Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Young of Hornsey

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 10, I, like other noble Lords this afternoon, place on record how grateful I am for the help of the Minister and his officials in trying to get to grips with this issue of access to records for care leavers, especially as it was not originally part of the Bill. I understand why we needed some considered negotiations around the subject. I found those very useful, as did my colleagues from the access to records campaign group, which comprises professionals from the Care Leavers’ Association, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, the Child Care History Network, the Post Care Forum and Barnardo’s. It is also supported by the fostering and adoption charity, TACT.

Some of the key issues that this amendment seeks to address are the lack of consistency across the country’s local authorities in the way they deal with giving access to records to care leavers, and also, importantly, how they deal with the issue of redaction of those records. A number of care leavers gave us evidence of how they received notes from their past which were essentially incomprehensible because of the amount of redaction that had taken place. Again, that seems to depend on whereabouts you live in the country. That should obviously not be the case. In the amendment, we call for clear, effective statutory guidance and the opportunity for care leavers to access support once they have accessed their records.

That is another important point. I am not sure that all noble Lords are aware how difficult that experience can sometimes be for people. It does not matter what age you are. This is not just for young people who have recently left care. Many older people also have that experience. At the moment, no kind of support is necessarily offered to them. Of course, care records must be properly maintained and every effort made to trace records from decades ago as well as more recent ones. That ties in to my earlier point about the ages of people seeking their records. In fact, colleagues at the Care Leavers’ Association say that the average age of those seeking its help in looking for their records is around 35 and goes up to a 90 year-old—who found her records, triumphantly. Whatever age you are when you eventually get your records, if you are fortunate enough to do so, the experience can be difficult.

During meetings with officials, it emerged that both the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Nash—and the Minister for Children and Families agreed that the current wording on access to records in the care planning statutory guidance could be strengthened. Colleagues from the access to records campaign and I have worked with officials on that particular subject. It is also my understanding that Ministers have agreed to work with us on a programme to ensure that front-line managers and staff are aware of the new guidance. Again, that was raised earlier this afternoon in relation to how statutory guidance is used and the extent to which people take it seriously. We need to ensure that they do—once we have, as I hope, developed some new guidance in this area.

That activity will include supporting a round table for local authorities and voluntary sector organisations, and sending messages via the department’s various communication routes to relevant bodies which can raise that issue with their local authorities and make sure it is firmly on the agenda. We also understand that officials have spoken to the National Care Advisory Service, which runs the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum for managers. It said that it would be happy to run a session where the managers talk about how to improve their local practice, based on the proposed revised guidance and best practice. Could the Minister confirm my understanding of that? Also, would he be prepared to ensure that the voice of older adult care leavers is heard during all consultation processes and that an assessment of the effectiveness of strengthened statutory guidelines is carried out?

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, having listened to the comments on the other amendments in this group, I am very interested in what the Minister will say in reply. I certainly have considerable sympathy with what has been said. However, I added my name to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Listowel and it is on that amendment that I wish to press a little further.

The Government’s consultation on permanence goes some way to ensuring that voluntarily accommodated children receive the support they need, but, as was made clear from the reference to the letter in the Telegraph, an awful lot of important bodies in this area, as well as academics, support the need for further action. As others have said, the Government’s attempts to improve the adoption system should undoubtedly be praised. However, adoption is not the outcome for the majority of looked-after children. Instead, most children placed in care return home to parents or carers. In 2012, 10,000 children went home after a stay in care compared with just 3,440 who were adopted.

However, many children go home without a proper assessment of their and their parents’ support needs prior to leaving care or after they have returned home. For example, in cases where children were returned to households with a high recurrence of drug and alcohol misuse, only 5% of parents were provided with treatment to help them address their substance abuse. The lack of these types of support services often results in children going back home to face a significant risk of experiencing further abuse. In fact, research by the NSPCC shows that around half the children who came into care because of abuse or neglect suffered further abuse when they returned home. Recent DfE statistics show that a third of children who return home subsequently go in and out of care twice or more. Suffering from or being at risk of further abuse, and moving in and out of care, only compounds these children’s already traumatic childhoods and can cause significant long-term harm.

The NSPCC believes that a child should only return home from care when there has been a comprehensive assessment of that child’s needs and effective support is provided for children and their parents, in particular to tackle the underlying problems—as well as drugs and alcohol, there might be domestic violence, mental health conditions or generally poor parenting. Research shows that such an entitlement is unlikely to place an additional burden on local authorities—it could save them money, given the high financial cost of failed returns home. In one case highlighted in the recent DfE data pack, the total social care costs were £22,068 due to the child having frequent episodes in care. That was as opposed to an estimated cost of £13,124 if support to tackle substance abuse had been provided to the child’s parents.

The Bill provides an important opportunity to address this issue and ensure that local areas are required to provide such an assessment and the subsequent necessary support. I very much hope that, along with these other amendments, the Minister will give welcome attention to what best can be done under these circumstances.