Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Ramsbotham

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 240A and to agree with everything my noble friend Lord Marks said. In particular, I echo his support for the work of the Youth Justice Board over the years.

Amendments earlier today have discussed the problems with the regime of youth offenders, and the Youth Justice Board has proved that this particular expertise is vital in a holistic approach to youth offending. A key element of that is the specialist training for all staff in contact with young people in the criminal justice system. The Youth Justice Board has very successfully reduced the number of young people in custody.

Many of the amendments to the Bill are about women, whether around violence against women and girls or the specific difficulties that women and girls face in the criminal justice system. Time and again, we have heard that different parts of the criminal justice system—police, courts, the Prison Service and probation —do not understand the particular problems that these women face. It is very important to note that the majority of female offenders have committed non-violent offences, and that a large proportion have suffered domestic and sexual violence or coercive control, usually at the hands of their partners.

The creation of a women’s justice board would mirror the principles behind the Youth Justice Board. It would oversee the key issues relating to prevention, custody and rehabilitation, and ensure that everyone in the justice system—not just the criminal justice system but also the family courts system—would receive specialist training.

One important area to consider is alternatives to custody. These should be consistently used, where appropriate, because evidence suggests that they work much better. There are benefits for the welfare of children; this should be considered when sentencing mothers and carers, to prevent the lives of their children being more disrupted. There is also evidence that this will reduce the chances of their children having problems at school and entering the criminal justice system themselves. The wider benefits of maintaining family and community links mean that female offenders’ rehabilitation will be more successful.

I know that the number of women offenders with custodial sentences has reduced, but this Government have placed the protection of women, especially those at risk from violence, at the heart of the Bill. The creation of a women’s justice board would be a key pillar in ensuring that women are given the support that they need to prevent them committing offences and to take into account their family responsibilities in considering custody and rehabilitation.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 240A and 259C, so comprehensively introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames. Ever since the formation of the Youth Justice Board, I have been keen on the idea of a women’s justice board, with the accompanying offender management teams, particularly if it was matched by a Prison Service appointment of a director of women’s prisons—a change to the operational management structure of the Prison Service that the MoJ should consider, as I advocated to the Minister when debating an earlier amendment.

The Minister for Prisons and Probation could chair an executive board, consisting of the directors-general of the prison and probation services and the chairmen of the Youth Justice Board and the women’s justice board, obviating any need for Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, which merely inserts a layer of bureaucracy into the executive board—in other words, between the Secretary of State for Justice and individual prison governors.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Ramsbotham

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I take up the offer made by my noble friend Lord Low to say a little a bit about the quality assurance I have in mind. Noble Lords may remember two extremely good safeguarding reports produced by the joint inspectorates involved in education, health and the criminal justice system, one in 1999 and the other in 2003. Those came about in the balmy days before the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown, axed what had been the Social Services Inspectorate and became the Commission for Social Care Inspection. The role of social care responsibility for children was then taken on by Ofsted and that of adult social care by the Care Quality Commission, which was instigated by the reforms that had to follow the axing of the Social Services Inspectorate. I have always regretted strongly that although this House was able to preserve Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons we were unable to preserve the Social Services Inspectorate. Frankly, we have been reaping the wind ever since.

My feeling about what we are talking about here is that we need something akin to the inspections for the safeguarding of children carried out by the joint inspectorates. They were led by someone with overall responsibility but able to call on the quality assurance addition of the inspectors of particular elements of the system. In this case, we have healthcare and education but also other things including the local offer, how that is made and so on. That is why I laid this false trail, as it were, to the Children’s Commissioner. I suggest to the Minister that in thinking about the quality of what we are proposing—and what the Government are very definitely interested in introducing—the assurance on that is carried out by those best able to do it working together, rather than giving it to any one person, because there are so many aspects to it. Quality assurance is absolutely essential and must be objective and consistent in every part of the country where local offers are handled.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 113 in my name and to Amendment 114 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Low. Amendment 113 is a probing amendment to seek clarity from the Government on whether they are willing to provide a national or common framework to support the development of local offers so that parents can easily identify how provision varies. Parents of children with sensory impairments support proposals to improve transparency. This amendment was suggested to some of us by the National Deaf Children’s Society, RNIB and Sense. Some parents have reported that under the current arrangements:

“We have fallen across possible choices and information quite often by chance”.

Another parent said:

“I got an information pack when my child was diagnosed, but half of it wasn’t relevant to deaf children and it didn’t include information on the local deaf school”.

The three charities I mentioned support the concept of the local offer, and it is very important to the 75% of deaf children and 57% of children with sight loss who do not have a statement of SEN. The draft code of practice and regulations set out what information is to be included as part of the local offer and are very detailed. However, they do not specify how information should be broken down, nor do they set out a template that local authorities should work to that would make that comparison easier. In the absence of a common format, I am not sure that I can believe that the local offer will genuinely improve transparency over what help is available to these children. The local offer will be helpful only if local authorities are required to publish information about support available for different types of SEN. The needs of children with SEN are very different; for example, sensory needs are very different from the needs of autistic children. If the Government are not minded to create a set template so that parents can easily compare provision between different areas, I hope they will discuss it with the Local Government Association so that it can create a common template, because it would ease local government’s passage into the new arrangements if there is one framework to follow.

Moving to Amendment 114, the overall accountability framework around the Bill looks somewhat weak. Noble Lords will have gathered that from my previous amendment. There seems to be very little to stop a local authority publishing a weak local offer that is poorly understood or inaccessible. Despite the Bill frequently referring to improving accountability, the available rights of recourse for parents are limited. It is good that parents have the right to leave comments on the local offer and that they will be published, but there is no obligation on the local authority to address any of the concerns raised. Parents have the right to seek a judicial review against the local authority for failing to meet the requirements set out in the Bill, but this is not an option that many parents will be able or willing to pursue.

As well as being limited, the framework relies almost entirely on parents to respond and take action. Many parents are busy being parents. As one parent told Sense at an event held to discuss the Bill:

“We’re forever chasing, and it’s a headache. I often don’t have enough time to be making phonecalls and people don’t always come back to you so you’re just chasing and forever trying to sort everything out. You’ve got to think all the time—which are the bits worth fighting about?”.

Many parents do not know what they do not know. They are not in a position to assess whether the quality of a teacher is as good as it should be, nor do they have the time to research whether provision in other areas is better.

The Government’s White Paper Open Public Services stresses the importance of ensuring the quality of provision in any move to create diversity of services and providers. It states that the Government,

“will ensure that providers of individual services who receive public money … are licensed or registered by the appropriate regulator”.

A significant amount of funding is spent on supporting children with high needs. More than £500 million has been allocated by the Department for Education for this year. Many are concerned that there is relatively weak oversight of how this funding is spent and of whether it leads to improved outcomes. As well as leading to doubts about whether SEN provision is effective, it also raises questions about value for money and scrutiny of expenditure. There needs to be a stronger external accountability around the local offer. As has been already outlined by the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Low, this could be taken up by Ofsted or the Children’s Commissioner.

In another place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families stated that he was exploring with Ofsted how concerns about SEN provision could be covered under Ofsted’s existing programme for inspecting local authority school improvement functions. This statement was made in the spring of this year and, unfortunately, no update has been provided since. I am sure that there needs to be further certainty on the local offer and accountability before the Bill progresses to Report.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Ramsbotham

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF. I, too, am delighted to be speaking in favour of Amendment 219, which can bring about the transformation of education—much of our emphasis today has been on education—and, importantly, health and social care services, which is needed to make them truly inclusive for families with disabled children.

I strongly believe that the starting point for looking at the reforms to SEN in this Bill should be that a disabled child has just as much right as every other child to be involved in their community, to be visible in their own community and to have the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers. Despite some very welcome reforms to support for disabled children and children with SEN in the Bill, I fear that the right of disabled children to participate in their community will not be sufficiently realised through the Bill. This concern is shared by UNICEF and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, noted.

There is compelling evidence that families with disabled children currently encounter huge difficulties in accessing support in their community. Indeed, Scope’s recent Keep Us Close report found that a mere 14% of families with disabled children said they could get all the support they needed in their local community. Therefore families which already face immense challenges on a daily basis more often than not encounter a closed door when it comes to ensuring that their children enjoy the same opportunities as other children.

The Government previously stated in Committee on the Bill in the other place that there are already duties in place to ensure that appropriate provision is made for children and young people with special educational needs and disabled children and their families. However, such duties are clearly failing to achieve their intended purpose. Although the Equality Act 2010 requires organisations to be proactive and responsive in ensuring that the public services that they provide are inclusive and accessible, the reality is that services for disabled children are often developed, planned and commissioned separately from other community services, and consequently miss more strategic opportunities to create joined-up support and a more inclusive society. Parents are confronted with local activities and services that are inaccessible or a lack of support services to enable disabled children to join in with local activities such as youth groups or even simply playing in the park with their peers.

The Government need to set out a clear strategic direction and create a strong imperative for local authorities to focus on accessibility of local services, and that is exactly what the amendment would do. Although a number of local authorities undertake excellent work alongside families with disabled children to ensure that their needs are met by mainstream services—notably Suffolk, Leeds and Blackpool—not all local authorities are as progressive. Many local authorities and voluntary organisations want to provide more inclusive and accessible services, and the amendment would help to give them a chance to do that.

Such a duty on local authorities and NHS bodies would not have to be burdensome. Disabled children and those with SEN more often than not do not need hugely different or specialist services. With small changes to an existing service, we can make them accessible and inclusive for disabled children. It is not about providing more and separate services, but, rather, targeting current provision in the most effective way.

Indeed, making services accessible and inclusive for disabled children is just as much about changing attitudes as it is about making physical adjustments. It is about breaking down many of the fears and misconceptions about what inclusion means and ensuring that services see children simply as the individuals who they are—forcing services to think more creatively about how they can meet the needs of families with disabled children and allow the 1.7 million disabled children and children with SEN to reach their potential.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Briefly, I support my noble friends Lady Howe and Lord Low on Amendment 219. I commend to the Minister, in forming the regulations, an enormous number of examples of good practice around the country which should be taken note of, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said. Some of them were drawn to attention in the report of my committee on the links between social disadvantage and speech, language and communication needs. We were fascinated that, for example, in Walsall, assessments were made of children in secondary schools. Nowhere else in the country could we find that being done in the same way. In Stoke, they were training lollipop men and dinner ladies to identify conditions in children which they might bring to the attention of the authorities so that they could be followed up, based on the fact that no longer is child development a requirement in teacher education, which I find an extraordinary state of affairs.

I speak here on behalf of a coalition called the Communication Trust, which would be more than happy to share all that it has learnt with the Minister and the officials responsible for drawing up the regulations to make certain that they incorporate as much as possible of what is already known.