'Statutory guidance on co-operation arrangements, including the Children's Trust Board and the Children and Young People's Plan' The purpose of this statutory guidance is to set out in one place what a Children’s Trust is, what it does and how, by promoting co-operation between partners, it improves the lives of local children, young people and families.

The 'Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning (ASCL) Act 2009' builds on the Children Act 2004 and strengthens Children’s Trusts by:

• extending the number of statutory ’relevant partners‘ to include maintained schools, non-maintained special schools, Academies, sixth-form and further education colleges, Jobcentre Plus and Pupil Referral Units/Short Stay Schools (PRUs to be included through separate regulations) – from 12 January 2010;
• placing the Children’s Trust Board on a statutory footing – from 1 April 2010;
• making the CYPP a joint strategy which sets out how the Children’s Trust partners will cooperate to improve children’s well-being in the local area – every local area must publish a joint CYPP on or before 1 April 2011;
• transferring responsibility for preparing, publishing and revising the CYPP from the local authority (LA) alone to the Children’s Trust Board (individual Children’s Trust partners are responsible for delivering the CYPP within the delivery of their normal functions);
• giving the Board responsibility for monitoring the extent to which each Children’s Trust partner acts in accordance with their commitments in the CYPP, and for producing and publishing an annual report on the results.

‘Statutory Guidance on Inter Agency Cooperation’, under section 10 of the Children Act 2004, sets out guidance that all local authorities and ‘relevant partners’ must have regard to.

The Children’s Plan. Building Brighter Futures is the government’s 10 year plan that aims to:

Make England the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up.

The CYPP is recognised as a powerful force in helping realise ambitions within the Children’s Plan. The CYPP should:

• drive better local integration of children’s services
• strengthen local partnership arrangements
• describes what improvements will be achieved in the local area and when these improvements will be delivered

The Children Act 2004 provides the legal underpinning for Every Child Matters Change for Children. A series of statutory and non-statutory guidance documents have been published to support this and they are available on www.everychildmatters.gov.uk.

The National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services (Children's NSF) is a 10 year programme intended to stimulate long-term and sustained improvement in children's health.

Children’s Trusts are an important part of the Governments policy for improving Children’s Services. The policy, developed in Every Child Matters, the Children Act 2004 and the National Services Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services, aims to improve outcomes for all children by reconfiguring and integrating services around their needs.

Every Child Matters: Change for Children is a national shared programme of change to improve outcomes for all children and young people. The main aim of Every Child Matters is to ensure that every child or young person, whatever their background or their circumstances has the support they need to:

• Be healthy: enjoying good physical and emotional health and living a healthy lifestyle
• Stay safe: being protected from harm and abuse
• Enjoying and achieving: getting the most out of life and developing skills for adulthood
• Making a positive contribution: being involved with the community and society and not engaging in anti-social or offending behaviour
• Achieving economic well being: not being prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life