotland and its Future Development

'It's right in there with the bricks now. I would hate anything to happen not to give us that in the future'. (Sure Start Contact Officer)

Introduction

This chapter focuses on what the Sure Start Contact officers said in the interviews and questionnaires about the positive and negative aspects of Sure Start Scotland, the factors that they perceived as helping and hindering development, what areas of improvement they suggested, the extent to which Sure Start was considered to be part of overall early years' policy and what ideas or hopes they had about the future. The previous chapters have shown that Sure Start Scotland has developed and expanded across the Scottish local authorities and that there are overwhelmingly positive views about the initiative. This is reflected again in the responses to the specific questions about positive aspects. Negative aspects relate mostly to factors that were perceived to act as a hindrance to further development rather than relating to the aims of Sure Start itself.

The positive and negative aspects of Sure Start Scotland

In the interviews, the Sure Start Contact Officers were asked what they thought the best and worst things about Sure Start Scotland were; the questionnaire focused more specifically on factors that were perceived to help or hinder planning and delivery. The open-ended interview question elicited overwhelming support for Sure Start Scotland, reflecting much of what has been the story of this mapping exercise - expanded activity and services in early years, meeting the needs of the most vulnerable and moving partnership working and joint working practices forwards. The following examples illustrate some of these issues and exhibit the positive elements which the respondents reported:

'Sure Start has been such a big thing for me. As an officer it has given me a lot of opportunities to get out and make things work for families, very beneficial'

'I'm a big fan of Sure Start'

'There's not really anything bad about it, Sure Start's great'

'The best thing was the opportunity to give vulnerable children and families the best possible start in life. And also the improved partnership working across a range of sectors and also the opportunity to support staff in training to provide quality childcare'

'The targeting of the 0-3s, that's definitely it. That's raised the profile of 0-3s. That's the key thing'

...the involvement, there's a lot of money going into the voluntary sector as well so it does, in different ways, increase the level of partnership working and collaboration'.

As the above examples suggest, the positive aspects of Sure Start Scotland were keenly expressed. When asked about the least good aspects, respondents reiterated issues related to the short-term nature of funding, the difficulties this caused in relation to planning and sustaining posts, the lack of ring-fencing and issues relating to monitoring and evaluation. Such concerns, although not expressed by all, must be taken seriously as they suggest important ways in which Sure Start may continue to develop and improve and thus better serve the needs of vulnerable young children and their families. The following examples illustrate some of these concerns:

'Time not available to step back and review work or celebrate success due to on-going pressures to deliver'.

'Being part of GAE makes funding vulnerable, makes expanding difficult'.

'Need to be able to meaningfully assess outcome. Have a lot of services but need to look at them and determine which ones actually impact the quality of people's lives'.

'The uncertainty of what the funding is in the future. I think it's been so positive but the uncertainty of the funding would be the most difficult thing'.

Factors that help or hinder the planning and delivery of Sure Start Scotland

In the 2001 mapping exercise a range of factors was found to help or hinder the planning and delivery of Sure Start Scotland. These factors, which emerged from the interviews conducted in that exercise, formed part of the questionnaire completed by Sure Start Contact Officers for this exercise. The aim was to identify which factors persisted in hindering and which continued to operate to support the planning and delivery of Sure Start Scotland. Twenty-nine respondents ticked items that they though applied in their local authority. As can be seen from Table 4 below, all of the factors identified previously as helping planning and delivery were still relevant but not across all local authorities. Although robust comparisons cannot be made with the situation in 2001 where these data were not quantified, it is interesting to note that most local authorities now found the local situation supportive.

Table 4: Factors that help the planning and delivery of Sure Start Services

The questionnaire invited respondents to mention any additional factors relevant to their Local authority that were helpful. Fourteen responses were obtained citing different local conditions as supportive. These responses suggest that integration, commitment and relationships are all important in developing Sure Start Scotland:

• Small size of Local authority, local integration teams and voluntary sector involvement
• Small Local authority, easy to contact professionals and personal relationships are built up
• Small Local authority helps, lack of management layers to go through
• Belief in Sure Start Scotland principles
• Willingness of staff to work in an integrated way
• Tradition of integrated working and support
• Development of integrated model, shared vision and full allocation of resources to improve service delivery
• The Sure Start Contact Officer also being the Childcare Strategy Manager so able to progress range of joined up developments
• Commitment of staff at local and strategic level
• Childcare partnerships feeding into the local Children's Services Plan
• Local authority plan and local assessment and planning
• All funding in GAE, all services planned and funded as a whole of children of all ages
• Combining resources, creation and on-going development of Sure Start teams

Of the 21 factors drawn from the 2001 mapping exercise that were reported as hindering the planning and delivery of Sure Start Scotland, all but one (history of poor relationships between departments) continued to have some resonance. The three most important hindering factors (mentioned by the most respondents) were the short term nature of funding, leading to problems of longer term planning; lack of specific guidance from the Scottish Executive on how success is to be measured and what monitoring and evaluation is required and lack of a dedicated Sure Start Scotland officer in post, resulting in multi-tasking. Reassuringly, conflicts and diversion of funds were reported by very few local authorities.

Table 5: Factors that hinder the planning and delivery of Sure Start Services

The questionnaire invited respondents to mention any additional factors relevant to their Local authority that were perceived as hindering. Twelve responses were obtained citing different local conditions as supportive. Some of these responses reiterate issues in the table above; their repetition in the open-ended responses suggests that these factors are keenly felt within the specific Local authority:

• Need to know funding levels for more than three years
• Other agencies expect Sure Start to fund all services for 0-3
• Difficult to develop/plan services for most vulnerable families even working across agencies
• Age range 0-3 and lack of follow on service for aged 5+; lack of national strategy and regulated standard of career and training - progression/career pathways; balance between providing services for children in need and preventative work; competing demands, more children
• Capacity to meet Sure Start aspirations amid other Scottish Executive priorities
• More stigma in small communities, lack of privacy, anonymity, short term budget
• Difficult to get consistent involvement across agencies, recruitment problems, lack of co-ordinator post and planning
• Lack of clarity re Early Years Integration Strategy, Children's Services Planning and role of Childcare Partnerships
• Limited qualified people for staff, geography, group work expensive, confidentiality issues relating to volunteers in rural areas
• Lack of human resources, staff have to multi-task, no dedicated Sure Start officer, temporary contracts
• Role confusion due to worker migration and obligation to call on workers in specialist teams

Areas for improvement/gaps in service

The Sure Start Contact Officer questionnaire asked if any of six defined issues were gaps or areas for further development in their local authority. Twenty-five respondents completed this question. The four areas identified by the most were 'involving men', followed by 'evaluation and monitoring' 'developing preventative services' and 'developing services for the most marginalised and vulnerable children and families'. The planning process, as discussed in Chapter 5, was well developed in most local authorities, as was partnership working, and these issues were noted by fewer local authorities.

Chart 10: Gaps or Areas for Further Development

Respondents were asked to expand on their answers in order to provide more detail about gaps and development needs: 29 provided expanded answers including four who did not tick any of the preceding issues. These four described their local authority as working in each of the six areas, with the following comment being typical:

'Working to improve on all of these; don't know when could say have done enough'

The issue that received most attention in the open ended responses was the need to involve men, as users and/or carers with eleven respondents mentioning this, with the following comment being illustrative:

'Engaging men still a challenge'

Nine respondents reinforced the need for more monitoring and evaluation and/or more guidance on this, for example:

'There is a need to develop current monitoring systems'

In different ways, nine respondents identified vulnerable groups that needed more services, for example, isolated families, families affected by drug or alcohol misuse, young mothers or more generally as the following example suggests:

'Improve targeting to high priority families'

Four respondents noted that partnership working could be further developed or improved; four mentioned human resource issues, four noted the need for further work on preventative services; two the need for long term planning and one the need to involve parents more.

The questionnaires also asked the Sure Start Contact Officers to detail any ways in which Sure Start Scotland could be improved in their local authority. Twenty-eight responses identified a range of ways that Sure Start could be improved relating to gaps or difficulties outlined above, such as the need for accommodation and more centres, ring-fencing, a strategic approach and more time for integration. Other issues, often with specific local relevance included the need to/for:

• Look at the flexibility of Sure Start criteria to support transitions for parents and children
• Extend Sure Start to reach the most rural areas or those with less provision
• Increase mainstreaming and move away from a project-based, individual service approach
• Introduce a one-stop shop approach and increase wrap-around services
• Health to accept ownership of the agenda
• Better use of management information to improve targeting
• New posts to better identify issues for vulnerable families and partnership working to better identify vulnerable families
• Address issues with legal requirements

Sure Start in the context of Early Years' Policy and ideas for future development

In the interviews, the Sure Start Contact Officers were asked how they saw Sure Start Scotland fitting in with the overall structure of early years policy and services in the future. It was clear from their answers that they saw Sure Start as integral to overall early years' policy, as the following examples illustrate:

'Sure Start and Early Years - they are part of each other - they complement one another'

'It's a Venn diagram isn't it - with Sure Start in the middle'

'Would like to see that it is core to the Integrated Early Years' Strategy and making best use of Hall4'

'It has to be the foundation of early years' policies. I think there's still a fair way to go, particularly with our colleagues in education who see the child at age 3 but there are things that happen to the child before they reach nursery that are very significant'

Ideas for the future, asked for at the very end of the interviews, often reflected the gaps and issues outlined above, such as the need to involve men, having guidance on monitoring or ensuring money becomes ring fenced, or reinforced the sense that Sure Start was developing well, as the following examples suggest:

'I think if it can keep going on the way it's going, it's doing okay'

'More of the same, happy how things have developed'

'Quite happy with the way it is structured currently; the false 0-3 bit of it has been eroded quite a bit which is a good thing. Anything that would encourage health to be a more consistent player. Quite happy with 3 yearly funding, have faith that it will continue'

Moreover, there were several comments for the future:

• Suggestions about sharing of good practice, for example through the organisation of seminars
• A suggestion that a centrally funded Sure Start pot that local authorities could bid to use, for example for capital builds
• The need to get away from a separate initiative or more integrated funding between initiatives - for example the need to consider combining two funding steams e.g.SS and Childcare Strategy
• Scottish Executive guidance on integrated working and shared budget management
• Longer term planning
• More involvement of parents
• Further developing partnership working - for example:

'if health had to sign off Sure Start activity, along with education and social work and the voluntary sectors, I think we may well have had a more cogent and coherent approach to it all'

Summary and Conclusion

Overall this chapter has highlighted the perceived strengths and weaknesses of Sure Start Scotland at a general level and in relation to the needs and requirements of specific local authorities. The overall assessment of Sure Start Scotland was overwhelmingly enthusiastic and positive and it was thought to be at the heart of Early Years' Policies. Sure Start Scotland has led to expanded activity, greater partnership working and an impetus to meet the needs of the most vulnerable families and very young children.

The main supportive factors were:

• Local flexibility
• Local knowledge
• A strong policy context
• Mechanisms for integrated working

The main hindering factors were:

• The short term nature of funding
• Lack of guidance on monitoring and evaluation
• Lack of dedicated Sure Start Officers in some local authorities

The main identified gaps in services were:

• Involving men as users, carers and childcare workers
• Reaching the most marginalised and vulnerable children and families
• Established monitoring and evaluation frameworks and procedures

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