Overall it was clear that the ICS initiative has been a catalyst for beginning to enhance joint working between schools and other agencies to provide support for young people, particularly the most vulnerable. Whilst no local authority/NHS partnership had implemented all of the characteristics indicated in the original NCS prospectus successfully, there were many examples of good practice in specific areas. For some partnerships involved in the third phase of piloting, initiatives were still in their early stages and further developments were likely.
It was equally clear however, that the ICS initiative had not been fully successful in its aim of establishing a new over-arching vision and framework for the delivery of education and other children's services, using schools as the hub. ICS initiatives often sat alongside a range of other initiatives and activities, such as health promotion, out-of-school care and learning and Better Behaviour - Better Learning initiatives, rather than acting as a coherent, integrative rationale within which these other more specific initiatives were brought together and given greater coherence. Often these other relevant initiatives had not been directly linked to ICS developments in any clear way.
Similarly the vision and ethos underpinning ICS initiatives had often not had sufficient impact in engaging the commitment of all relevant practitioners in the area. Whilst dedicated ICS team workers were well aware of the aims of initiatives there was often very limited awareness amongst mainstream staff in schools and mainstream professionals in other agencies. This inhibited the extent to which pupils could benefit.
However, the potential of the ICS approach was clear. Whilst, as yet, there had been little effect on overall levels of pupil attainment in schools, there was clear evidence that the broader achievements of some pupils had improved, as had some aspects of health and personal development. The challenge for all involved is to ensure that these benefits are extended to all of our children and young people.
7.1 Moving forward
The ICS initiative was deliberately designed to encourage local authorities and their partners to develop their own approaches to taking forward the general aims outlined in the original prospectus. This promoted innovation and resulted in practice developing at varying paces and in very varied ways across the country as a whole.
It is now time to take stock of the good practice that has emerged from this period of innovation and development, as outlined in this report. There is a need to re-focus the vision of an integrated community school as we move towards every school adopting the characteristics of the ICS approach by 2007. Authorities and their schools were increasingly looking for a clearer national lead in this respect. To a large extent it is becoming clear that the concept of the ICS is best defined in terms of how associated clusters of schools, including special schools, work together with each other and with other local agencies and establishments to support the education and development of all children and young people, and their families and communities. It is less appropriate to define it as applying to individual schools in isolation.
In re-focusing the national vision for ICS the time is also opportune for rationalising and integrating many other more specific strands of project funding in related areas, locating them more firmly within an over-arching strategy for supporting the development of the ICS vision.
There are a number of other steps which should be taken to support ICS development. Consideration should be given to improving the national availability of, and access to, clear baseline data on health and social needs. The national availability of improved data, analysed to local level, would help schools, communities and partner organisations in prioritising the needs of children and young people, and in establishing effective quality assurance procedures for evaluating the work of ICS. It would also be beneficial if national requirements for annual reports from authorities, partner services and individual ICS initiatives were more closely focused on improvements resulting from ICS initiatives meeting their objectives. Continuing efforts, both in the short and medium term, to increase provision of social work staff will be valuable in ensuring that sufficient staff are available on the ground to meet the demand for better multi-agency working.
Local authorities, Health Boards and other partner services now need to build on existing good practice by working more closely together to support all Scotland's children and young people to reach their full potential. With clear guidance from the Scottish Executive, local agencies need to work more closely together at all levels to plan and deliver more integrated provision. Audits of existing provision should take account of the full range of initiatives which contribute to ICS objectives, and all stakeholders, including pupils, parents and other members of the community should be involved in deciding the direction of future development.
All staff in schools now need to become conversant with the aims, principles and benefits of the ICS approach so that they can draw on them to enrich their provision for children, and can capitalise on the greater range of support available for children outwith the classroom. Schools need to build further on emerging good practice in personalising pupils' educational programmes. The considerable potential of curriculum flexibility should be further explored to extend children's learning through customised programmes which draw on informal as well as formal learning opportunities. Staff in partner agencies also need to become more conversant with the aims, principles and benefits of the ICS approach and to strengthen arrangements for jointly assessing and meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children and their families.
The clear aim for all partners should be to learn from good ICS practice that has developed thus far, and use this experience to build integrated learning communities which can meet the educational, social, health and care needs of our children and young people more effectively than ever before.