The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to open the Second Reading debate on the Children and Social Work Bill. I was delighted to see such a good turnout at the briefing held on Tuesday by the Minister for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, and me and to hear such positive comments from across the House. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who found the time to attend that meeting and who are present today. I should add that, in order to assist noble Lords, I have written to all those who attended that meeting and all noble Lords whose names are down to speak today detailing a further opportunity to meet officials from my department in order to discuss any aspect of this Bill. The meeting will take place tomorrow between 11.30 am and 1 pm in room W2 in Westminster Hall.
It goes without saying that this Bill is a high priority for the Government and reflects our firm commitment to offer the promise of a better future to children who have endured experiences and faced the kinds of challenges that most of us will never encounter. In fulfilling that commitment, it is important to note that the Bill before us is only part of a wider programme of measures to strengthen children’s services and improve the life chances of all children, especially the most vulnerable.
First, the Bill will ensure that the right practice systems are in place for making sure that children’s needs and interests are at the heart of local decision-making. It has a particular focus on those children who, for whatever reason and through no fault of their own, can no longer remain in their family home and need to be taken into the care of the state. While remaining true to the principles laid out in the Children Act 1989, the Bill will promote greater stability in those children’s upbringing and better support to improve their opportunities and outcomes.
Secondly, the Bill will strengthen local governance and accountability arrangements to help us understand the factors leading up to serious cases and inform policy and practice nationally, and so that local agencies can learn from this and improve the quality of the services that they provide to vulnerable children and families. The Bill will give local authorities an opportunity to test new ways of working in a safe and managed environment so that they can tailor their services specifically to the needs of children rather than slavishly following a set of one-size-fits-all rules.
Finally, and of course, any services are only as good as the people who work in them. Therefore, we are undertaking a series of reforms to the social work profession, building on the excellent practice that we know already takes place in some parts of the country. The Bill will strengthen training, promote higher standards and raise the status of the social work profession. The new regulatory system will apply across the whole of the social work profession, whether it is those working with children and families or those working with adults and their families, supporting improvements in the standard services across the board. Social workers perform one of the most important jobs in the world. It is essential that they have the right knowledge and skills to carry out that role to a high professional standard. That is why we must work with the profession to raise both the status and the quality.
I hope that participants in this debate will want to support our intentions. However, I recognise that there will be considerable interest in the specific measures and how they will work in practice, so I would like to take a few moments to set them out in more detail, along with the rationale behind them.
I will deal first with children in care and care leavers. Clauses 1 to 3 are designed to strengthen the support that is available to the approximately 10,000 young people aged 16 to 19 who leave care each year. All the evidence shows that care leavers are among the most vulnerable young people in our society. Many are still struggling to overcome the impact of the trauma they faced in childhood and, in most cases, they are expected to make the transition into adulthood without the unconditional love and support of a family or close circle of friends. As a consequence, they are far more likely to end up NEET, more likely to experience homelessness or mental health issues, and more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. However, with good, stable care and a more personalised and supported transition into adulthood, those stark facts need not be the culmination of their time in and leaving care.
I am delighted to be bringing forward these provisions because one of my first engagements with policy in this area was around a decade ago, when, having become aware of some of the issues facing children in and leaving care, as a director of the Centre for Policy Studies I commissioned a report on the life chances of children in care and the support for children leaving care. The results of the excellent Handle with Care study, by Harriet Sergeant, were shocking. Improvements have been made, but it is still unquestionably the case that, without the right support at the right time, many children will leave care without the right foundations or stability in their lives to go on and make a success of their adult lives. All too often, the system is failing them as individuals, and the cost to the public purse of this failure in later years is enormous. Acting in this area is not just the right thing to do—which it most certainly is—it is also the financially sensible thing to do.
The Bill will address this by clarifying and strengthening the role of local authorities in promoting and defending the interests of care leavers in key decisions that affect their lives. Clause 1 will establish a set of principles that set out what it means for a local authority to act as a good “corporate parent”, and that applies to the whole local authority, including housing, health and well-being, and other local amenities, not just children’s services. The principles will not just be transformative for care leavers but also apply to any children who are looked after by the state and who need someone to champion their interests in the same way as birth parents do, because these children deserve the same opportunities as any other.
The principles do not place any new duties on local authorities but provide a clear definition of expectations about how the local authority should fulfil this role based on what any good parent would do for their own children. It articulates for the first time, in one place, what support these children can expect. At the same time as introducing the principles in the Bill, the Government will also promote a care leaver covenant in which we will encourage other local agencies and organisations to come together and pledge their support for care leavers.
Many of the ideas are the result of listening to the views of children in care and care leavers. Yesterday, for instance, Edward Timpson, I and the Children’s Commissioner met a group of children in care and young people who have left care here in Parliament and listened to their ideas about how their lives could be improved. It was inspirational, and I was very impressed by the young people. However, it was also deeply concerning as there were many similar stories about how they had had many different social workers in a short space of time, and there was inconsistency in the different people—social workers and advisers—with whom they were working. If anyone was in any doubt about the importance of this legislation and the actions that will flow from it, that meeting made it clear that we are definitely on the right road with our plans. This kind of engagement needs to be part of an ongoing process at national and local level and is a key element of the corporate parenting principles, because this Bill is about giving these children a voice and making sure that their voices are heard.
The Bill will reinforce the principles in practice by requiring local authorities to consult on and publish details of their offer to care leavers, setting out the support available for areas such as education, health, employment and accommodation. It will also extend the support that care leavers can expect to receive individually. Currently, all care leavers are supported by the local authority up to the age of 21, but only those who remain in education and training beyond the age of 21 have the benefit of additional support from a personal adviser up to the age of 25. That seems the wrong way round, because those who have left education and training often live in less stable arrangements or do not have the same support networks to rely on. The Bill will extend the personal adviser service to any care leaver who requests it up to the age of 25. Alongside the Bill, we will also be reviewing the quality and remit of personal advisers so that we can make sure that the support they offer and the relationships they build are of a consistently high standard.
I turn to adoption and long-term care. In March this year, the Government published a new policy statement, Adoption: A Vision for Change, which set out our plans to strengthen arrangements for adoption, including the factors that are taken into account when decisions on permanence are made. The Government are strongly pro-adoption because we believe that it offers a critical opportunity for children to move into a long-term placement where they can build a loving relationship with their adoptive parents in a stable and supportive home environment. However, we recognise that this option is still open to only a small percentage of children who can no longer live with their birth parents. The provisions in the Bill will ensure that the factors which evidence shows have most impact on children’s long-term outcomes will be given due weight when decisions about adoption and other permanent arrangements are made. The changes will require decision-makers to take proper account of the quality of support a child will need in light of the harm they have suffered or the risk they have been exposed to, and the child’s current and potential future needs up until the age of 18. They will also ensure that the relationship between the child and their prospective adopters is considered.
The Bill includes two additional provisions to ensure that adopted children and those in other long-term placements receive ongoing help to improve their educational outcomes. The role of virtual school heads, who currently act as champions for the interests of looked-after children across local authorities, and the role of designated teachers, who hold a similar role in schools, will be extended to adopted children and children who are in long-term placements with other members of their family or special guardianship orders. This does not mean that the same support has to be offered to every child. We will expect the virtual school heads and designated teachers to use their professional judgment to decide on the most appropriate form and level of help to provide.
I turn now to children and safeguarding. Nothing can be more important than the safeguarding and protection of children, especially those who are at greatest risk or the most vulnerable. Sadly, we hear too often of terrible cases where children have suffered unimaginable neglect or abuse. We all agree that this should never happen and that we should take every step possible to reduce the risk of it happening again; yet, sadly, the same issues arise over and over again, including failure by agencies to share information and, all too often, the needs of adults being considered before those of children. Clauses 11 to 14 are designed to establish a new Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to oversee the review of the most serious and complex cases and, with the support of the planned What Works centre for children’s social care, make sure that the lessons from them are no longer locked at the local level, but provide a stronger national evidence base to inform practice across the country. We estimate that the number of cases to be reviewed by the panel will be around 20 to 30 a year, with the remainder being reviewed, as at present, at local level.
Some noble Lords may have seen that on 26 May the Government also issued a Written Ministerial Statement on the Wood review. As well as looking at serious case reviews, it considered the co-ordination of local safeguarding arrangements more generally. The overall conclusion is that the current system of local safeguarding children boards is too inflexible, too variable and too frequently ineffective. Indeed, Ofsted reviews show that of the 94 LSCBs which have been reviewed, nearly 70% were rated as either inadequate or requiring improvement. We are therefore proposing to introduce a new, more robust statutory framework around multi-agency working that places a greater onus on the three main local partners involved in children’s safeguarding: the local authority, the police and health. We believe that these changes need to happen quickly and we will therefore be tabling government amendments in advance of the Committee stage so that the House can consider them at the earliest opportunity.
The Bill also includes measures which are intended to lead to lasting improvements in children’s social care services. Clause 10 is largely a technical amendment designed to put beyond doubt that the Secretary of State’s power to intervene in local authorities whose services are inadequate will also apply where two or more local authorities have combined those services. Clauses 15 to 19 will allow local authorities and agencies discharging care functions on their behalf to explore and develop more effective ways of working in children’s social care. The use of this provision will be entirely voluntary and locally led. It will allow a local authority to apply to the Secretary of State for a disapplication of its statutory responsibilities in respect of children’s services for a specified period so that it can test out better ways of working, either more efficiently or to improve the quality of support and raise children’s outcomes. The new arrangements will give high-performing local authorities an opportunity to operate more flexibly and trial more effective ways of delivering children’s services.
There is a consensus stemming back to the landmark Munro Review of Child Protection that over-regulation gets in the way of good social work practice. Addressing this is central to our strategy to reform children’s social care and this new power to innovate will enable us to carefully pilot and evaluate deregulatory measures. It mirrors a similar existing power for schools. We recognise that any relaxation of statutory requirements should not be undertaken lightly. We have therefore built in a number of significant safeguards into the application process to make sure that the use of the new power is properly scrutinised and that the safety of children is always ensured. These include time-limiting the length of the pilots and making their approval subject to regulation using affirmative procedures wherever the proposal is to change the application of primary legislation. We have also included requirements to consult on the proposals with Ofsted and the Children’s Commissioner. These plans sit alongside our £200 million extension to the children’s social care innovation programme—a hugely successful programme involving partnerships between local authorities and charities, which, like the Pause projects, have already had life-transforming effects.
The second part of the Bill sets out our programme of reform for social work. Social work is a vital profession in our society, but one that is often not understood or valued sufficiently. Social workers have the ability to change lives—to enable people, whatever their circumstances or age, to have the best possible chance in life and achieve the outcomes they want for themselves, whether it is ensuring a child is protected or supporting an adult to live as independent a life as possible.
While there are examples of great practice and positive impact, I think we can all agree that there is more that can be done. We want professional practice and judgments to be focused on well-being and led by evidence of what works, not bureaucracy, process and procedure. We want social workers to be recognised and trusted, skilled professionals. The Bill provides for a new bespoke regulatory body dedicated to social work, with the ambition and vision to develop and regulate the workforce across the profession—across a whole career, different specialisms and different levels of seniority. This will represent a much more substantial approach to supporting the social work profession, focusing beyond entry-level qualifications on a whole lifetime career to embrace even the most senior social workers in the country—those leading social care services across England.
The new body will replace the current role of the Health and Care Professions Council in respect of the 93,000 social workers currently registered in England. The change to the system of regulation of social workers is in no sense a criticism of the HCPC. I commend the work that it has carried out since taking on the regulation of social workers in August 2012. Rather, it is a reflection of the unique position of social workers and of the uniquely difficult role they perform in supporting those people and children in society who are the most vulnerable or who have the greatest need. It is the Government’s belief that the interests of the people supported by social workers and the interests of the social work profession will be best served by a specialist regulator with a single focus on this profession.
The key objective of the new body will be to establish a robust regulatory system that will raise standards across the whole profession, while also taking effective action to tackle poor performance. It will: establish the knowledge and skills needed by social workers to practise effectively, both in front-line practice and in leadership roles; maintain a register of professionals that will fully reflect the range, skills and experience of individual social workers; oversee a mechanism for assessing the ability of training and education courses to produce graduates who meet these standards; oversee the rollout of the Government’s plans to assess and accredit child and family social workers; and place a strong emphasis on continuous professional development so that all social workers have the up-to-date and high-quality skills they need to deal with the issues they will encounter. The Bill will also introduce parallel changes in respect of the approval of courses for mental health professionals and best interests assessors in England.
Before I conclude, I shall address the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. I do not doubt the importance of the topic raised by the noble Lord. However, I hope the following debate will focus on the content of the Bill and the important role it will play in the lives of children and those who support them. I am sure the noble Lord’s intention is not to shift focus away from such a laudable aim, so perhaps he will forgive me if I do not enter into an extensive discussion on the use of secondary legislation. However, I will make three further points on the noble Lord’s Motion.
First, the substance of the Motion is factually incorrect. The clauses referenced, Clauses 20 to 40, actually contain only two new delegated powers and one extension of an existing power proposed. This is vastly different from the suggestion by the noble Lord that the clauses contain “only delegations of power”. Furthermore, the provisions we are putting forward are far narrower than the existing regime of delegated legislation flowing from Section 60 of the Health Act 1999, which was introduced under the last Labour Government. Rather than re-enact that power in its existing form, we have deliberately chosen to propose in the Bill a new power which only covers social workers in England. This new power, unlike the one it replaces, is focused, bespoke and specific to the regulation of social work.
Secondly, the Government are firmly of the view that delegated legislation is the most appropriate vehicle to set out the role and operations of the new regulator, along with the relevant establishment and transfer arrangements, as this will allow us to update the legal framework more easily to reflect changing professional standards and improvements in working practices. This is in line with recent advice from the Law Commission on regulatory reform, which emphasised the need for this type of flexibility in the exercise of a regulator’s functions, within the context of clear powers. After all, we must be flexible in responding to the needs of the profession.
Thirdly, I should like to assure all noble Lords that I fully recognise the importance of this House having all the relevant details before it is able to carry out appropriate scrutiny of draft legislation. The Government have always intended to publish indicative draft regulations and policy statements before the relevant clauses are debated in Committee, and I am happy to confirm that that remains our intention.
I conclude by re-emphasising that the Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to making sure no child is left behind. I am confident that we all share the same desire to improve the life chances of the most vulnerable children and that this Bill represents an opportunity to dramatically improve the way this support is offered, after years of these children being often left behind.
The Bill will make broad-ranging and far-reaching reforms to the children’s social care system: an ambition that has been welcomed by the charity sector, local authorities and previously by the opposition parties. It will make a substantial difference to the lives and life chances of the children, families and adults who rely on those services. This is an important Bill that is unashamedly about putting children first. I therefore welcome the level of scrutiny that Members of this House will give it. I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ comments and questions over the next few hours. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Nash
My Lords, I very much welcome all the contributions that were made to the Second Reading debate today. I am heartened that there is a great deal of consensus on our ambition to improve the lives of vulnerable children and those leaving care and on the improvements we hope to make to the quality of children’s services throughout the Bill. All the contributions to the debate have been, as always, very well informed and constructive, reflecting the considerable expertise and experience which exists across the House in relation to children and their journey through life. This expertise will be invaluable when we come to look at the clauses in the Bill in more detail in Committee.
I will not be able to cover all the points made by noble Lords but I will try to cover as many as possible. Starting with the general scrutiny of the Bill, a number of noble Lords raised their wish for the House to be given adequate time and information for the Bill to receive detailed scrutiny in the House. I share this wish. I very much welcome the expertise of the House, of which this debate is a great example. The Bill will receive the usual detailed scrutiny in Grand Committee. We have also already made arrangements for detailed briefing sessions and discussions on parts of the Bill, the first of which will take place tomorrow. I hope that noble Lords will take advantage of these meetings.
I am also happy, along with my ministerial colleagues and officials, to meet any noble Lords to discuss the Bill if they would find this useful. I am also happy to reiterate our commitment to publishing indicative draft regulations and policy statements before clauses containing delegated powers are debated in Committee, and I am glad that this has been welcomed by a number of noble Lords across the House, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, just now.
Turning to some comments by various noble Lords concerning the delegated powers in the Bill, as I said at the start of this debate, I do not want to get into a long discussion on secondary legislation now, but the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Ramsbotham, were both, I am advised, wrong about the number of delegated powers in sections of the Bill. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, as I said at the outset, and as mentioned by my noble friends Lady Shephard and Lord Lang, Clauses 20 to 40 actually contain only two new delegated powers and one extension of an existing power proposed. This is vastly different from the suggestion by the noble Lord that there were 29 delegations of power.
To explain this further and to assist the noble Lord in looking again at his assessment, he will wish to note that delegations of power appear in Clauses 20 and 39, with an extension of an existing power in Clause 40. Remaining clauses in this part explain the use of the new powers and the purposes to which they will be put, including safeguards such as requiring the Secretary of State to consult on regulations and lay the consultation report before Parliament. It is simply not correct to label each of these clauses a new delegated power.
Similarly, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the number of powers in Clauses 15 to 19 and counted five delegated powers in this section. There is, in fact, only one delegated power in Clause 15; the remaining four clauses flesh out that power, including inserting a sunset provision and requiring consultation. The Government are firmly of the view that delegated legislation is the most appropriate vehicle to set out the role and operations of the new regulator. We must be able to update the legal framework to reflect changing professional standards and improvements in working practices. This is also in line with recent advice from the Law Commission on regulatory reform, which emphasised the need for this type of flexibility in the exercise of a regulator’s functions. It is also in line with the approach adopted by the Labour Government in 1999. At the time the 1999 regime was put in place, the Labour Government were happy that was an appropriate use of a delegated power. Again, we will be publishing policy statements and draft regulations for this area before Committee and I am, of course, more than happy to meet noble—and noble and learned—Lords to discuss this part of the Bill if they would like to do so.
Turning to the substance of the Bill, first, I want to respond to the concerns raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Watson, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Wills and Lord Warner, the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Massey, Lady Meacher and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the innovation clauses: Clauses 15 to 19. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the spectre of for-profit. In 2014 we brought forward legislation preventing profit making, where local authorities delegate child-protection functions, and we have no intention of revisiting that position. Where a local authority delegates children’s social care functions, Ofsted will still inspect them as part of local authority inspection and hold the council to account for the quality of those services. All applications to the Secretary of State will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In addition to consultation by both the Secretary of State and the local authority, this will include Ofsted, the Children’s Commissioner and local authority partners.
It may be helpful if I touch on a few examples of where this power to innovate might be applied and where local authorities might apply for exemptions. The first concerns family and friends carers. It is recognised that a carer who is either a family member or a friend is typically the best option for a child, but too often it is hard to get such a carer approved to the same standard as a professional foster carer, particularly within the 16-week time limit. Exemption could allow local authorities to trial making placements for children that put the child at the centre of the decision, prioritising their needs and their attachment to family and friends, without unduly sacrificing the safeguards in place for the child.
Secondly, there is strong consensus in the sector that in low-risk cases the role of the independent reviewing officer brings no additional benefit. Exemptions will allow local authorities to trial redirecting IRO resource differently—for example, to more complex cases—while reducing the number of additional people a young person does not know at their review, which is a known concern, in more straightforward cases.
Thirdly, there is criticism that adoption and fostering panels which are only advisory add little value and can often delay the process of approving prospective carers. Exemption could allow local authorities to trial removing a potentially invasive and unnecessary requirement from one of the many layers of checking, leaving the agency decision-maker who currently makes the decision to exercise their professional judgment.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, praised Leeds for its good work. It is, indeed, one of our partners in looking at Clauses 15 to 19, and is itself hoping to make use of the power to innovate.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about the importance of care leavers receiving advice about leaving care well in advance of that event. The noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin, Lady Howe and Lady Bakewell, and others talked about the importance of advice for care leavers. Indeed, this was raised by a number of young people yesterday and is exactly the sort of advice that should be covered in the local offer. Two particularly impressive young people yesterday said that their local authority offered a passport to independence, setting out all the things that young care leavers need to know.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and others mentioned the importance of kinship care and foster care, which we, of course, recognise. In 2011, we published Family and Friends Care. Under this guidance local authorities must publish their approach to promoting and supporting the needs of children living with family and friends. The Government have also taken action through regulations to strengthen and encourage arrangements for long-term foster care. Our emphasis then, as in this Bill, is to promote stability in children’s lives.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Hughes, talked about money. The amount spent on child protection and social care has remained steady since 2010. This is not necessarily about the amount of money spent but also the way it is spent. The best provision is not necessarily the most expensive. We hope that the power to innovate will demonstrate that.
My noble friend Lady Shephard made very good points about individual responsibility and mentioned good practice in Trafford. Trafford is, sadly, the only local authority in the country whose services and support for care leavers have been rated as outstanding. Obviously, we would like many more local authorities to aspire to that level of success. She also mentioned Norwich for Jobs, of which I am aware. I am delighted to hear that it is now bringing that programme to NEETs.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about apprenticeships for care leavers. Employers receive full funding for the training costs associated with an apprenticeship. This has been extended to care leaver apprentices up to the age of 24. We will now go further and extend this to 25.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler, Lady Walmsley and Lady Howe, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, spoke about corporate parenting. The local authority has statutory responsibility for the care of looked-after children and care leavers, and therefore in law is the corporate parent. However, we recognise that other agencies will also have an interest in, and potentially an impact on, the lives of children in care and care leavers. That is why under our wider care-leaving strategy we are promoting a care leaver covenant which will encourage other agencies and organisations to adopt the principles and have regard to them in their planning and decision-taking. Importantly, the fourth principle also sets out a requirement on local authorities to work with local partners to ensure that young people can access their services.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, talked about the lack of success that often results from government departments joining up. I acknowledge that but this Bill is an example of good joint working between the DfE, the Department of Health and the Home Office in particular. The Social Justice Cabinet Committee has also had a number of discussions on and with care leavers to ensure that their needs are well understood across government.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Benjamin, the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Bichard, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott and others talked about the importance of personal advisers and whether it was sufficient to leave it to the child or young person themselves to request an adviser. This is an extremely good point which I would like to go away and reflect on. We had hoped that the local offer would make it absolutely clear to all care leavers that they have this expectation, but I would like to consider this further.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, talked about an overreaching look at things in legislation and whether we could look more widely. The legislation is, of course, only part of the solution: practice is absolutely key and a great deal of work is focused on this. Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Farmer, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, raised the matter of personal advisers. Minister Timpson has asked officials to conduct a review of the personal adviser role, to determine whether the functions should be amended to give more emphasis to the mentoring and befriending aspects of the role. He has asked for this review to be undertaken at pace, so that its findings are available to inform further thinking as the Bill proceeds through Parliament. It will cover areas such as consistency, relationships, quality and requirements.
My noble friend Lord Farmer, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes, Lady Massey and Lady Hodgson, talked about the importance of early intervention and early years. I could not agree with them more: they made some extremely good points. I would be delighted to set up a meeting between the noble Lords and Minister Gyimah, who is responsible for this area, to discuss this further. The noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Walmsley, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham talked about the circumstances where a national review might be called for. I would like to reflect on this more. Concerns were raised about the distress of good social workers whose cases are considered by this kind of panel. I assure noble Lords that the panel will in no way focus on individual blame, but only on issues which may lead to timely improvement at national level. I note the concerns of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Pinnock, that lessons learned from national reviews trickle down to the local level.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, raised questions about the dissemination of learning, concerns about the two-tier system and the criteria for national reviews. The dissemination of findings from reviews is critical. That is the role of the proposed What Works centre for children’s social care. The centre will build a robust evidence base and share learning on what does and does not work. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, made an extremely important point about the importance of social skills. She might be interested in a report just out from Harvard, a copy of which I can provide her with. It states that all new jobs in America created over the past 10 years have gone to people with the essential social and life skills, and predicts that this is likely to continue in future. She also asked about our definition of coasting schools. This will be laid before Parliament in the autumn, after this year’s exam results are published. On life skills, in our recent White Paper we have placed greater importance on building character and resilience in every child. We will also significantly expand the National Citizen Service and expect schools to give every pupil the chance to take part.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asked about records access. The Children Act 1989 statutory guidance sets out the requirements which local authorities must follow in relation to care records. It states what records should include and that they should be kept for 75 years. That Act requires local authorities to give access to records to people authorised by the Secretary of State and guardians appointed by the court. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, talked about the removal of a duty under the Children Act 1989 to publish information. I do not believe that there is such a removal. It is simply that an existing duty to publish certain information relating to care leavers has been incorporated into the local offer provisions. I am happy to give her more clarification on that if she would like it.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the report by the noble Lord, Lord Laming. We welcome this report on an important topic. We are clear that no child living in a children’s home should be criminalised for behaviour that would not concern the police if it happened in a family home. The Government have asked Sir Martin Narey to review residential care and he will make recommendations on criminalisation. We have also asked Charlie Taylor to conduct a review of the youth justice system. He will report back in the summer with recommendations on how to improve the treatment of young people in care.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Massey, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, my noble friend Lady Hodgson and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Benjamin and Lady Howe, talked about mental health. Children’s mental health is obviously extremely important, particularly in relation to children in care, and the Government take the issue very seriously. Last year we published Future in Mind, setting out our vision for transforming children’s mental health services, including local transformation plans setting out the mental health services in place to meet the needs of looked-after children. We are backing this with £1.4 billion over five years and we have agreed that an expert group on the mental health of looked-after children will look into the issue of specialist assessment.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned the UNCRC report in relation to the Bill. We recognise the importance of the committee’s work and the Bill formed part of the evidence that we prepared for it. We are now looking closely at the report. He also mentioned life chances. He is right to say that the Bill supports the life chances agenda and to emphasise the need to make sure that the two dovetail. On unaccompanied minors—a point also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey—DfE officials are working and will continue to work closely with the Home Office. We recognise that unaccompanied minors have wide-ranging needs and we are working closely with the local government sector to ensure that they receive appropriate support that reflects their needs and experiences, and which do not place disproportionate pressure on the services of any individual local authority.
There was also a question about children going missing from education and about their exploitation. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, particularly raised the issue of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We take the issue of missing and absent children extremely seriously. That is why last year we placed a duty on councils to offer an interview to children who return from going missing within 72 hours and, for the first time ever, have collected national data on all children who go missing from care, not just those missing for 24 hours. We have strengthened care planning and children’s homes regulations, including requiring all homes to ensure that they have clear policies on preventing children going missing, and responding when children do go missing, in line with local police protocols on missing persons.
The plight of unaccompanied asylum-seekers is of course different from that of children who have been taken into care as a result of their domestic situation. Many are aged 16 or 17 and, as several Members have noted, have experienced long and difficult journeys to reach the UK. Some have witnessed terrible events. Their needs can of course vary hugely from individual to individual. Such children also tend to be concentrated in a few locations around the country, which can put additional pressure on those local authorities’ services. Kent, for example, now faces a shortage of places for its own children who need to be taken into care. The Government are working closely with the local government sector and individual local authorities to ensure that the needs of these children can be met by a much wider group of local authorities. That exercise is under way and the Government are providing additional funding to support those placements, and to ensure that appropriate support can be provided.
A point was made about extending the visits of virtual school heads to FE colleges—I think it was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. If a child is looked after, the virtual school head champions their education regardless of the education setting.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, talked about the HCPC and our plans to take responsibility for social workers away from it. This is not a criticism of the work of the council, as I said earlier, but it regulates 16 professions and we believe that social work requires a different model of regulation—one that is specific to this unique and challenging profession and puts it on a par with other high-status professions. We will work closely with the HCPC to ensure that we maintain what works well under the current regulatory framework. This is a joint approach by DfE and the Department of Health for children and adult social services.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay and the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, talked about a college of social work. Indeed, until recently the Government supported an attempt to establish such a college with £8.2 million. Unfortunately, the college struggled to attract the members it needed and, in any case, this is no substitute for independent, professional standards and regulations. Public protection will remain a central objective of the new regulator. As for the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, about costs, we do not anticipate any immediate changes to the registration fees paid by social workers.
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, talked about whistleblowing. Although Public Interest Disclosure Act protections cover only directly employed foster carers, there are already wider requirements for fostering services to have complaints procedures and whistleblowing policies in place. Standard 21.11 of the fostering services national minimum standards is clear:
“Current and prospective foster carers”,
must be able to,
“make a complaint about any aspect of the service which affects them directly”.
It is also clear that records must be kept of,
“representations and complaints, how they are dealt with, the outcome and any action taken”.
A number of noble Lords asked why we are creating new offences. There is in fact little here that is new: the current legislation already provides the power to create offences in secondary legislation to support the regulation of social workers. The provisions we have made in this Bill are in fact considerably narrower in scope than those that exist in the primary legislation at present. They will enable the creation of a small number of offences that, as now, we judge essential to protect the integrity of the regulatory process.
My noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, asked about confidential information requested by a panel under Clauses 11 and 14. The Bill does not prevent those asked for information from asserting legal or medical privilege. The panel would need to consider any such assertion against the need for the information, and it is also important to note the care that the panel would take with such information in its consideration with regard to publication. The Bill does not include a power for the panel to compel the provision of information, although public bodies may be required to do so as a result of judicial review. We are currently considering whether additional powers of enforcement would be appropriate and will bring forward a suitable amendment if that is deemed necessary.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, talked about the assessment of the SEND local offer. The noble Baroness rightly noted the parallels between the care leaver offer and the SEND local offer introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014. It is still early days, of course, but we are optimistic about its impact. I do not have any data with me, but the anecdotal feedback I have received is very positive.
My noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy asked whether the categories of ceased to be looked after and previously looked after were the same. I can assure him that they are the same. He also raised some points about designated teachers, what works and other matters which I will reflect on and on which I will respond to him. I am grateful for his encouragement to be bold on the question of the power to innovate.
In conclusion, I agree entirely with the excellent comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, about the difficulties facing social workers in their vital jobs. We are determined to do everything we can to make the lives of social workers less difficult and to raise both the level of support for them and their status.
Lord Warner
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister in his flow, but he has had a good run at it. Could he say a little more about how the Government are going to answer the very specific question that a number of us raised about Part 2? Could he ensure that we have a joint briefing with Department of Health Ministers so we understand what the Government are doing in this area? As of now, the Minister is asking us to have a clause stand part debate on each of Clauses 20 to 40 so that we can get to the bottom of what the Government’s thinking is in this area.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, earlier in the debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard of Northwold, expressed the hope that the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper would not dominate the debate. I cannot speak for her, but I think she would agree with me that that has not been the case; nor was that ever the intention of these Benches in tabling the amendment. Many noble Lords have referred to it. In his recent contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, to some extent alluded to the consequences of the paucity of information in Clauses 20 to 40. It is slightly disingenuous of the Minister, although I do not propose to get into a tennis match with him over what is and is not in those clauses—but if we did so, we might call on the services of an umpire. On this occasion, we have an umpire in the form of the Constitution Committee, and I shall repeat a small part of what it said about this Bill. It said that,
“the government continues to introduce legislation that depends so heavily on an array of broad delegated powers”.
That seems unequivocal to me and to my colleagues on these Benches, and that is why the amendment was tabled.
It is inappropriate for the Government to continue to ride roughshod over the views of committees of your Lordships’ House—the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee will give us its views in due course—and the views clearly expressed in this debate by noble Lords. Although it is not my intention to test the opinion of the House on this amendment, if this continues in future and further Bills come forward in a similar form, the Government should expect the Opposition to come forward with a similar amendment, and on that occasion we may not be as accommodating. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.