Editorial: Taking children's services out of the electoral cycle
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Pages | 2-3 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17466660200700001 |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Author | Michael Little,Nick Axford |
| Subject Matter | Education,Health & social care,Sociology |
2
1Dartington Social
Research Unit, UK,
and Chapin Hall
Center for Children,
University of
Chicago, US
2Dartington Social
Research Unit, UK
Journal of Children’s Services
Volume 2 Issue 1 June 2007
©Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Ltd
Elections are underway or have recently been
completed in several countries in which this Journal is
read, including France, Ireland and, involving an
extraordinary long run up, the United States. In
typically quirky fashion, the UK is havin g a change of
Prime Minister without an election. At these times,
those of us interested in the well-being of children
inevitably reflect on the contribution of party politics
to children’s development and children’s services.
This edition includes an article by Sylda Langford,
aleading policy-maker in the Office of the Minister for
Children in the Irish Government. In it she discusses
the role of what arecalled in Ireland ‘National
Partnership Agreements’. These agreements have
their origins in serious economic problems in the
1980s that wereexacerbated rather than improved by
party politics and divisions between government,
trade unions and business. The National Partnership
Agreements were born out of a need for a collective
approach to problems of economic development.
Gradually they have been extended to include other
aspects of social life in Ireland.
Each agreement runs longer than the electoral
cycle. When an election comes, each political party,
having contributed to the agreement, is bound to its
terms. Could something similar be applied to children’s
issues, and in other countries around the world?
At the core of the Irish National Partnership
Agreements have been common understandings of a
problem – initially concerning the socio–economic
situation of the country. Although the problem is
agreed, there is less certainty about the solutions but
aconsensus that the best way forward is more likely
to be found and applied collectively than it is to
emerge from a single political, ideological or
theoretical position. There were times when countries
contemplated socialism or capitalism. Today, when
party manifestos are more likely to feature dilemmas
about how to manage public sector services, Ireland
has found a way to deal with important
socio–political issues away from the ballot box.
Anational agreement of this type must also rest on
an acceptance that certain issues can be responded to
collectively while others cannot. In the case of Ireland,
the initial National Partnership Agreement was
relatively narrow and over time new chapters have
been added to include, today, some that impinge on
children’sservices, as illustrated in the Langford
article. For those issues that warrant a collective
response, a long-term outlook is taken. The current
agreement in Ireland lasts, as its name (Towards 2016)
suggests, until 2016.
Is the approach taken by Ireland relevant to the
design of children’sservices as well as to broad
socio–economic strategy? And would it work in other
jurisdictions, at least as far as children are
concerned? Looking at party political approaches to
the subject, there are some dimensions where there
is either little apparent interest or a general
consensus about what needs to be done (without
necessarily having the knowledge about how to do
it). It is commonly understood, for example, that
much more could be achieved within existing
budgets with respect to child welfare and child
protection. Most politicians agree with the
professional and academic communities that a better
balance could be found between prevention and
early intervention on the one hand, and intervention
and treatment on the other. Arguably, the England
and Wales Children Act 2004 would have happened
under an administration of a different hue.
In addition, thereare some technical issues
regarding children’s services that might be taken out
of the political arena if there was some common
understanding and language about them and their
contribution to child outcomes. For example, for many
Editorial
Taking children’s services out
of the electoral cycle
Michael Little1and Nick Axford2
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