Good morning, convener and committee. Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on the early years change fund, which, as you know, is a partnership fund between the Scottish Government, local government and the national health service.
Community planning partnerships submit annual returns to the Scottish Government on their change fund activity. When Aileen Campbell addressed the committee in January 2014, we had information from CPPs about only the first year of the change fund activity, 2012-13. We now have the second year of returns available to us, for 2013-14 activity. I apologise for the delay in making that information available, which was due to the fact that we received the last CPP return only on 19 May this year.
The returns give us an indication of how CPPs are progressing in their journey to deliver transformational change in early years services and the part that the change fund has played in that journey. I have been heartened by the picture from the latest returns, because we can see progress being made in giving the early years the priority they deserve and tangible examples of how CPPs are doing that in their everyday work. This is the very nature of what a change fund is about: delivering a different way of doing things.
For example, in West Dunbartonshire, a speech and language link officer has been attached to each early education and childcare centre, which allows waiting times to be addressed and ensures that the right referrals are made to speech and language services.
This is the first year that we have been able to capture some sense of the actual spend by CPPs. Our calculations indicate that just over £100 million has been invested in early years activity across Scotland through the change fund. That is above the minimum commitment from all partners to spend £89 million in year 2 of the change fund.
However, we must recognise the challenge associated with gathering information on spend in relation to change fund activity. In doing that, we have had to make a number of judgment calls about what to include in providing an estimated level of spend. For example, one CPP provided figures for its total integrated children’s services budget, which we have not included in our total because our judgment is that not all of that money related to the change fund.
The conclusions that we can draw are only as good as the information that we are able to gather. Nevertheless, despite those challenges, we can see real progress this year. All 32 CPPs provided examples of prevention, and in year 2 we have received examples of disinvestment for the first time. For example, in Dundee, the CPP is responding to feedback from the community on the type of services that it needs by moving away from providing stand-alone social work family centres to reinvesting in locally based teams that deliver a family-oriented approach to services.
The early years collaborative, our national quality improvement programme that enables local practitioners to test and develop evidence-based early years services at the local level, was cited as an example of how change is being delivered in every single return. When Sir Harry Burns attended the committee alongside Aileen Campbell, he said:
“I would not be the least bit surprised if, 20 years from now, we shut a prison”—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 15 January 2014; c 3548.]
because of the preventative work that we were doing in the early years through the change fund.
I have been heartened by the progress that I have read about, and I will shortly request the year 3 returns from CPPs, which I am sure will provide yet more examples of how we are giving the early years the priority that the evidence tells us they deserve.