Introduction

One significant aim of Every Child Matters is to ensure that support for the most vulnerable is placed within a framework of universal provision (e.g., schools and health services) and that universal services are able to address issues early to ensure all children and young people achieve the five key outcomes of staying safe, being healthy, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well being.  As part of the implementation of the Children Act 2004, children’s services will become more integrated through the way they assess need and offer access to support as well as by joining up their delivery through children’s services teams based together and nearer to where children, young people and their families live.

In order to ensure that all children’s services are able to work together to achieve the best collectively for all children, the Local Authority is required by the Children Act 2004 to establish a ‘children’s trust arrangement’ (CTa) by April 2008. This will identify how services and other resources will be organised and deployed at an authority wide and local level so that all statutory, voluntary and private sector children’s services, including early years services, schools and GPs, can work together to improve services and deliver the Every Child Matters Outcomes for Children and Young People.  

Four locality areas known as ‘Local Area Partnerships’ (LAP’s), based on existing school clusters, have been established as the framework for developing the collaboration and co-ordination required from all partners to achieve the delivery of integrated children’s services across Bath and North East Somerset. The shift away from current ways of working towards integrated delivery at Local Area Partnership level will take time and will be incremental rather than immediate change. A key aspect of this is building a culture of collaboration and strengthening and aligning the networks and relationships that already exist.   It is anticipated that physical changes i.e., the establishment of multi disciplinary / multi agency teams sited within the localities will emerge from this collaboration rather than in advance of it.