Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Hamwee

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, this is a small amendment but it concerns an important point. Clause 4 takes us to adoption support services and the proposal for personal budgets. It requires a local authority to prepare a personal budget if asked to do so by the recipient of adoption support. My amendment would simply say: if asked to do so “at any time”. That is because I wanted to put before the Committee the possibility that problems may arise at any time and may manifest themselves at any time—for instance, when a young person who has been adopted as a child reaches adolescence. There are Members of this Committee who are far better qualified than I am to describe this sort of circumstance. My drafting is not very good and I acknowledge that the clause as drafted does not limit the timeframe, but I wanted to raise the issue and to ask the Minister what reassurances he can give with regard to support being available for as long as it is needed.

While I am speaking, perhaps I could comment on Amendment 19, which either the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, or the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, is about to speak to, on the use of prescribed agencies. This amendment proposes regulations regarding agencies from which adoption support services can be purchased. I wondered whether that might be—while showing an understandable concern about quality, which I assume is what this is about—a bit too prescriptive. Personal budgets are about choice and personal responsibility and I was not very clear whether this actually fitted with the philosophy of personal budgets. I also wondered whether paragraph (i), which deals with the conditions that have to be complied with on direct payment, might not cover their concerns. Personal budgets are increasingly used in various areas of social care, but they are still developing as a way of working. It is also right to put on record that the Local Government Association is concerned that the clause is not commenced until findings from pilots are available. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, we have two amendments in this group, Amendments 19 and 270. Amendment 19 is about the principle of personal budgets. Endorsing the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, we welcome the overall approach of making personal budgets available to empower families and adopted children. The idea of personal budgets has been common and has been extending in care packages for children with disabilities for some time. When properly funded and organised, they have the capacity to give families greater flexibility and reduce the administrative burden on local authorities, so we see their advantages.

Our amendment was attempting not to be too prescriptive but to widen the scope of the use of the budgets. I am happy to go away and make sure that we have the correct wording in that respect. We were concerned to ensure that barriers would not be placed by local authorities on how the budgets could be used. While agreeing that this is a positive proposal, we are seeking clarification in new Section 4A(4) as to where the services can be bought from. Many voluntary adoption agencies offer adoption support services to their own adoptive families and presumably to local authority services. Sensibly, Clause 4 would allow these services to be bought by local authority adopters or by voluntary agencies. As it stands, new Section 4A(4)(e) refers to,

“the description of adoption support services to which personal budgets … may (and may not) relate”.

While this indicates that no restriction is intended, it would be clearer and more reassuring if specific reference were made to the use of non-public sector agencies. Again, just for clarification, that is what we are intending to do—to extend the provision. We believe that that would provide greater flexibility and choice for adopters, which is exactly the point that is being made. We will be very happy to look again at the wording at later stages.

Of course, while the use of personal budgets is welcomed in a broader sense, it does not in itself address the lack of adequate available support, which can of itself lead to adoption delays. For example, TACT has been in contact, telling us that it knows of adopters who have delayed seeking a final adoption order as they are unhappy with the support that they will receive afterwards. While the child remains in the care system, they have access to services that are not available after adoption. Therefore, this remains a separate challenge that needs to be addressed.

I echo the point that the noble Baroness made about the pilots that are taking place in other areas of social care. We believe that it is important to take the time to evaluate the impact of the pilots and to see how those lessons can best be applied to adoption services. Therefore, while we have tabled our amendment as a point of principle—we want to offer more choice—we think that time needs to be taken to learn from the pilots. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that a decision on commencing these clauses will not be taken until the findings from the pilots are available and are able to inform the implementation.

We have also tabled Amendment 270, but it very much mirrors the amendment from the Government on this matter, which takes on board the concerns of the Delegated Powers Committee. I think that both amendments attempt to address that issue. We are satisfied that the government amendment achieves what was asked for on that occasion, so we support that amendment.