Title

Local leadership is what ‘matters most' when it comes to children's wellbeing, according to the children's secretary, Ed Balls. Speaking to delegates attending the National Children and Adult Services annual conference in Liverpool, Mr Balls said ‘only so much can be done by ministers in the centre'. There was also a tough warning that his department wanted to see an improvement in outcomes for young people. Directors of children's services had a ‘vital' role to play in ensuring school reform happened in every school, he said. In some areas, this would mean ‘difficult choices' but, he said, ‘excuses are not good enough for children'. The ‘biggest thing' he had learned this year was that ‘best practice is not the common practice in our country'. He made much of the wellbeing agenda, saying ‘we need to make sure' health services were represented on children's trusts. One delegate asked Mr Balls what he thought about high levels of stress among school staff, which had become a top issue for education chiefs trying to tackle rates of long-term sickness. Mr Balls conceded defeat. He said: ‘I can't wave a magic wand and make teaching an unstressful job.' He also admitted that improving education chances for hard-to-reach groups remained a difficulty. The problem of how to ensure gypsy traveller children got a solid education was ‘at the hardest end of hard', according to the minister. Mr Balls said ‘making things systematic' for gypsy traveller children was one of the most difficult problems faced by directors of children's services.

Title

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

Keep children's welfare local says Balls

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING