Children and Families Bill

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I can understand why the noble Lord, Lord Low, tabled Amendment 33D, which would regulate the special education provision to be provided by local authorities. That sounds sensible and reassuring. However, the practicalities of regulating provision in such a way would, despite what has been said in the contributions from noble Lords, cause unnecessary restrictions on provision and prevent innovation and creativity that could bring about new and supportive services.

The duties on local authorities and other bodies to assess needs and secure provision are already set out elsewhere in the Bill. There are already some excellent examples of local offers—for example the pathfinders in North Yorkshire that worked with parents and young people to produce an interactive map and colour-coded diagram, including a version for children and young people, showing precisely what the local offer would be.

Funding allocated to councils by the Government for education, including SEN provision, can vary greatly, even for similar or neighbouring local authorities. That is one reason why provision may vary between areas. We know that the new national funding formula will not be introduced until after the next election. SEN provision also varies from one local authority to another because of the nature of the population. There are higher levels of need in some areas, which require the local authority to provide more specialist services than in others areas that may have no such requirements or quite different needs.

Defining in law a minimum level of provision may actually mean that resources in some authorities are diverted from other areas of special need simply to meet a legal requirement. Health needs also differ between local areas. That is reflected in the local joint strategic needs assessment, which is based on the needs of the local population. Surely the key purpose of the local SEN offer should remain as a source of information to parents and young people, developed by local authorities working with them to reflect their choices and preferences.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that parents have fought for years to get resources and what some might call justice for children with special educational needs. That is why the Bill is so important: it is a progressive piece of legislation that we can all be proud of. It will mean that, for the first time, local authorities have to spell out clearly and precisely what is available in their area and how that can be accessed. As we know, people with special educational needs will, for the first time, have a plan that joins up health, education and social care.

The giveaway is in the title: “local offer”. It is not a national offer but a local one. I suppose the Government could have said, “Nationally, we have decided that this is what you will do”, but I am quite sure that there would have been screams from local authorities that this was national government again dictating exactly what should happen. The local offer is important.

I was grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Low, in Committee but I still have grave concerns about creating a minimum requirement. We have seen what happened in care for the elderly: if you have a minimum requirement, councils under financial pressures jettison what they do not need to provide. If you have a minimum offer in terms of special educational needs, you will find that those authorities that my noble friend Lady Eaton so eloquently described, the ones that are progressive and look at new ideas, will say, “Well, if there are some savings to be made, we do not need to do that”. So I am not in favour of a minimum offer.

I am in favour of what the Government have reflected on and come back to at Report with Amendment 33C. Let us never underestimate the power of local people. If the local offer is not meeting the local requirement, you can bet that local people will say that they want something extra. Cases will make that happen. That is why the government amendment is so important. Let us celebrate where we are at so far, because it is important for children with special educational needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I, too, add my support for the amendment. For this system to be truly joined up, all parts of the education, health and care plan need to be enforceable; otherwise, social care will be, as has been described, the poor cousin—the element within the EHC plan that will be considered to be of least importance. This is of concern to a wide range of children and young people with SEN and disabilities. We know that parents, too, are concerned about this; in fact, more than 1,000 people have written to the Minister on the issue and asked the Government to ensure that social care will be an equal partner in education, health and care plans. I am therefore encouraged to learn that the Government are looking into the issue in more detail. I very much welcome this and look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Eaton]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister can clarify what I understood was the situation, whereby there is already in existence a statutory duty under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 for local authorities to provide services in their area to meet the needs of children in need, including disabled children.

In the case of services for disabled children, under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, once the local authority is satisfied that it is necessary to provide assistance under that section, it is under a duty to provide the assistance. It is not, however, necessarily the case that services must be provided to meet every assessed need. Whether a children’s services authority has to provide services following assessment depends on the nature and extent of the need assessed, and on the consequences of not providing the service. These duties have already been the subject of significant litigation, and it may be that imposing a social care duty under the Bill would further complicate an already complex legal position.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I, too, add my support for the amendment and my gratitude to those who have fought so hard to bring it forward. For reasons that have already been expressed in terms of the parity between the three elements of education, health and social care, there is a continuing danger, time and again, in our legislation and in our thinking, that social care becomes an orphaned right—to take an analogy from another area.

I want to push Minister a bit further on the argument that has been put forward that if we pass an amendment such as this, other areas will thereby be deprioritised. I simply fail to understand, despite having read a good deal about it, how that can possibly be so. It seems to me that equality in this area is crucial, and therefore that we ought to pursue an amendment such as this.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, following the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, with which I agree absolutely, I warmly support the amendment in the names of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friends on the Front Bench.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has unrivalled expertise. I have only personal experience—I am speaking as the parent of an adoptive child of Asian background—and it is my conviction that any child of a different racial background from the parents is deprived if it cannot identify easily, almost unconsciously, with someone close to it in the way children do. A baby first learns visually to recognise faces. A teenager depends very much on confirmation of his or her identity to develop confidence. A loving home is, of course, all important. I am speaking not only as a parent, but as a member of a support group for adoptive parents, so I am also aware of their experiences. You impose a burden and a cause of stress on a child if ethnicity—as far as is possible—is not respected.

Children survive all sorts of things and I hope we have had a happy family. But that in no way alters my conviction that the Government should pay attention to this need of children and accept this amendment.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, some interesting points have been made by the previous speakers, but one of the things none of us has mentioned so far is the valuable and important role of social workers in this exercise of matching children with appropriate, loving parents.

I worry that by being as prescriptive as putting something like this on the face of the Bill or making guidance hugely prescriptive, we are limiting the opportunities of social workers to be flexible and professional about their assessment. If we need to do anything, perhaps it is strengthening that kind of perception and understanding within social worker training. I have confidence that, if the Government choose to remove this, it does not mean that social workers will not look at each child’s background very fully; and not just the backgrounds of children who are easily identified as from a minority. The assumption that all Caucasian children, for instance, have no difference in their needs is quite ridiculous.

If we are prescriptive about applying considerations to do with parental connections only to the lives of children from ethnic minorities, we are not giving social workers the right to make the proper professional judgments. For example, if a Quaker family adopts a child from a Catholic background, it is just as important for them as it is for people of mixed ethnicity. I am concerned that if we are prescriptive and put something on the face of the Bill and are also prescriptive in the statutory guidance, we may make the situation worse in some cases.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, in Committee I spoke in support of Amendment 2. I quoted the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, in its legislative scrutiny report. This led to some debate about the implications of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for this clause.

I want to read from the letter that the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights wrote to the Minister following our debate in Committee. He expresses disappointment at the Government’s refusal to accept the amendment. He writes: “In your response”—to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—

“you said that ‘the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does not require children to be placed with someone who shares exactly the same ethnicity but someone who respects it.’ That is correct, but what the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does expressly require, in Article 20(3), is that ‘when considering solutions, due regard shall be paid … to the child’s ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background’. Removing the statutory provision which gives effect to that obligation, without retaining those considerations in the welfare checklist, is incompatible with that provision of the Convention.

Unless the Government accepts the amendment when it is brought back at Report stage, it seems to us to be inevitable that this aspect of the Bill will be the subject of criticism by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Government is currently finalising its Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, for submission in January 2014. My Committee will ensure that the issue is brought to the attention of the Committee when it examines the UK’s Report”.

Would it not make sense to listen to experts such as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the NSPCC? It has said that the amendment would,

“ensure that reference to ethnicity in the Adoption and Children Act is better balanced rather than it being given prominence in its current standalone form, and that it is appropriately recognised given its significance. We welcome the updating of statutory guidance … and are keen to work with DfE to input into this. However, while the detail of the guidance is certainly important it will only go so far in ensuring this is appropriately taken into account and could send a contradictory message as to its importance having removed this from primary legislation”.

That is one of the concerns—that having expressly taken this out of the legislation, and if nothing is put back, it will send out a message that whatever the statutory guidance says, this is not important. But it is important, and I really hope the Minister will think again. I know that his reading of the UN convention is different, but the Joint Committee on Human Rights is expressly given the duty to advise Parliament on the human rights implications of legislation. I hope the Minister will take seriously this rather strong advice given by the Joint Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Eaton]

My Lords, I support the amendments in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. I do not wish to rehearse all the points that my colleagues have already made but it is important to say that part of what we need is a cultural change of collaboration and working together in local authorities to create a climate where adoption happens with ease for all the children needing a loving home.

The word “direction”, which hangs over local authorities, is not conducive to a working, productive relationship. It is dictatorial and does not create the atmosphere that we are all looking for. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, we need the Secretary of State to have the absolute power at the end, if it is required, but the amendment ensures that there is justification for anything that is taken before both Houses of Parliament, and I am sure that we will all be more comfortable about such scrutiny. The idea that, with the direction, the Secretary of State merely has to give his reasoning but does not give anyone the chance to fully debate the matter and make changes would not be helpful in this process.

I support these amendments and I hope that they will take us much further forward in obtaining the co-operation we need and the adoption system that we are looking for.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hamwee.

A point was made by two earlier speakers that the Secretary of State could use successive orders under new Section 3A(3)(b) to achieve what new subsection (3)(c) provides for—in other words, to wipe out all local authorities from these various functions. Given the fact that new subsection (3)(c) is in the Bill, any Secretary of State who were to try that would, I am sure, be challenged for an abuse of process. I cannot see any Secretary of State trying to do that. It would be eminently challengeable. To colleagues who fear that scenario in the future, I suggest that it is not likely to happen. We have in my noble friend’s amendments a process—which I think the Government will be able to accept—to bring about parliamentary scrutiny if the powers in new subsection (3)(c) were used. That is the right level of parliamentary scrutiny required.

Local Authorities: Child Protection

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

In the light of the increased numbers of children in care, what steps is my noble friend the Minister taking to ensure sufficient numbers of adoptive parents are recruited?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, this matter is at the top of our list of priorities and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education feels extremely strongly about it, as does my colleague Edward Timpson. We have established the adoption leadership board to drive improvements in adoption recruitment. We have the adoption scorecard, and the adoption support fund for voluntary agencies. We have invested £150 million in the adoption reform grant, and are encouraging partnerships between local authorities and voluntary agencies. Through the Children and Families Bill we are also opening up access to the adoption register.

I can report some good news. Today we announced that in the past year we have recruited just over 4,000 new adopters, an increase of 34%. Nevertheless, the gap between children waiting to be adopted and the numbers of adopters is sadly still widening.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for moving her amendment, although initially I thought it did not have the effect that she desired. Children and young people should be placed in the right setting to meet their needs. It is right that if the appropriate setting is in either Scotland or Northern Ireland, local authorities should have the power to place children and young people there and meet or contribute to the costs of the placement. The Bill as drafted would allow for such placements.

In line with what the noble Baroness said, Clause 58 is drafted in the way it is, mentioning England and Wales in particular, because the Bill covers England and Wales. Clause 58 allows local authorities to place children and young people with EHC plans anywhere else in the world, including Scotland and Northern Ireland, and to meet or contribute to the costs of the placement. I acknowledge the noble Baroness’s point about the costs, but they can still do it. There are a very few cases where children have been placed outside the UK. Unfortunately, the effect of the noble Baroness’ amendment would be that local authorities would still be able to place children and young people in schools or colleges in Scotland and Northern Ireland but they would not be able to pay or contribute towards the costs.

On the noble Baroness’s aim of specifying the limits of what local authorities are expected to provide, she is right to seek to clarify the extent of local authorities’ responsibilities for arranging provision outside the UK. As she said, this is a power, not a duty. It replicates the current arrangement and does not place a demand on local authorities. I hope, with that explanation, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment in due course.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

I found it interesting that the Minister said that very few people use the opportunity to be placed abroad. If it is on the face of the Bill to this extent, it might become more attractive to want to go further afield. It might become a fashion to seek support from other countries, where sometimes we hear of innovative things that are not necessarily proven. I would be seriously concerned—knowing that local authorities could potentially have huge black holes in years to come—about how on earth this will be funded. Even if it involves only a few children, it will be a sizeable bill. When local authorities are in danger of going bankrupt in some places, it is inappropriate to impose an open-ended commitment on them. I realise that it is an option—it is not something that is being forced on local authorities—but it will cause huge issues when people are refused the opportunity if they wish for it.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Grand Committee

This amendment also ensures that having considered the best shape of inclusive, accessible services for disabled children and young people, local authorities and the NHS should then secure this provision. Existing provision for disabled people is marred by the fact that services are rarely designed to meet the needs of disabled people and young children from the start. Rather, provision is retrofitted for access for disabled people, often resulting in badly delivered or compromised services. If services are poorly designed or continually adjusted, it prevents them securing the outcome that would most benefit disabled children and young people. Most importantly, this amendment is comprehensive; it seeks to embed the principle of access and inclusion throughout local authorities and NHS processes in England from planning to commissioning to delivery and, finally, ensures that such services are robustly evaluated to drive improvements consistently.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 219, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Wilkins, and the noble Lord, Lord Low. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has already said that this amendment would ensure that local authorities and their partner NHS commissioning bodies promote and secure inclusive and accessible education, health and social care provision and that they consider disability at every stage, be it the planning, design, commissioning, funding, delivery or evaluation of such services.

I am very pleased to say that some of this is already in process. Suffolk County Council is already leading the way in this area and is working with the disability charity Scope to provide Activities Unlimited, a brokerage service which works closely with parents and other agencies to encourage mainstream services to be more inclusive and accessible. Activities Unlimited has recognised that there is significant demand for services from families with disabled children who have personal budgets to spend which is not currently being tapped into. Activities Unlimited works closely with parents and other agencies, not only in commissioning services and identifying new high quality service providers, but involving them in the evaluation process as well, using feedback from families to support improvements to services and signposting families towards the most appropriate support. When local services are inadequate or where uptake is low, Activities Unlimited signals a need for improvement, shifts resources towards more effective services and eventually withdraws public support from underperforming services.

Through forcing services to work in a more competitive economy, a better quality of mainstream provision is ensured whereby consumer demand supports the best quality providers. Through increasing provision for disabled children and young people, families have a genuine choice between providers. This has produced real outcomes for both families and the local authority. By increasing the availability of local inclusive and accessible services, such as youth clubs, swimming pools and play centres for families across Suffolk, the council has not had to provide any expensive emergency respite care for disabled children. Indeed, this is such a successful service that Scope is going to be working with Blackpool and Leeds to set up a comparable brokerage service.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord May of Oxford (CB)]

I turned up explicitly to support the amendment and am reassured that I need not have done. I hope that people will take heed of those remarks and recognise that, in addition to the amendment, somebody should be looking at the idiots who are doing what they are doing.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, at the moment considerable consultation is taking place with local authorities on children’s homes, particularly in the area of safeguarding and bringing in new and helpful ways of running them. Is it possible, within that consultation, to consider the relationships of the children in the home, and why siblings are separated? Could that be part of the appraisal of the effectiveness of running children’s homes?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, for raising this extremely important issue. The amendment gives me the opportunity to say that I have published draft regulations for your Lordships’ consideration. I completely agree that contact between siblings can be of great importance and extremely beneficial—this is not in dispute. However, I hear what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, my noble friends Lady Hamwee, Lady Walmsley and Lady Benjamin, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord May, have said. I am afraid that we do not agree that amending Section 34 is the right thing to do. The Family Justice Review recommended that the Government should consult on whether Section 34 should be amended, along the same lines as proposed in this amendment. We did just that. Drawing on the experience and knowledge of a number of experts, we agreed that amending the law was not the right thing to do, and that more work needed to be done to improve practice and facilitate positive contact between siblings.

When the child’s local authority is considering what contact there should be—whether with the child’s parents or siblings—the authority must ensure that it is consistent with safeguarding and promoting the child’s welfare. In doing so, the draft regulations require local authorities to have regard to the child’s care plan. We consider that that is the right approach. Current regulations already require local authorities to consider and review contact arrangements with siblings. Local authorities are under a duty to include in a child’s care plan details of how they will meet the child’s needs in relation to all family relationships. This includes arrangements for promoting and maintaining contact with siblings.

Children and Families Bill

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as an elected member of Bradford Metropolitan District Council. I speak today as the Bill has significant implications for local government. As someone who has worked in local government for many years, I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving the lives of children and young people. It goes without saying that protecting children and helping to provide for their future is one of the most important things that councils do, and councils take those responsibilities very seriously. The measures in the Bill will have a significant impact on councils’ children’s services, because local authorities will have a central role in implementing them.

I know we all want to make sure that the Bill helps secure the best possible outcomes for our children and young people. While I welcome many of the provisions in the Bill and there is much in it to be commended, I have a number of concerns about measures in the legislation, particularly the proposed changes to the adoption system and, as with many others, special educational needs reform.

I served on the House of Lords Select Committee on adoption legislation and had the pleasure of working on this with many noble friends who are here today. I would like to be clear, as the committee was, that adoption is not the only form of permanence available for children. For some, permanence through special guardianships or long-term foster care might be more appropriate. The central consideration must always be what is in the best interests of the individual child.

Some provisions in these clauses are to be commended. For example, councils already make use of fostering for adoption. This increases stability for children. However, it remains essential to progress measures to reduce the significant delay in the courts and uncertainty for the child and those who are not being fostered for adoption. The committee welcomed this clause, and I am pleased that the Government have extended its scope, as we argued that they should, and that there is now a duty to consider a fostering for adoption placement for all children for whom adoption is being considered.

The committee did not agree with the Government’s proposals to remove the requirement to consider ethnicity when matching children with families. We were not convinced, and I am still not convinced, that this process causes significant delay. I believe that it should be not the only consideration but one factor along with others. That said, there needs to be a change to the adoption system, and we welcome many of the reforms that have been introduced. The acute shortage of adopters remains a significant challenge, but the provisions included in Clause 3, which will allow the Secretary of State to remove all councils from the recruitment and assessment of adopters, is not the solution. In fact it risks making things worse for children and adopters.

Voluntary adoption agencies provide only 20% of adopter recruitment. Removing the other 80% runs serious risks of creating more harm than good. Councils will also remain responsible for placing children for adoption and matching them with families. Clause 3 could fragment the system as a result. Adoptive families say that they like the consistency of support from a social worker throughout the process. There are also wider disincentives in the system, which deter councils from recruiting more adopters than they need in their local area. I know that the Local Government Association is already working with the sector on plans to overcome these systemic barriers and to improve performance where necessary.

I am also concerned that this clause does not include criteria for use. There has been room for improvement, but local government has been taking action and we are seeing the impact of this. Recent research from the Association of Directors of Children’s Services has found that the number of children placed for adoption in England has nearly doubled over the past year. We need time for other adoption reforms, such as the adoption gateway and changes to the assessment process, to bed in. I am concerned that the sweeping provision in Clause 3 would undermine this positive progress.

Clause 9 introduces a duty for local authorities to appoint at least one person to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children, the so-called virtual school head. It is important to point out that every local authority in England already has arrangements in place to deliver the function of virtual school heads, because they recognise the importance of helping children to overcome the trauma experienced before they came into the care system and the need to support them in achieving good educational outcomes.

On special needs reform, I know that many of us want to see changes to the system to deliver the best outcomes for children and young people. Many noble Lords have spoken eloquently on this subject. The reforms are ambitious. They aim to ensure that in future children, young people and their parents are at the heart of the system. We therefore need to make sure that the Bill helps to deliver the best outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs. That is why it is important to get the detail right. I am concerned that the Bill will not deliver effective accountability and redress for young people with SEN and their parents. Although one of the key aims of the new system is to bring together education, health and social care, as the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, mentioned, there will be different ways of challenging the education, health and social care aspects of provision through different tribunals, procedures and processes, which risks leaving parents and young people with a confusing system that is time-consuming, difficult to navigate and emotionally draining.

As we have already heard, Clauses 31 and 32 place a duty on local authorities to provide information on the services they expect to be available for children and young people. I am very supportive of the local offer, but I want to make sure that the Bill’s provisions allow local areas the freedom to include the full range of services that help children and young people. The local offer should be developed with local families so that services are designed for them and are not prescribed by Whitehall. The Bill will give councils a range of new duties, and we do not need an extra layer of requirements or we will turn a good idea to provide local people with information into something unworkable.

I also want to see sufficient duties placed on other organisations, such as health bodies, schools and colleges, to ensure that all partners responsible for delivering health, education and care packages provide the services a child or young person requires. For example, provisions in Clause 27 place a duty on local authorities to keep education and care provision under review. Such duties are not placed on health bodies.

My time is up. I am sure that we all commend this Bill. The role of this Chamber is to improve this legislation in a spirit of consensual debate to ensure the best outcomes for children and young people. I am sure that across the House we can improve the Bill in the way that we need to.