Fair Play for Children
Fair Play for Children urges Government to require Councils to implement existing statutory requirements on Play and Youth Provision
Following the call for the UK to make the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child part of UK domestic law, Fair Play has now written to leading relevant Ministers about the second major proposal of its election manifesto — to require Local Education Authorities to report on their compliance with key play/youth-related law already in effect, and to set up a Play/Youth funding stream akin to the Sports and Arts Councils for adult leisure and recreation.
THE LETTER
23rd July 2024
To: Deputy Prime Minister, re Levelling Up
Secretaries of State for Education and DCMS
Dear Deputy Prime Minister and Secretaries of State
Fair Play for Children, founded in 1972 by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston CR (mentor of Nelson Mandela and founder of Anti-Apartheid) exists to promote the Child’s Right to Play (Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.) For your information, we have already written to your colleagues at The Home Office, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office about incorporating the UNCRC into UK domestic law.
Prior to the recent Election campaign we consulted our members and supporters about their priorities re the new Government. I am sure they will all wish you well in your forthcoming efforts, especially where the lives of children and young people are concerned.
Fair Play has a very specific proposal which we believe could be easily achieved by appropriate secondary legislation, and which is intended to help tackle the very serious loss of provision for children and young people in the past decade.
Both Fair Play and YMCA have undertaken surveys in the field in recent times revealing huge losses in face-to-face provision.- in my own county alone, ten years ago 68 youth clubs were supported by the county authority in funding and/or staffing. Today, none. The first to suffer were those run by the voluntary sector. A relative handful have survived. But in our estimate, this has been against the very letter and spirit of the relevant legislation.
I refer to s508 of the 1996 Education Act, which is both enabling and mandatory, and as amended in the 2006 Education and Training Act which added both s507a (under-13 years) and s507b (13+) to the Act — both have major mandatory requirements on Local Education Authorities. My experience is that LEAs have treated the Act’s requirements as if they are discretionary. In our surveys we found little evidence that officers ever brought those obligations before elected members.
This brings me to the nub of the problem. Firstly, there is no reporting requirement in the legislation on these issues, LEAs are not obliged to submit reports to the Secretary of State on implementation. This is in contrast eg to the 1989 Children Act where there was triennial reporting requirement.
Fair Play proposes that there should be secondary legislation to introduce such a reporting requirement re s508, s507a and b, we would hope this could be achieved early without primary legislation either Education or DCMS.
A second and major issue is funding. Here, funding has been the core reason why so much provision has been lost. We would argue that there is scope and good cause to introduce a funding machinery akin/parallel to the funding regimes for adult leisure and recreation (the Arts/Sports Councils etc). This proposed resource would be proportionate (at least) in size to those bodies’ based on the % population of children and young people In our view, also it would work to support the role of the voluntary/community sector in collaboration with LEAs as set out in the 1996 Act (eg s508(3)).
Of course, along with colleagues such as Play England, we have longer-term ideas, but in these two proposals, we argue there is scope for early action to start the process of recovery and improvement in this severely damaged sector. That is, requiring LEAs to account for their performance and establishing a sound basis for funding partnerships with LEAs.
I would also ask that funding for Play England be considered. It was funded until 2010 departmentally but was the very first casualty of ‘austerity’ cuts to ‘quangos’ due to the very low status afforded children’s play in government at that time — in contrast its sister bodies in the devolved administrations (Play Scotland, Play Wales and Playboard Northern Ireland) who between them have worked positively and constructively with the devolved governments.
I hope we may be able to engage with your Departments in these matters and look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Jan Cosgrove Mr, National Secretary
Fair Play for Children, Tel: 07488–265916, fpfc1972@gmail.com
website: http://www.fairplay31.online/index.html
LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITY OBLIGATIONS CONCERNING PROVISION OF RECREATIONAL FACILITIES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Fair Play publication re s508/507a & b: http://www.fairplay31.epizy.com/pdf/1363944956.pdf?i=1
