Improving Public Services : Coalition Promises in Mid Term Review

http://midtermreview.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/improving-public-services/

Schools

We will increase the value of the Pupil Premium – to £900 per pupil in 2013/14 – while continuing to hold schools to account for what they achieve with the extra money.

We will provide a ‘catch-up’ premium of £500 for every 11 year old who leaves primary school below the expected level in English and maths.

We will introduce revised Key Stage 2 tests to make sure that no child is failed
by low expectations.

We will invest an additional £1 billion to expand good or outstanding schools, including enough funding for up to 100 new Free Schools and Academies in areas of basic need.

We will replace GCSEs with a new, more rigorous qualification.

We will restore the reputation of A levels as a world class qualification, working with universities to ensure that students are equipped for university study.

We will support more parents, community groups, charities and others wanting to set up new schools, primarily in areas of disadvantage and basic need, while continuing to help existing schools to become Academies.

We will implement the recommendation of the School Teachers’ Review Body that teachers’ pay progression should in the future be dependent on performance, not time served, and that schools should have greater autonomy to set teachers’ pay within a broad national framework. Statutory minimum and maximum salary levels for classroom teachers’ pay will be uprated by 1 per cent in both 2013/14 and 2014/15.

We will continue to raise the floor target that schools need to meet so that all schools improve with rising national standards.

We will legislate for the changes set out in the SEN Green Paper to expand parental choice and control.

We will support the establishment of Studio Schools and Technical Academies.

We will support Teach First to train 2,000 exceptional graduates per year as teachers by 2015/16. We will also expand the existing model of physics scholarships to other specialist subjects to attract the best graduates into teaching strategically important, but understaffed, subjects.

We will reform vocational qualifications at Key Stage 5 to ensure that only the most valued are recognised.

We will continue to tackle failing schools head-on by accelerating the Academies programme, and intervening to replace the leadership of weak schools.

We will shine a spotlight on coasting schools by giving parents access to improved data on school performance.

We will attract and inspire more pupils to study science and maths by increasing the number of teachers with specialist subject knowledge and improving the skills of existing teachers in these subjects.

We will work to have an education system that ranks among the best in the world by attracting the most capable people into the profession. We will offer high-achieving graduates financial incentives to train as teachers and will spread outstanding practice across the education system by continuing to expand the number of Teaching Schools, modelled on teaching hospitals.

NHS and Social Care

We will continue to improve the NHS by:

• increasing the health budget in real terms;

• abolishing strategic health authorities and primary care trusts from April 2013, saving £1.5 billion annually;
• establishing health and well-being boards to bring together local authorities and the NHS to co-ordinate provision of health and social care (we will also transfer £300 million of additional funding from the NHS to social care to develop better integrated health and care services); and
• investing up to £300 million over five years in specialised housing for those
  in need of care.

We will continue to reduce preventable early death by:

• introducing a new bowel screening programme to reduce incidence of, and mortality from, bowel cancer, saving 3,000 lives a year; and
• making the UK the first country in the world where doctors will have to be revalidated – a process of regular assessments to ensure that their training and expertise are up to date and that they are fit to carry out their duties.

We will continue to improve the standard of care, particularly the treatment and care of people with dementia and other long-term conditions, by:

• establishing the Friends and Family Test for all hospitals, to ensure that prospective patients can see exactly how previous patients and staff rate quality of care;
• setting an ambition for the NHS to put mental health on a par with physical health, significantly improving access and waiting times for all mental health services, and reducing the incidence and impact of post-natal depression through earlier diagnosis and better intervention and support;
• establishing Healthwatch as a consumer advocate with new powers;
• investing £56 million over four years in children and young people with mental health problems to help transform care in light of the scandalous abuse at Winterbourne View hospital;
• implementing a strategy aimed at building a culture of compassionate care for nursing, midwifery and care staff;
• consulting on further measures to protect people who rely on care services where the provider fails in England;
• introducing a national minimum eligibility threshold to make access to care more consistent across England;
• introducing a Universal Deferred Payments scheme so that nobody will need to sell their home to pay for the costs of residential care in England;
• legislating to give people with eligible needs for care an entitlement to a personal budget and a care and support plan in England;
• working with the Alzheimer’s Society, recruiting 1 million people to become Dementia Friends to improve awareness of dementia and support for those with dementia; and
• gradually increasing the availability of personal health budgets to increase patient choice and control.

We will continue to bring the technology revolution to health and care by:

• providing £100 million for NHS nurses and midwives to spend on new technology to free up time for patient care and make essential patient details instantly available on the ward. Those organisations that receive positive feedback from patients in the Friends and Family Test will not have to repay any of the loan; and
• establishing the new 111 service, to provide immediate over-the-phone access to health services.

Crime and Policing

We will modernise police pay and conditions and implement greater flexibility in the working methods of the police. We have already implemented recommendations from Part 1 of the Winsor Report and will consult on proposals from the review’s Final Report.

We will establish the College of Policing in statute as soon as Parliamentary time allows. The interim College came into existence on 1 December 2012 and is already beginning its work of enhancing the professional capabilities of the police.

We will take steps, following the Leveson Report, to ensure that the police operate to the highest ethical standards and that the public can have full confidence in police integrity.

We will scrap the existing system of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and replace it with a more effective system for protecting the public. In particular, we will give these victims a greater say in what forms of sanction offenders receive out of court through a new Community Remedy.

We will legislate to create a new offence of drug driving.

Justice

We will go further with our Rehabilitation Revolution to reduce reoffending and cut crime.

We will legislate to put restorative justice and other ways of tackling low-level crime on a statutory footing throughout the criminal justice system.

We will make use of new technology to track offenders in order to protect the public, help prevent further crimes and make a reality of community sentences.

We will test weekend and night courts and a range of other measures to speed up justice, based on the success of ‘swift justice’ after the 2011 summer riots.

We will continue to work with the voluntary sector to explore the potential for further new rape support centres.

We will enable court broadcasting to help to demystify the justice system.

Government Transparency and Information Technology

We will take further steps to increase the transparency with which politicians report on meetings with senior figures in the media, as recommended by Lord Justice Leveson.

We will implement the proposals set out in the Open Data and Transparency White Paper.

We will continue to open up government procurement, create a level playing field for open-source software and split large ICT projects into smaller components.

We will transition all government departments, agencies and arm’s length bodies onto GOV.UK by April 2014.

We will redesign all government transactions (more than 100,000 per year) to make them digital by default.

We will make sure that no one is left behind by ensuring there is Assisted Digital provision for those who are unable to use digital services by themselves.

We will improve management information, as proposed in the Civil Service Reform Plan, and ensure that it is used as a basis for board meetings, operational decisions and appraisals of senior officials.

We will publish data in the Quarterly Data Summaries in a way that is more meaningful to the public.

We will continue to push for greater transparency throughout the public sector so that people know what is being done in their name.