Integrated (New) Community Schools - Scotland

The Scottish Executive pledged to extend the ICS concept to every school by 2007, and provided £78 million to support it. It wanted "every school to participate in delivering integrated children's services by 2007. Our approach is that integrated working should not be seen as a separate part of a school's work but should be a fundamental part of what every school does and what every service involved with children does".

Regionally, Glasgow announced in 2002 that all schools were to be part of an integrated network of local services by 2007. Glagow will merge its innovative learning communities initiative (which aims to offer seamless education from three to 18) with the roll-out of the ICS programme to extend joint working to all schools and pre-five centres.

West Dunbartonshire was the first Scottish council to declare itself a 'NCS authority'. All seven secondaries and their associated primaries are included in the initiative. The council planned to coordinate education, health, family support, careers guidance and social work and has has great success with its literacy initiative. Read more about West Dunbartonshire's literacy initiative.

Evaluation of the initiative
An independent review, The sum of its parts? The development of integrated community schools in Scotland (HMI, 2006) confirmed previous research findings that the initiative lacked hard evidence of short-term success. Graham Donaldson, senior chief inspector, noted that: "Too often the approach adopted operated in isolation from mainstream activity without the right kind of leadership and vision at senior levels." Bill Maxwell, senior inspector responsible for social inclusion said the finding echoed those in the London university analysis of 2005 and in a Stirling university report on progress in Stirling Council. But Dr Maxwell added, "So far, evidence of positive practice was "uneven in the clusters and across the clusters and in authorities and across authorities".

Observers noted that one of the barriers to making an overall evaluation of the impact was that it was sometimes difficult to get measures against which you can establish a baseline and show measures of improvement. That is particularly the case in areas like health. The report added that too many authorities and schools lacked the vision to make a success of what was now becoming a concept rather than an initiative. A shortage of key staff, including social workers, is said to be damaging advanced, short term contracts, part-time appointments and vacancies hindered effective working.

The first phase evaluation of NCS's, from 1999-2002, found that NCS's had been more successful in achieving 'soft' targets than 'hard ones'. It found that just under half of those involved in primary schools and nearly two-thirds of those involved in secondaries believed that the impact of the initiatives so far on pupil attitudes to schools was 'considerable'.

But the attainment picture was mixed. Almost half of primary and secondary schools reported a 'moderate positive effect'. More than half the secondary schools, however, said the impact was 'limited'. There was little evidence that the gap between attainment in the NCS's which were established in the most deprived areas, and others had narrowed at 5-14, Standard or Higher stages. There was 'a fairly steady improvement' over the three years in 5-14 test results but this was also the case for other schools.

There was 'no significant difference' between attendance trends nationally and those in the pilot schools (although a third of the secondary schools in the pilot had seen a 'considerable' benefit for pupils at risk of exclusion). Staying-on rates in the schools improved, as they did nationally, suggesting that the rate of raised expectations was no different. Personal learning plans, which are at the heart of the policy, had developed more strongly since the first year of the pilot but "substantial numbers of schools still perceive difficulties or have made little progress". Teachers' commitment was questioned.

The IoE report suggested, however, that three years was not long enough to judge the effectiveness of the project, and any conclusions about the effectiveness of the project, and any conclusions about the performance of pupils should be regarded as tentative.

The study found that one of the most intractable problems has been promoting joint working between the various agencies. A range of barriers included "practical issues of different working hours, holiday arrangements and accommodation, and professional issues of confidentiality, procedures and levels of formality".

There were weaknesses with the key 'integration managers' who have been appointed to lead the management of the initiative in most of the projects. They faced 'substantial challenges' in overcoming barriers between the different professionals, had difficulties in managing staff and relating to others, and had to deal with 'overly complex' arrangements.

• the ambitious goals of the project
• the preference for "locally grown" solutions (some of which were more successful than others)
• the speed of implementation
• the temporary nature of funding
• and the short lifetime of the pilot projects.