It’s that time again – my annual Christmas Card competition for primary school children in Hornsey & Wood Green.

I visited some of the children actually during one of their painting classes (Highgate Primary – my old school) to see how they were getting on. As I walked in Christmas Carols were blaring out and there was glitter and golden snowflakes everywhere. Paintings full of Christmas trees and Santas – as you would expect – but there are always lots of things you would never have thought of in a million years. Each  year to date – I have set a particular theme – but this year decided to ask the children to do whatever Christmas means to them. As ever – the children were huge fun – very excited and inquisitive – and it is a lovely way to finish as my last visit on a Friday afternoon!

I will be judging on the 11th and the winner and runners up will be announced shortly after that.

Arrived in Sheffield early afternoon and went to visit two really excellent projects.

Sheffield Domestic Abuse Partnership  As I said in my previous post, I inherited recently, the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) portfolio. So I was very keen to see the new way that Sheffield was handling its Domestic Violence agenda – as they have a new way of working. It’s called the ‘Sheffield Domestic Abuse Partnership’ – and the major difference is that for the first time the volunteers from the sector and the police dealing with Domestic Violence incidents are housed together. This co-location brings together multi-agency working in a new way. The colocation means that things can be handled across so many departments all by speaking to each other.

Having seen the ghastly mess of people in different agencies not knowing what each other was doing, not sharing information appropriately in a timely way n the Peter Connelly case in Haringey, this seems to be an  answer.

Areas elsewhere aspire to this way of working – but having the helpline, the Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, the citywide outreach service, the youth offending service worker and the police Domestic Violence Unit tother with the Children’s Specialist Services Joint Investigation team all in the same space makes the world of difference. Everyone knows each other, what they do, how to approach things. When an incident happens – they can immediately put together the right intervention for the situation – and be on the scene within the hour. This just doesn’t happen elsewhere. There is really too much to put in a blog post – but I have copious information to study now as I think this was a real innovation.

Community Justice Panels I’d always been impressed in the past when I’d heard about these panels but this is the first occasion on which I had had the opportunity to hear first hand from the volunteers and managers – how it all worked.

Restorative Justice works. The figures speak for themselves. From ninety young people who went through the process – only three have re-offended. Those are stats to die for!

The level of nuisance to which this process can be applied is relatively minor – ie anti-social behaviour that people call the police or council about time and time again. Often it is neighbour disputes – and there cannot be a councillor or an MP in the land who doesn’t have a raft of those – long running and with no resolution ever really reached.

An incident happens. The police decide to refer it to the Community Justice Panel. The volunteers go to visit, for example, both parties and talk to them to find a way forward. If the perpetrator agrees to the proposed Justice Panel – it goes forward to the panel where both parties have to appear and speak to each other . Sometimes it is just the process of facing the reality of the impact that your thoughtless or nasty act has had on another human being’s life that makes the break through. Reparation is sought which is appropriate to the ‘crime’. If the perpetrator doesn’t want to go through this process or goes through it but mucks around or doesn’t take it seriously – then it reverts to the law.

But that statistic – out of ninety youngsters only three have re-offended, is truly incredible. And the thing about early intervention like this – is that from what the volunteers were saying – it actually not only deals with the current situation but seems to change those involved for the better.

It’s only been up and running for eighteen months – so early days – but could be a significant model for how to address some types of anti-social behaviour.

So – all in all – a really worthwhile afternoon.

Well – I’m going to Sheffield tonight as guest speaker at Nick Clegg’s local party’s Annual Dinner.

Befor the dinner, I will be doing a tour of Sheffield Domestic Abuse Partnership and meeting Community Justice  Panels volunteers.

Having inherited the Violence Against Women and Girls portfolio a few weeks ago – I am very keen to hear how different parts of the country deal with Domestic Violence. These types of visits to the front line are always instructive as it is rare to go anywhere where you don’t pick up new thoughts and ideas and best practise.

Likewise – Community Justice Panels – as we move to hopefully a justice sysem that is effective not vindictive. It’s what works that matters.

Post the Browne report, Vince Cable’s been working to produce a more progressive way of funding Higher Education.

I have always believed that education should be free – for everyone – and always will. However, Labour ended the principle of free education with the introduction of tuition fees – and whichever way you turn in the current climate – those fees or costs are going to go up. I also despair that virtually the entire conversation around Higher Education is about the economics and nothing else.

Vince, as I said, has been working beyond hard to try and make this as good as it can be – and as progressive as can be.

A brief synopsis of the proposals:

1.       All students will repay less per month under this Government’s policy than they currently pay.

2.       The lowest earning  25% of graduates will repay less under this Government’s policy than they do now.

3.       The top earning 30% of graduates will pay back more than they borrow and are likely to pay more than  double the bottom 20% of earners.

4.       Over half a million students will be eligible for more non-repayable grants for living costs than they get now.

1. Almost one million students will be eligible for more overall maintenance support than they get now

6.       Part time students will no longer have to pay up front fees benefiting up to 200,000 per year

7.       There will be an extra £150m for a new National Scholarship Programme for students from poorer backgrounds and we will introduce tough new sanctions of universities who fail to improve their access to students from backgrounds.

This is not coming to the floor of the House for a few weeks yet to come and is a difficult issue for Liberal Democrats because we cannot have the solution we, on the whole, want.

The Coalition agreement only goes as far as to say “We will await Lord Browne’s final report into higher education funding, and will judge its proposals … If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that the Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote”.

So the issue will be whether the Liberal Democrat MPs feel that the response to Lord Browne’s report is acceptable or not.

The NHS pledge which most LibDems signed up (including me) said: “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”

Vince has made it quite clear that the pledge is subsumed by the coalition agreement – and indeed – because even if it wasn’t, as he said in Parliament, we cannot keep that first part of the pledge – it is no longer viable.

However, he also argues, that the second part of the pledge he has undoubtedly delivered on – a much, much fairer regime than under Labour.

I won’t make a final decision until the final proposals are on the table. I will have three choices in theory: support the Government (and as a Minister this would be the norm), abstain as per the coalition agreement  or vote against as per the NUS pledge.

Orals

I had two questions in Equalities Orals this week: one was on human trafficking and the other on keeping women out of prison.

The human trafficking question is raised because of the coalition decision not to opt into the European Directive on Human trafficking at this point. We have deferred this until we see final proposals. At the moment we cover almost all of the things in the directive. The piece that is different is extra territorial jurisdiction. We believe that if trafficking is taking place in another country – then that country has the jurisdiction to make the arrest etc – whether the trafficker is of that nationality or British. Equally – if a trafficking offence occurs on our soil – then we already have all the legislative powers we need to arrest them etc – regardless of their nationality. So – we are keeping a watching brief at this point.

On women in prisons on short sentences – our whole aim is to keep women out of the prison system altogether – unless they need to be imprisoned because they are a danger to other people (this view applies to men too). Vast numbers of women are on really short sentences – four months for example. The consequences of a woman being in prison can be out of kilter with the sentence – loss of home, children in care and so on – which ultimately result in a cost to the family and a cost to the state.

A network of programs for women only has been running, run by the voluntary sector, which had an initial fund of £10million. In Wales, for example, these programs have been so successful that the local probation service is going to fund them when the initial money runs out.

We also have a program to support women on remand so that rather than wait in prison for their court trial – they are mentored and supported – thus not entering the prison system, not losing home and kids, and turning up when the court date arrives.

Arup

Was keynote speaker at a reception for Arup (big civil engineering firm) who are working to ensure more women go into the science, engineering and technology fields and encouraging women in urban design. They produced their research on the effect on living space and places that an absence of women has – ie the spaces are about mens lives and men’s needs. Not that one is right and the other wrong – but an observed and researched piece of work on the consequences of the almost complete absence of women from these decisions over history.

This chimed so much with my own experience when I was Chair of Transport at the London Assembly – and the decisions were very much who has the biggest airport or the longest train – and how to get a double buggy on a bus or the height of hanging straps on the tube or the public transport provision for domestic journeys were all second order. It’s not that one is right and one is wrong – we need both big infrastructure projects and soft measures to have equal weight.

Community Service Volunteers ‘Make a Difference Day’

To celebrate all the brilliant work volunteers do I went to Muswell Hill police station to visit the volunteers who staff the front counter – the result of one of my earliest campaigns locally along with local people. Makes me very proud to see how they are flourishing five years on. Then went out on the best with two ‘special constables’ who have exactly the same powers as an ordinary police officer. They had both been specials for some years – and when asked why – the answer was as you would hope ‘to give back to the community’.

Hornsey Carnival Halloween Dance

Went to give out the cheques – the money that Gordon Rathbone and his team had raised from the parade earlier in the year and the door to door selling of the programs. Hornsey Carnival has been going for decades – and it is on the back of volunteers again – who raise this money for charity. This year’s carnival was the first one I was unable to attend as I had to represent the Government at Gay Pride – but it is one of my favourites. I think it is because as the parade goes through the streets of Hornsey and Crouch End and the children and parents come out – it is one of those rare occasions when the community, the organisations who work so hard in it and all – take part in celebrating publicly all that goes on.

I also got to judge the fancy dress competition and I was meant to give a speech. I could only croak a few words as have laryngitis – but they forgave me. Some of the organisations that received cheques were: Hornsey Centre for Cerebral Palsy, Action for Kids, North London Hospice and many more. A total of £1500 was given to various good causes.

So – congratulations to all who work so hard to make this happen every year.

Michael Gove is to be commended for publishing the two Serious Case Reviews (SCR) on the tragic events leading up to the death of Peter Connelly (Baby P). Labour always refused to do so – but if that somewhat overused phrase ‘lessons must be learned’ is to mean anything – then publishing SCRs is a real step in the right direction.

Finally, we can actually see what was in the first SCR – and then see what was in the second SCR commissioned by Ed Balls because he believed the first one was ‘inadequate’.

Having read both – twice – I think on closer inspection they raise more questions than they answer.

At the end of the trial of Baby Peter’s mother, boyfriend and lodger, together with about four others, I was allowed to read the first SCR under lock and key and with the proviso that I never revealed what was in it. So all I ever said about it was that people would be shocked to find such a litany of casualness by every individual and every agency involved in child protection.

And indeed, that was the verdict yesterday by the media and commentators. The extraordinary thing is that when there is a child protection plan in place as there was with Baby Peter – given that child has been assessed as ‘at risk’ we (the people) would expect those charged with the child’s safety to be rigorous in their attention to detail. Instead we find a litany of missed appointments, no follow-ups, files lost, handovers not done, meetings not attended. It is genuinely an appalling litany of casualness.

But all of this was quite clear in the first SCR. It wasn’t well written or well-analysed – but seemingly the information was there even if in a somewhat rambling form. So – why did Ed Balls commission a second SCR?

Looking at the second SCR – it doesn’t really answer that question. Yes – it is better written, better ordered and the analysis is sharper – but it doesn’t seem to add anything new. In fact – it addresses far less – and astonishingly seems to airbrush out the child health protection agencies. There doesn’t seem to be a mention in the body of the text (except introductory) of Haringey PCT, St Ann’s or Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). Yes – there is a chronology of events – that describes going to doctors, visits to hospitals – individual’s failings on health – but nothing about the management of those services at all.

Given that I have been banging on about the child health protection part in all of this on the floor of the Chamber myself, on this blog, in articles and I even got Norman Lamb (at that point LibDem Shadow Health Secretary) to raise it – I find the omission extremely surprising.

I first raised the alarm on the health issue because I couldn’t understand why there was a locum in the first place – the locum who turned out to be the doctor who didn’t recognise the injuries of Baby Peter – just before he died. It turned out that there was a locum because the department was understaffed drastically because two senior paediatricians had resigned; one was on sick leave and one on special leave.

It also turned out that four senior paediatric consultants had written to the management of GOSH to raise the alarm on unsafe procedures and clinicians’ concerns not being listened to.

There’s more – but the essential issue – is why are all the issues around management failure in the child health protection team not included in the second SCR? They are in the first one. There are lots of recommendations in the first SCR for GOSH and Haringey PCT. Why are there none in the second? It’s as if GOSH and Haringey PCT have been spirited away.

Also, most strangely, the second SCR focuses almost entirely on Haringey Children’s Services – and whilst yes – they were undoubtedly the lead agency and deserved the priority scrutiny – the child protection health arrangements were a whisker behind. Was the second SCR directed by someone to focus attention more on one agency than another involved in the case? If so – why?

I will be interested to see what experts, professionals and commentators think after they have had time to read the reports fully. The day of publication was more to do with the shock of seeing the litany of failure that led to Peter Connelly’s death. In the cold light of day – with more time to read both SCRs together – more in depth analysis will be helpful.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I flagged up very early a real concern over how the voluntary sector would survive the transition from the funding they receive now until the new structures like the Big Society Bank and new ways of commissioning are up and running. And the voluntary sector is crucial to the Big Society idea itself – absolutely vital.

I also flagged up how concerned I was about Haringey Council simply pass on cuts to those it regards as soft targets (like the voluntary sector) rather than radically reform the way it is run. At Whitehall in the Home Office, for example, we have sustained a huge overall cut – but taken 33% of it in administration in order to keep front line services as protected as possible. I hope Haringey Council applies that same rigour. On past track record I am not overly hopeful.

The Government has recognised that the sector is exposed during the transitional period leading up to the new opportunities and new ways for civil society organisations to offer public services – as public spending is reduced to cut the deficit.

The Spending Review there for includes a £100million Transition Fund for the sector. The fund will start this financial year and go into next. It will provide grant funding to voluntary and community organisations,m charities and social enterprises in England to give them the breathing space they need to enable them to manage the transition to a tighter funding environment and to take advantage of future opportunities presented by increased public service delivery.

Organisations can express an interest in receiving info on the fund now at transitionfund@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk

The fund is for England only and eligibility criteria will be available shortly.

That was the headline in the Sunday Times – and yes I do want kids age 12 and over to see Made in Dagenham – the film that portrays a hugely important part of our social history.

Made in Dagenham tells the tale of the women who came out on strike from the Ford Dagenham plant because they were paid less than their male counterparts.
Yes – there is some bad language – but this is an important film. And given what can be seen by children all over the place that is really offensive – like the way women are often treated as objects in music videos or lads’ mags – the idea that you can restrict something this good from youngsters under 15 seems wrong.

I hope the British Board of Film Classification will reconsider their decision and give it the 12A certificate it merits. The equal pay act was spawned by these women’s fight for equality – and we are still fighting today. The attitudinal behaviour between the genders starts very early – the sooner both boys and girls are aware and find understanding the better.

It was a great privilege to represent the Government at the Vigil against Hate Crime last night in Trafalgar Square

A great number of people had come, despite the early rain, to stand and pay tribute to those who have died at the hands of the ignorant, bigoted, hateful and inadequate people who carry out hate crimes.

The event was first held to show support for the nail bomb attacks that took place in Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho in April 1999. It has now been widened to show support for all victims of hate crime.

My message direct to those there was to exhort them, their friends, colleagues, neighbours to report hate crime. The statistics we have are the tip of the iceberg. In 2008 Stonewall published Homophobic Hate Crime which set out starkly the level of hate crime experienced by gay and lesbian people – but more significantly o the prevalence of under-reporting.

– 1 in 5 gay and lesbian people have experienced a homophobic hate crime or incident in the last three years (2008)

– 3 in 4 did not report them to the police. Only 6% reported them to third parties

– 7 in 10 did not report hate crime and incidents to anyone.

In terms of transgender hate crime, research by Press for Change found that 73% of respondents to their 2007 survey of transgender people’s experience of discrimination experienced verbal abuse, threats, assaults and sexual abuse in public.

Whether it is the horrifying racial attacks, attacks on people with disabilities, trans-phobic or homophobic hate crime – the Government is committed to ensuring that everyone has the freedom to live their lives free from fear of targeted hostility or harassment on the grounds of a particular characteristic.

We are taking action to ensure that the criminal justice services and partners locally are equipped to prevent and tackle such targeted hostility.

The Coalition’s Programme for Government includes the commitment to promote better recording of hate crimes. This will help us to target our work more effectively and help the police to better focus resource.

We also plan to raise awareness of transgender issues and are currently working to implement these commitments.

Listening to the real experiences of those close to loved ones who had been murdered and to the sadly, very long, roll call of the names of those who had been killed by hate was very moving. Stuart Milk was one of the speakers. His uncle’s name and story – Harvey Milk – now well known and documented. I left more determined than ever to use the extraordinary opportunity I have been given as Minister for Equalities to best purpose.

Today  we laid the terms of reference for the Review of the Vetting and Barring Scheme – the scheme that passes people as ‘safe’ to work or volunteer with children or vulnerable adults.

On coming into Government the Coalition had a commitment to roll back this scheme to ‘common sense levels’.

So – we will be considering afresh the fundamental principles and objectives behind the vetting and barring regime, to recommend what, if any, scheme is needed now. Of course it is vital that we protect vulnerable adults and children – but the current scheme were it to go ahead is not proportionate. There should be a presumption that people wishing to work or volunteer with children and vulnerable adults are safe to do so unless it can be shown otherwise and checks will only be made where necessary. That ‘where necessary’ is crucial to the review. If we can remodel the scheme in a proportionate way we will seek to reduce significantly the nine million people currently within reach of the scheme and limit the numbers of volunteers required to register.

We are also reviewing the criminal records regime which has developed piecemeal for years and is well due for an overhaul – to ensure that a balance is struck between preserving civil liberties and protecting the public.