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Social Exclusion Unit

: Thank you, Mr. Bercow. I have two points to develop. Another charge against targets, which I have heard the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire make before, is that they distort other things. It is said that if we target waiting time in accident and emergency, we make unintentional management changes elsewhere down the line. Another charge is that targets can be naive about human behaviour. The other day, it was put to me that a target of dealing with a planning matter in eight weeks would mean that all a planning officer had to do was send everything back before he started looking at it, with awkward questions for the applicant. The target date would then not trigger for three weeks. That belief exists, although I have never known planning officers to do that. That is why the advantage of targets, which I have tried to explain, must be balanced by a pragmatic consideration. A target owned just by one individual, group or sector in the public sector—one silo or accountable funding line—is not good enough. The target must be shared across the piece and that must be meaningful—money must follow it. That is the key point about a local area agreement. The hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire highlighted some targets and questioned progress. I invited him to do so, so I cannot criticise him for that. Progress on the targets on homelessness—those relating to rough sleeping and the bed and breakfasts—has been good. Increases in the broader definition of homelessness that have taken place in some parts of the country are not, in that context, a consequence of the target. The success on the targets I mentioned came about because we were able to share them across different agencies. Similarly, total absences for truancy have decreased for four years, to a record low of 6.45 per cent., but people would not know that from the press coverage, which highlighted a statistical rather than a policy debate. That target in reducing truancy in part comes about because it is shared by the police, schools, local education authorities, the health service and other local authority services. Educational attainment has improved. We all know that that is not just a function of teaching; it is a function of lifestyle, of preparedness and of family stability. I will address that important point. We believe that getting the balance right in terms of targets is the right approach. A Lancashire colloquial way of putting that is, ““Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.”” I use that expression because it makes it more difficult for the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire to disagree with me. I like the point about the think-tank and the campaigning group. I like to think of the SEU as being, certainly not arm's length, but alongside, although within, government. It is not, and should not, be seen in the same way that a traditional section of a Department is seen. It has to be open with its partners in respect of gathering research and sharing information. It has to be free to come up with ideas. It has to be able to publish reports that are critical, and if the Government are not strong enough or do not have broad enough shoulders to accept the consequences of that, we should not be paying taxpayers' money for it. Therefore, I like the concept put forward by the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire. There was a delicious irony in me being passed a note to answer the question whether the unit is autonomous. It is autonomous in this sense: it has put proposals to Ministers and, interestingly, its work programme has to be signed off by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister. That is not something we keep within the Department; it is cleared at the highest level of government. Work that has been done on issues such as mental health and excluded older people has come from work done within the unit—from the evidence it has collected on other projects. That is a great strength of the unit, but the Government must ensure that it meets the challenge the hon. Gentleman has set: do its recommendations genuinely get taken up? I will be straightforward—as ever, I hope—by saying that part of my purpose in initiating this debate is to put on the record the strategies of the SEU, because I want its recommendations to be taken seriously. I could mention many examples in that regard. I will not labour the point, but I want to highlight some recent comments by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills on the drivers of social mobility and educational attainment:"““Our ambition must be to reduce the negative impact that a disadvantaged social background may have on educational attainment at all stages, particularly the early years and school years.””" That is a core part of the policy of the Department for Education and Skills, and it is driven and informed by the work of the unit. The hon. Gentleman asked whether the Prime Minister is personally involved. As I have said, the SEU work programme is signed off by the Prime Minister. Indeed, he is heavily involved in shaping our plans for the roll-out of the current work programme. In September 2004, he chaired the ““poverty breakfast”” with the stakeholders—am I allowed to use that word, Mr. Bercow?