29. Regional Health Authorities also reacted differently in identifying what had to be done for the Vietnamese both in reception and settlement and this has caused difficulties in certain areas where, in the view of the agencies; either not enough or else too much was being done for the Vietnamese. While recognising the independence of those authorities within the Health Service structure we believe that it would have been possible and certainly helpful with the benefit of advanced planning for the Department of Health and Social Security to have issued guidance of general application on the likely Vietnamese requirements.
(iii) Language education- quality and basis of provision
30. As regards the quality of language provision, while it was recognised from the outset that only a certain amount could be achieved in the generally isolated conditions of reception centre life, the agencies can each point to examples of extremely high standards of teaching at certain centres. In other centres, however, where in the opinion of the agencies insufficient attention had been paid to the specialist skills required in teaching English as a second language, both in the selection of staff and the preparation of programmed learning for the Vietnamese, the achievements were less impressive. Too often it appeared that educational programmes across the country were being devised from scratch where perhaps an effort centrally monitored from the outset would have produced better results.
31. Within reception centres the working relationship between the agencies' administration staff and the local authority teachers has proved to be crucial. The teaching staff, through the personal contact which they have been able to establish with the Vietnamese in class, have provided a valuable channel through which the realities of reception centre life and the prospects after settlement could be got across to the Vietnamese. In addition, any grievance, real or imagined, could be drawn to the attention of the centres' administration. This is what has happened in most of the reception centres where there has been good communication between teachers and administrators, reinforced by a strong management structure. In some centres, however, this harmony could not be achieved and there was a degree of friction between teaching and administration staff resulting in unnecessary anxiety for the Vietnamese (and not just anxiety, since the Vietnamese proved themselves adept, understandably, in playing one side off against the other in order to get the best deal, as they saw it, for themselves).
32. We believe that these less satisfactory aspects of the educational provision in reception centres could have been avoided if a rather more flexible approach had been taken at the beginning of the programme and the refugee agencies had been allowed to play their part along with local education authorities in deciding what was required in particular centres and how best it could be provided, e.g., by local education authorities, by agency-employed teachers or with agencies having a say in the selection of local education authority staff.
(iv) Unaccompanied Minors
33. One feature of the programme which was not anticipated was the number of unaccompanied minors who arrived in this country. The expectation was that those forming the quotas would arrive in family units, and in the main this proved to be the case. It has happened, however, that relationships which had been assumed when selection was made have proved not to exist at the point
7.