Education, Family Care and Crime Prevention: Administrative Areas (Hansard, 19 November 2003)

§ Baroness Scotland of Asthal

The Government's position is that any changes to local boundaries of responsibility should be focused on local government boundaries.

In the case of secondary schools, it would be possible for local education authorities (LEAs) to review catchment areas for which they are the admission authority, but this is not for all schools. Foundation and voluntary aided schools set their own admission arrangements. Where they are the admission authority, LEAs would need to consider a range of issues, such as the number of places in the school, the number of children living in the area, access to other schools, when they set catchment areas. Not all LEAs designate catchment areas for their schools, but use other criteria such as distance from the school.

The organisation of social work is determined locally. With the advent of children's trusts, with their accent on integration of services to focus on the needs of individual children and families, social workers and child care specialists will be brought together in multi-disciplinary teams. They will work with many other professionals, including those in youth offending teams, and could be based in schools.

Section 39 of the Crime and Disorder Act places a duty on local authorities (in co-operation with chief officers of the police, probation committees or health authorities within their areas) to establish one or more youth offending teams. Demarcation of the catchment areas of youth offending teams (YOTS) and alignment of those areas would therefore be reliant on the independent decision of local authorities.

Paragraph 5 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 states that the various areas of the National Probation Service (NPS) should be aligned with the Police Service, in order for it to perform its functions. Therefore police and the NPS are already aligned and are not aligned with the other mentioned bodies.

Paragraph 6 of the Act does allow for the alteration of the division of areas from time to time, by order of the Secretary of State, but this would not mean that the police would change their boundaries. The structure of 292WA basic command units within police forces is a matter for the chief constable rather than central government. However, many forces have recognised the benefits of co-terminosity with local authorities. As a result many have now reviewed the boundaries of their basic command units and where possible have sought to align them with local authorities.

While it might be desirable to try and align boundaries as far as possible, differing service delivery areas and accountability mechanisms can make it difficult to co-ordinate closer alignment in all areas. Improvement in delivery is being undertaken with local partnerships, such as Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) and Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), which bring together those responsible for delivery of a number of services including family care and crime prevention. We are working with partnerships to bring benefits through the better co-ordination of delivery and the reduction of bureaucracy.