I Have Been Asked to Respond to the Minister S Comprehensive and Exciting Outline of The

Social Exclusion: The Challenges Ahead 20 May, Stadium of Light, Sunderland

Sue Stirling, Director, ippr north

I have been asked to respond to the Minister’s comprehensive and exciting outline of the challenge and the key tasks facing this new department.

It is appropriate to start with recognition of the work that has led us to this launch today. Faced with a worrying growth in those we term ‘socially excluded’ during the 80’s and 90’s the Labour government recognised the need for action to combat this problem. This recognition has now been complemented with a welcome rebalancing in the government’s agenda. The establishment of a department with a seat in cabinet should, we hope, allow for continuance of work but with a greater scope to give the needs of the most vulnerable attention, central to any social justice agenda.

For ippr and ippr north, its office outside London, this is more than a rebalancing in numbers. From the perspective of the north in particular it is important to underline why such a step has been needed.

For example, the North East has the highest proportion of the most deprived areas within England - 38.2% of super output areas in the North East are amongst the worst 20% in England.

Other key, and interconnected, aspects of social exclusion which I will return to later, but which are important for this region are substance misuse and mental health. Figures show that at least 6,200 people in the north east have an alcohol problem in addition to severe mental health problem – this is based on those known to mental health services, so the actual numbers may be considerably higher.

During 2004/05 of the 9,823 individuals that received drug treatment services in the North East, approximately 10 per cent had alcohol dependence as a secondary problem.

Over 900,000 adults in England claim sickness and disability benefits for mental health conditions, with particularly high claimant rates in the North.

Holding this event in Sunderland is directly relevant, not least in terms of skills. The city faces the challenge of not only reducing unemployment but also it is important not to lose sight of the challenge of finding employment which will move people out of low skills, as unemployment among this group, we know, is increasing.

Again, for a government that can truly claim to appreciate the needs of all of its areas and regions, the challenge of an area such as the north east - with an overrepresentation of deprived communities – is really vital. These communities are not the only source of concern, across the region, statistics on health and educational inequality continue to present any progressive government with worries. It is also worth pointing out, as will be only too familiar to the Cabinet Minister, whose own constituency of Durham North West contains rural stretches, that social exclusion is not a problem confined to our urban areas.

So, while we applaud the creation of this new department, today brings us the opportunity to discuss where we feel the priorities should be. To be blunt this is no doubt one of the toughest jobs in cabinet. The evidence itself shows this, but we do now need also to look at the nature of solutions to tackle these deep-rooted challenges.

It has been noted by the Minister herself, and many others, that this is a remit where the levers and the channels of influence are not owned by the Minister but her colleagues. The statistics outlined, which show how social exclusion is manifest, reveal only too clearly how important this is. Take one example, looked after children. Only 9 per cent of the 60,000 looked after children achieved 5 good GCSE’s. This is surely a case where the failure does not lie with the children themselves, but with our educational policy. An easy jibe, but if we look below the statistics the real nature of the challenge becomes apparent.

Those key departments which are part of the solutions to social exclusion, including health, education, transport, and the Department of Work and Pensions, have responded to the needs of socially excluded groups. In practice it has been largely as an ‘add on’. However, to deliver the changes needed, the Minister will need to put in place a ‘lock in’ policy. Special measures in funding, PSA targets or projects are unlikely to bring about the radical change required. This is not simply a challenge for Whitehall and Westminster, but is replayed through all the levels of policy making. ippr north is bringing these debates to the fore in this region, we have analysed social issues integration and are also taking forward an important piece of work looking at whether a clear, robust and accountable social strategy could deliver greater impact.

The second major challenge facing the department rests in how far the SEU agenda can be knitted into the broader public sector reform agenda. Again, the test here will surely be not the shared aspirations at the top, but how the needs of socially excluded groups and communities are drivers of the commissioning, delivery and design of the public sector. This again will demand a great deal of the Minister and her colleagues. In the emerging world of commissioning, it is appropriate to focus on early intervention, for example around the mental health needs of adolescents. Also, in addition to this, the resource strapped PCT, which has inherited a legacy of poor past provision, will find it difficult to translate intention into hard cash. In terms of delivery the evidence indicates the need for a new, more tailored and often intense one-to-one service. The current work on a Connected Care Pilot, which attempts to design just such a service has required a re-writing of the structure and approach to service delivery. The question of whether this can become mainstream is a difficult one. Last but not least is to manage the clash between a complex array of problems, such as the drug user with mental health problems, housing needs and low skills, that are part of the profile of social exclusion. Professionals, more traditionally trained and recruited, can also be poorly equipped. If their approach is through problem definitions, diagnosis of labels is a poor match for the complex, multi-faceted needs of these very vulnerable people.

While these are challenges that will be familiar to us all, there is one other aspect that is not always so explicit but is very important, regionally and locally sensitive policymaking.

This government has recognised that devolution makes sense, particularly given that often it is in face-to-face work or the experience of living in different communities that provides the clearest understanding of what works and how to make progress. However, many of the sources of this intelligentsia is found in small projects, the equivalent of the corner shop versus the supermarket. But by their very nature these tend to be little, local and lean. Government is still at a very early stage in learning how to really capture this bottom up knowledge. The other daunting challenge to be grasped is found in the climate of ideas. We need to recognise that securing change needs more than interventions, it will be dependent on the broader views of society, and the value placed on tackling issues of social exclusion. Early years offers a major lever for change, not only among deprived communities but in turning around unequal life chances. Investing and valuing such investments will rely on government leading from the front. Nowhere is this more pertinent than in the social exclusion that we know asylum seekers and refugees are vulnerable to. The climate of ideas in which social exclusion will be tackled, may well be one of the greatest opportunities from the Minister’s appointment, it will certainly be one of the toughest.