Why was Early Interventions never implemented?
After the Early Interventions pilot was approved by the DCA Minister in the autumn of 2003, the Early Interventions project was passed to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) for implementation.
However, the DfES civil servant given charge of the file decided that he would rather do a project of his own. So, instead of initiating the approved Early Interventions project, he discarded the Early Interventions file (the Early Interventions papers were mislaid) and set off down a different track. However, since the Early Interventions project was the project which had been approved, he had to tell his Ministers and the judiciary that he was still working on Early Interventions.
The upshot was the Government’s ‘Family Resolutions’ project launched a year later.
During the pre-launch period, Ministers were repeatedly told that Family Resolutions would be the same as Early Interventions. Ministers were assured and re-assured that only the Early Interventions project’s name had been changed. The original Early Interventions principles were being carried forward.
These same assurances, accepted by Ministers, were relayed to the House and the judiciary.
CURRENT STATE OF PLAY
In fact, the Family Resolutions project developed by DfES civil servants was the opposite of Early Interventions.
The DfES officials did not know this. Nor did they know that Family Resolutions was merely another version of the existing legal system - based on the do-nothing supposition that ‘every case is different’.
The main business of the DfES is, of course, not law, or the courts. It is education. The Department knew very little about legal systems. Unknown to the DfES, the Family Resolutions scheme that they devised was no more than a proposal to ‘pilot’ the existing legal system without significant change.
For this reason, Family Resolutions has quite naturally already merged with its background - and disappeared without trace.
So a rough chronology is as follows:
Autumn 2003:
Early Interventions is approved as the primary Government strategy
Autumn 2003-Autumn 2004:
Early Interventions is discarded without Ministerial knowledge
DfES civil servants issue assurances that they are still working on Early Interventions
Autumn 2004:
Family Resolutions is launched as a continuation of the existing system
Autumn 2005:
Family Resolutions disappears
Spring 2006:
A growing realisation that nothing has changed and that nothing is in the pipeline
WHITEHALL
The civil servants surrounding the DfES Ministers control access to their Ministers.
These officials have a strong self-interest in preventing those same Ministers (who are newly in position) from finding out what went wrong. Nor can these officials take the now-we-understand route of going back to Early Interventions. This would raise the question of why Early Interventions was not implemented in the first place.
Careers are at risk.
The Conservatives are aware of the position. The facts have been repeatedly put to Government Ministers in the House. A statutory amendment has been tabled commending the reinstatement of the Early Interventions project.
However, in assembling their response to these suggestions, Government Ministers have no recourse other than to ask their own officials – i.e. the same individuals responsible for hijacking Early Interventions – if they can find out what went wrong. Unsurprisingly, the replies are not helpful.
