Schools: Pupil Premium
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Nash
My Lords, advice is available from, for instance, the national college, which lists a database of schools with excellent practice. We direct schools to the teaching and learning toolkit run by the Education Endowment Foundation, which provides an accessible summary of research on key education interventions that have an impact in this area. Ofsted’s report last year on the impact of the pupil premium in schools that do this well was very informative. In addition, any school judged to be requiring improvement, where the leadership is also deemed to require improvement, is expected to carry out a pupil premium review. Schools must publish online details of what they do with the pupil premium and Ofsted will be looking very closely at its use and effect on pupils’ attainment.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, in the past, some schools have used the pupil premium not for individual pupils but to support general provision. What is being done to check that?
Lord Nash
As I said, my Lords, schools are required to publish online how they have spent the pupil premium and the effect it has had on attainment. If it had been used on general provision, they would have to justify how that had impacted all pupils. Ofsted inspections are increasingly focused on the achievement of disadvantaged pupils. It is now very unlikely that a school which is not showing good progression for disadvantaged pupils would make an outstanding rating.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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“Local authority’s duty to investigate: work with families
In section 47 of the Children Act 1989 after subsection (8) insert—“(8A) Where, as a result of complying with this section, a local authority conclude that a child may need to become looked after in order to safeguard and promote their welfare, the local authority must, unless emergency action is required, seek to identify and consider the willingness and suitability of any relative, friend of other person connected with the child, to care for them as an alternative to them becoming looked after by unrelated carers.””
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly on Amendments 58 and 59 and leave Amendment 63 to my noble friend Lady Drake. I thank the Minister and his colleagues and team for all their efforts, letters and meetings on the issue of family and friends carers.
We discussed the benefits of children being raised with family or friends at some length in Committee. All I would say here is that there is clear evidence that children who cannot live with their parents and who live with family or friends do significantly better both socially and academically than those who live in other forms of care.
Local authorities are still not, as far as I know, conforming to the rules that they should. There is little support from local authorities. Sometimes there is misinformation. This issue will not go away. I hope that the Minister will—I know that he will—take on board that family and friends carers deserve and need help and that we should listen to their concerns. I beg to move.
Baroness Drake (Lab)
My Lords, I am conscious of the late hour, but I rise to speak to Amendment 63, which addresses the need of kinship carers and their children by seeking to prevent a situation where the carer loses their job. We are addressing a care community of an estimated 300,000 children—not a minor group. Family members step in to avoid them being taken into care. Kinship care, as we know, is by far the most common way of providing permanence and stability for children who can no longer live with their parents.
We have rehearsed these arguments many times. Yet, we know, in spite of the key role that kinship carers play, that they get too little help. As a society we depend on kinship carers to protect so many vulnerable children, but we reciprocate by giving them limited support. Yet the children being raised with kinship carers can have experienced similar adversities to those in the care system; they have been through trauma or tragedy, they have multiple needs and they need time to settle with their carers, who themselves are required to attend a plethora of meetings related to the children’s needs.
However, as we know, those carers have no statutory right to any form of adjustment leave to settle the children. With no give in the employment system, many kinship carers are forced to give up work in order to do what is right for the children. The aim of this amendment is to bring kinship carers into employment protection through a statutory entitlement to a period of unpaid adjustment leave when taking on the care of the child. Not only in this Bill but in other recent Bills we have extended or are extending the rights to statutory leave of other carers and approved adopters, but consistently we give little or no statutory support to kinship carers and the key role that they play.
We see an incongruity in the Government’s position. In the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill, when again the arguments about the key role of kinship carers were rehearsed, the Government, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Freud, accepted that friends and kinship carers undertook a valuable role in protecting vulnerable children, which often requires them to give up employment, and agreed that kinship carers in receipt of benefits should be exempt from work conditionality for 12 months. However, when it comes to employment protection and continued labour market participation by kinship carers, we see the incongruity. It would not always be necessary for a kinship carer to lose their job if they had a period of adjustment leave, and many would remain in the labour market if they had such leave, which may well improve the life outcomes for them and their children. So we face a situation where the Government recognise the challenges facing kinship carers in the welfare system but are reluctant to do so in the employment system. In effect, the DWP understood the issue and acted, but BIS remains reluctant.
I acknowledge that in Committee on 22 November the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, recognised the extremely valuable contribution made by family and friends carers in caring for children who cannot live with their parents, and I acknowledge that the Government have advised that the department will conduct research into the labour market attachment of kinship carers. The helpful letter of 23 January from the noble Viscount again acknowledges the important role played by these carers, and confirms that he is,
“keen to ensure that their needs are considered as soon as possible”.
However, the problems that I have referred to—albeit briefly, because of time—exist now, and I fear that following the passage of the Bill they may fall into the long grass. I am anxious that “as soon as possible” should not be a long timeline. The noble Viscount also indicated in his letter that the information required for the broader review of the shared parental leave and pay provisions to which he had committed is unlikely to be available until 2018, but that he wishes to work to a much earlier timeline for considering the needs of family and friends carers for adjustment leave.
I have three questions for the Minister. Am I correct in my understanding of the letter of 23 January that the Government wish to work to a much speedier timeline? Could the Minister give an indication of how soon he thinks the issue of labour market attachment and adjustment leave for kinship carers can be addressed? Notwithstanding the urgent need for adjustment leave provision for kinship carers, could he also agree to include family and friends carers in the broader review of parental leave and pay provisions that the Government have committed to? This would allow for a more holistic and comprehensive review of childcare leave provisions. To exclude family and friends carers from that wider review would leave a key and potentially growing area of caring for children—kinship care—untouched and unreviewed. I look forward to a positive reply from the Minister to those three questions.
I shall end by quoting the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, who put it so well in Committee when she said that,
“it is, frankly, almost embarrassing to think about the disadvantage that kinship carers suffer when they take on this responsibility and often—most likely, I would say—produce much better results for those children”.—[Official Report, 20/11/13; col. GC 450.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, I intend to keep my remarks as brief as possible while aiming to respond effectively to the substance of the amendments.
Noble Lords will remember our discussions on this very important area of support for family and friends carers during Grand Committee. I welcome this debate and reaffirm our commitment to supporting kinship and friendship care. I appreciate the broad support for these measures from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and Members opposite. I commend the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Drake, on their tireless work in this area.
Where family and friends carer policies are applied effectively, the aims expressed in Amendments 58 and 59 will already be met. For this reason, the Government have in place a programme of work to improve the practice of professionals in this area. It is our belief that the key issue in this area is improving quality of practice on the ground rather than changing the legislation which already exists for this group of carers.
First, on Amendment 58, it is already a requirement of the Children Act 1989 that local authorities should support the upbringing of children by their families wherever possible if the child cannot return to live with the birth parents and if it is the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote their welfare. This legislative position is re-enforced by Volume 1 of the Children Act 1989 statutory guidance, which outlines that the local authority should have,
“considered family members and friends as potential carers at each stage of its decision making”.
That guidance is currently being revised to reflect the legislative changes in this Bill and to align it with the new Public Law Outline. The revised version will include strengthened content on good pre-proceedings practice and will re-emphasise the importance of early work with families. It will also provide information on the key elements of good pre-proceedings practice and the use of family group conferences.
I know that officials in the Department for Education have been in regular contact with interested parties, including the Family Rights Group, during the drafting of this guidance and have listened carefully to their concerns. A working group made up of expert practitioners, including directors of children’s services and social workers, has also been formed to act as a critical friend to the department and comment on early drafts. The guidance will be published for public consultation in mid-February and we would welcome any further views from noble Lords as part of that process.
The Government remain committed to the use of interventions at the pre-proceedings stage, which is why we are now funding the rollout of an accreditation scheme of family group conferences and the further use of this service at the pre-proceedings stage. Practice in this area will be monitored and inspected by Ofsted under the new single inspection framework for children’s services, which is designed to assess local authority practice and decision-making at all stages of a child’s journey.
On Amendment 59, we have discussed at length the valuable contribution of family and friends carers and it was with that in mind that in March 2011 we issued statutory guidance for local authorities on families and friends who are carers. That guidance makes it clear that wider family members should receive appropriate support to bring up a child in their care, regardless of whether those children are looked after by a local authority or not:
“The range and level of family support services which may be provided under section 17 is wide … As well as practical support, family and friends carers may need advice, guidance or counselling about how to manage issues such as those arising from contact or from caring for children with emotional or behavioural difficulties due to their earlier experiences. Such services may be provided by local authorities to support both formal and informal family and friends care arrangements”.
Therefore, non-looked-after children can already be included in such care arrangements under Section 17 of the 1989 Act. The 1989 Act does not impose a limit on the amount of support which may be provided under that section.
As I mentioned earlier, we are aware that the quality and quantity of local authority policies is not always at the level it should be. That is why we currently have a programme of work to reduce the variation in practice within and across local authorities. The Department for Education will continue to look at the barriers to implementing the policies and will be looking to take forward work that clarifies the role of the local authority and the importance of good support systems for this group of carers.
We understand that many family and friends carers could do with extra help with the parenting of these children, particularly when dealing with children with behavioural problems. That is why the Department for Education continues to fund initiatives like the Keep programme, which is a group programme which provides family and friends carers and mainstream foster carers with specialist training and support.
While we agree that support and services are sometimes not of the quality that they should be for family and friends carers, we feel that improvements need to be made not by changing current legislation but, as I said earlier, by improving practice on the ground. We will improve the lives of these dedicated and inspirational carers by empowering them to have the information they need to ask for services when they need them and by ensuring that each local authority is aware of their responsibility and has the tools to deliver it. That is exactly what our current programme of work aims to accomplish.
Finally, on Amendment 63, I fully understand the sentiment behind what is proposed, but it is essential that we take the time fully to understand how becoming a kinship or friendship carer affects an individual’s labour market attachment before proposing policy interventions. For this reason, I announced in Grand Committee that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will lead a research project into those issues. Officials met recently with the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Drake, and representatives from a number of interested organisations such as Grandparents Plus and the Family Rights Group to discuss these issues, and I know that the officials found that very useful.
We will hold a further research scoping event for relevant stakeholders in the coming weeks to gain a fuller understanding of the issues and research challenges and to harness the extensive knowledge and expertise of these organisations. I hope that we will continue to build on these productive discussions and that noble Lords will encourage interested parties to attend the scoping event. It is essential that we properly understand the labour market issues faced by these individuals before deciding whether further policy interventions aimed at strengthening labour market attachment may be the most effective intervention. The research that I have outlined will help government to gain a better understanding of the evidence base, which is the important first step that is needed.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, raised at least three questions, and I will write to her to answer them. However, on the point about timing, this is a very urgent matter, but it will depend on the scoping nature of that research. I will write to her on that point, but I want to clarify that we on this side regard this as an urgent matter and will endeavour to move as fast as we possibly can.
In the mean time, I hope that I have given noble Lords sufficient reassurance that the Government are committed to supporting family and friends carers. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his complete response. I appreciate that all the questions cannot be answered this evening. My noble friend and I look forward to further correspondence and to receiving further information about the review.
“Independence of the Children’s Commissioner
In Schedule 1 to the Children Act 2004, in paragraph 1 (status) after sub-paragraph (2) insert—“(3) The Secretary of State shall not undermine the Children’s Commissioner’s independence and shall ensure that the Children’s Commissioner is under as few constraints as reasonably possible in determining—
(a) the Commissioner’s activities,(b) the Commissioner’s timetables, and(c) the Commissioner’s priorities.””
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, in moving Amendment 59A, I also wish to support Amendments 59B and 59F, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will mainly speak. I want to make three very quick points about the Children’s Commissioner. One is about human rights, one is about the commissioner’s powers and one is about his appointment.
I thank the Minister and his team for investigating the concerns expressed in Committee and for his helpful and clear letter. We are particularly grateful that the Government have now published the framework agreement between the Department for Education and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.
The introduction of that framework contains a statement on the independence of the Children’s Commissioner and the overarching principles. However, neither the framework nor the Minister’s letter contain the UN affirmation that national human rights institutions such as the Office of the Children’s Commissioner should clearly state that members and staff of such bodies,
“will not receive instructions from government ministers or other public officials, directly or indirectly”.
I do not see the issue of prohibition directly spelled out in the letter or the framework.
Secondly, I realise that the commissioner still does not have the power under the Human Rights Act to deliver on individual cases. I understand the reason for that: it would be an impossible task. However, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, with which I agree, seeks to draw attention to particular groups with specific problems—for example, children in custody, unaccompanied migrants and trafficked children. In other words, it is about children who are living without their parents—a particularly vulnerable group. I shall leave the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to elaborate on that but I have my own concerns.
My third concern relates to the appointment of the Children’s Commissioner. I hope that the appointment will be independent of political bias. It requires someone who has strong experience of working with children and children’s services in the voluntary sector and who understands the wide scope involved in dealing with all kinds of children, particularly vulnerable children, at a national and local level. The person who is appointed, whoever he or she might be, must command the respect of the children’s sector. I know that Parliament, children’s charities and children’s services will follow this appointment keenly to ensure that they are fulfilling all the demands that they have to fulfil. I beg to move.
Lord Ramsbotham
I am grateful to the Minister for his letters and the draft framework agreement in which I note that the Children’s Commissioner is classified as a non-departmental public body and that it is for the commissioner to determine what activities to undertake in carrying out his or her primary function. I am therefore glad to see that the provisions that currently allow the Secretary of State to direct the commissioner’s work are to be repealed but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, I do not feel completely confident about the appointment process. That is why I have added my name to her Amendment 59A, to which she has spoken so comprehensively.
Turning to my Amendments 59B and 59F, the aim of Amendment 59B is twofold. First, it is to ensure that the expectation of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that all children’s commissioners shall have the power to bring and intervene in court cases to ensure that children’s rights are respected is made explicit in the Bill. Legal cases can be complex, lengthy, expensive, intimidating and distressing for children, who are often unable or unwilling to take action themselves. In addition, courts are likely to be even less accessible to children following cuts to legal aid and proposals for further reform of legal aid and judicial review.
The second purpose is to put the commissioner on an equal footing with the Equality and Human Rights Commission in being able to bring cases under the main legal protection for children in this country, the Human Rights Act. It should not be presumed that the commissioner will automatically take up every case but it will be up to him or her to decide which ones to pursue.
Amendment 59F would expand on the list of those groups of children currently under the remit of the Office for the Children’s Rights Director to whom the Children’s Commissioner must provide advice and assistance. At present, Clause 86 prohibits the commissioner from providing advice and assistance to children living away from home or receiving social care who are not within the group defined in Clause 93. As I have seen all too often, there is considerable inconsistency in how children in custody or migrant children are looked after by those responsible for them. I have not had the same practical experience of trafficked children but, in view of their vulnerability and possible legal needs, it would be invidious to leave them out of this proposed addition.
Finally, more generally, as the Bill has progressed—and particularly in relation to the best endeavours rather than duties that the Government expect to be sufficient demand on local authorities and others to ensure delivery of EHC plans and other SEN provision—I see the need for an informed, independent monitor to ensure that those best endeavours are resulting in what the Government expect. As I have said previously, the code of practice is full of “musts” without being specific about how a “must” is to be implemented or overseen. I suggest that the role of overseer of best endeavours and musts is a natural addition to the responsibility of the Children’s Commissioner, being entirely in line with new Sections 2(1) and 2(3)(a) of the Children Act set out in Clause 86. New Section 2(1) states:
“The Children’s Commissioner’s primary function is promoting and protecting the rights of children in England”.
New Section 2(3)(a) states:
“In the discharge of the primary function the Children’s Commissioner may, in particular … advise persons excising functions or engaged in activities affecting children on how to act compatibly with the rights of children”.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very thorough response. I am particularly pleased to hear that he says that there will be “particular regard” to the UNCRC and that there will be consultation with children enshrined in the law.
On the query about “affirmation on independence” and the lack of “prohibition”, maybe we should look at the wording. Maybe it is just a matter of words, but it is not how I read it in the first place. I accept that the Children’s Commissioner cannot realistically cope with individual cases. That would be far too big a burden and would, as the Minister said, “hamper” the effectiveness of the office. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will correct me if I am wrong, but he and I are saying that we see the Children’s Commissioner as a guardian and monitor of children’s rights as well as a champion. We shall see about the issue of the appointment. I hope that the Minister will take note of our concerns on this.
I forgot to ask the Minister about the timetable for this appointment; I do not know if he can reply now or write to me and other noble Lords.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, support the amendments and thank my noble friend Lady Jones for placing them before the House. I want to make reference to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who, rather under a cloak of humility, did not mention a film which she recently made about the internet. It starts with a very disturbing episode about young men—15 year-old boys—watching pornography and the extent to which it was almost an addiction for them and how, increasingly, they wanted to see more explicit imagery. They then recognised in conversation that it had affected the way that they felt about girls and what they expected of girls sexually, and how it had contaminated relationships in the school. The film is something which everybody in this House should take a look at because we can often become rather dislocated from the realities of the lives of adolescents in our society because of our own age. This is really a debate about the quality of life and intimate relationships.
I am on the advisory committee to the campaign One Billion Rising. It is a campaign about sexual violence towards women and girls around the world. The horror of it is that if you do the kind of work that I do, in the courts or in international human rights, you see clearly the way in which women and girls are subjected to violence daily. I regret to say that this is not being diminished. In fact, the ways in which young men come to see women are being worsened and darkened by much of the information and imagery that they see on the internet.
I remind your Lordships about the Ofsted report from back in 2013, which has already been referred to. It pointed out to us that sex and relationship education required improvement in more than a third of our schools. In primary schools, that was because far too much emphasis was being placed on being nice to your friends— we want that—but very little was being said about the fact that more and more girls reach menstruation in primary schools. Puberty is coming earlier for our children and they were not being prepared for many of those physical and emotional changes in those later years of primary school. When they reached secondary school, they were then ill prepared for what they often faced in the company of boys—boys who were watching the kind of pornography that I have spoken about.
In secondary schools, the complaint made by Ofsted was that the mechanics of reproduction were being presented in a rather biological way to young people and that there was too little talk about relationships, sexuality, the influence of pornography or a real and proper understanding of healthy sexual relationships. As people who are coming to the further end of our lives, we all know that fulfilling emotional relationships and sexual relationships come out of mutual respect. However, those discussions are not taking place in our schools and boys are not treating girls with respect.
Last year, I was involved in some sessions at a conference at the Southbank Centre around International Women’s Day. There were young girls from schools there, who spoke about the pressure that there was on girls from boys to perform sexually and the extent to which the first introduction of girls to sex is in providing oral sex to boys. The girls might be only 12 or 13, and the boys only 14 and 15. This is the world in which we are living and I do not want us to cloak it in discussions about how this should be left to parents or particular religious groupings, because these boys and girls do not come from any particular grouping in our society. This is happening across all social divides, in all classes and in all religious groupings. Those pressures have to be a subject of concern to us. They lead to unhealthy relationships and, ultimately, often to violent and degrading relationships for women.
That is why this is on our agenda today and why I say to the women sitting, for example, on the Liberal Democrat Benches that this should not be a game to be talked about in political terms—about what party did what and when. This is a discussion about something serious happening in our society, where we really are facing a crisis. Women are facing a crisis. We want our girls to be treated with respect and we want boys to hear that. I, like others, had conversations with my children when they were in adolescence. I could not be present when my boys were at school where they would inevitably be shown imagery, as all boys were, and as many of your Lordships in this House who are men probably were when you were young. However, the nature of the imagery would come as a surprise to many of your Lordships. I had to warn my boys that they would have to make those choices themselves about what they looked at, but that the warning they had to take was that it would often contaminate and poison the kind of relationships that they might want to have with people who they loved in the fullness of time.
It is the putrefying fact of pornography and its availability now that we should be concerning ourselves with. There has to be proper discussion of this in our schools and it should be compulsory. It should not be covered with an excess of sensitivities to particular groupings because no grouping will be left out of this. I am calling on this House to support these amendments because of what it would mean to the sort of degradation which is taking place, particularly in attitudes to women. We have a responsibility in this House to do something about it and that is why I urge your Lordships to vote for the amendment.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, that was indeed a powerful speech to follow and I thank my noble friend for making it. I have a later amendment on personal, social and health education generally so I shall not say much now, but I want to pick up on something which the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said about leaving it to the teachers. If SRE or PSHE, or whatever you call it, is a subject then surely it is like any other subject. It is age-appropriate, structured and has good resources. I remember a parent once saying to me, “I find it difficult enough to talk to my Johnny about his maths homework, let alone about sexual relationships”. That is the position of many parents. Schools are put in the position of having to do that work as appropriately as they can.
I support the amendment put forward so powerfully by my noble friend Lady Jones and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. They talked mainly about relationships, as did my noble friend Lady Kennedy and other noble Lords. Relationships are the most powerful component of personal, social and health education. There is no reason why sexual relationship education should not have a separate amendment to make it compulsory. I shall also speak powerfully about the need for PSHE but I do not see a contradiction in having two amendments. SRE is absolutely essential in our schools. We are trying to protect and support children as they deserve.
Lord Northbourne (CB)
My Lords, I can identify with many of the anxieties that have been expressed today. I want to make just one point about the heading in the amendment: “Sex and relationship education”. Not all relationships are about sex and, in the first place, the extent to which sex and relationship education should address non-sexual relationships is not entirely clear. However, it is certainly an important issue. Whether you turn on to see “Call the Midwife” or David Attenborough and his penguins, or whatever you look at, the ongoing and nurturing relationships between, I hope, both parents and the child are crucially important and a great happiness. As I listen to your Lordships, it sounds as if we are all trying to tell them what not to do. There is a case for trying to take a more positive approach, if that is possible.
“School policies to support well-being of children and young people
After section 78 of the Education Act 2002 insert—“78A Duty of schools to promote the academic, spiritual, cultural, mental and physical development of children
(1) All schools shall make explicit to parents, school governors and pupils how they deliver—
(a) school policies which contribute to the health and well being of pupils;(b) pastoral care focused on the safety and well being of pupils and which, where appropriate, works in conjunction with support systems from agencies outside the school;(c) a school ethos which fosters respect for self and others;(d) a school curriculum from which pupils gain the information and skills to support their academic, spiritual, emotional, moral, physical and cultural well being and which prepares them for adult life; and(e) the school’s commitment to democratic principles and good citizenship.(2) The above shall be delivered as appropriate to the age, readiness and needs of pupils in the school.
(3) School governors shall be responsible, in their annual report, for specifying how the above is implemented.””
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, in introducing this amendment, I first thank the Minister and his officials for the way in which they have wrestled with the issue of PSHE in schools and what further needs to be done to ensure that all children and young people benefit from school policies which support their emotional, physical, spiritual and academic development. I mean all pupils in all schools. The Minister has shown strong leadership in this and has clearly expressed his belief that good schools inevitably have at their core an effective programme of personal, social and health education, with an emphasis on relationships and development. I, like many of your Lordships, wish that this were compulsory—statutory—but we are where we are and I think that we have made progress.
In meetings with colleagues, it has been agreed that PSHE is not limited to the taught, formal curriculum, although the formal curriculum contributes to PSHE. Lessons about drugs, alcohol, sexual relationships, diet, being safe, first aid and so on are important. Their importance has been demonstrated recently in the concern of the Chief Medical Officer about children’s health, in evidence of the influence of the internet on children, as we have heard already, and in the danger of new drugs, including legal highs. Children need skills to resist unsavoury pressure and that is part of PSHE. I remember an interview with the mother of a young woman, a medical student, who died after being given a dose of a dangerous substance by a friend. The mother said, “If only they had had education about this”.
I do not think that we hear enough about the influence of education in tackling such issues. Schools cannot do it all, but they can contribute. I have seen effective lessons in schools delivered by experts on a particular topic with the teacher present; lessons on, for example, sexual health from the school nurse, or drugs from a drugs charity or first aid from St John Ambulance. Many charities and services now have educational arms with people trained to talk to young people. Teachers are not on their own. The PSHE Association and other charities have developed schemes of work that schools can adapt to their own needs.
Moving on to the wider aspects of the amendment, it calls for instruction in schools to be transparent, obvious and spelt out to staff, pupils, school governors and parents. As I and others asked in Committee, if a school policy on, for example, children with long-term health needs or on bullying, is not clear and apparent, how can people in the school know what to do? If the intended ethos of the school and the principles of citizenship are not expressed, then they may be left to chance. If what children are to be taught about drugs, sex and relationships is not clear, how do parents, in particular, know what their child is learning? How do teachers know what is being done in the school, and at what stage?
There are two types of children who will benefit from coherent policies and programmes in PSHE. I am simplifying here, but in the first category there are children who, frankly, for one reason or another, are disadvantaged. They may have suffered many kinds of abuse, witnessed domestic violence, never been talked to, never had books or been read to. In short, they have been neglected. These children come into school resentful of authority, unable to socialise, sometimes violent towards teachers and other children and unable to learn. They will also prevent others from learning. Being unable to learn, they will fall further and further behind, becoming more and more disruptive and more disaffected, unless something is put in place in their school to intervene in this downward spiral. We all know that this is what happens. Yet I have seen, as have other noble Lords, where the head teacher says something like, “This school used to be a nightmare. Staff were abused, children were out of control and not learning anything. That was four years ago. Now look at my school. What did we do? We put in a systematic programme of personal social development, with clear policies and actions on behaviour, how we treat others, how we increase self-respect, how we have rights and responsibilities”. Guess what? The academic results in those schools improve dramatically. Any Government wanting to improve inequality in education must listen to those schools and learn from them. There is plenty of evidence.
The other children for whom PSHE is particularly important are those like the daughter of the mother whom I spoke of earlier: children who are supported at home, are sociable and keen learners, but who say that they do not have enough information or skills to negotiate around the temptations of drugs, alcohol and the internet or to cope with relationships, including sexual ones. Young people are asking for these skills. Parents are asking schools to teach them.
All this is why I am delighted to see some action from the Minister. I wish that there were more pronouncements from Government about the benefits of PSHE. I wish that they would accept it as a subject that should be taught. However, we are where we are and there has been progress. An expert group has been set up to look at the delivery of PSHE—I hope that it will include young people. There will be a set of case studies to illustrate good practice. I will say no more, as no doubt the Minister will expand on the good work that his department has done since we were in Committee. Therefore I do not intend to call a vote on this today. I have heard the debate. I have heard people say that SRE is part of PSHE. I shall think about this debate and consult colleagues and decide what I shall do at Third Reading.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very positive response and for all his hard work and that of his officials leading up to this debate. We have heard two very powerful debates with very little dissent on the importance of personal, social and health education, including sex and relationships. This is why we need to regroup and talk together about how we carry things forward. I take the Minister’s point that an awful lot has been done but I would like one more regrouping to consider it. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I must say to the noble Baroness that I have considered this matter very carefully and discussed it with a great many people. I therefore cannot undertake to bring it back at Third Reading. If she wishes to test the temperature of the House, she should do so today.
Ofsted: Annual Report 2012-13
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Nash
My noble friend is quite right. When the new chief inspector came into office, one thing that I thought he did very well was to abolish the appalling low-expectation term “satisfactory” and set much higher expectations for schools. It has clearly been proved through the academies programme and other schools that setting higher expectations for our children does work.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, the report implies that increased testing of children may improve attainment. Many teachers and educationalists believe and state that excessive testing takes time away from teaching. Do the Government agree?
Lord Nash
Assessment, as opposed to testing, is obviously crucial to ensure effective accountability and to work out whether pupils are making progress, which is an issue that I know Ofsted is very focused on. We have held a public consultation on proposals for key stage 1 assessment, whose results have not been published. As far as key stage 3 tests are concerned, we have no plans to reintroduce key stage 3 tests but we expect all schools to be able to demonstrate to Ofsted, through whatever assessment mechanism they use, that their pupils are making progress.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this group of amendments so comprehensively. Amendment 42 is a probing amendment and the issues in it have been discussed before. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, has asked me to give her apologies for being absent. She emailed me about two hours ago to say that she was on the point of going to the operating theatre to have her appendix out. How she e-mailed at that time, I do not know, but I was asked to pass on the message and I have done so.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for such a clear and extensive explanation of this amendment. As she will know, it is a very important word when it comes to the home education community and I think that her explanation has provided all the comfort that they need as to what their situation will be in the future.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(11 years ago)
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“Personal and social education
After section 78 of the Education Act 2002 insert—“78A Duty of schools to promote the academic, spiritual, cultural, mental and physical development of children
(1) All schools shall make explicit to parents, school governors and pupils how they deliver—
(a) school policies which contribute to the health and well being of pupils;(b) pastoral care focused on the safety and well being of pupils and which, where appropriate, works in conjunction with support systems from agencies outside the school;(c) a school ethos which fosters respect for self and others;(d) a school curriculum from which pupils gain the information and skills to support their academic, emotional, moral, physical and cultural well being and which prepares them for adult life; and(e) the school’s commitment to democratic principles and good citizenship.(2) The above shall be delivered as appropriate to the age, readiness and needs of pupils in the school.””
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I ask Members of the Committee to allow me to remain seated while I move my amendment because I am still recovering from a close encounter between my head and a paving stone in New York, and I would rather not stand.
Amendment 231 has two purposes. It seeks to guarantee for all children and young people an education, in whatever establishment the education takes place, that will equip them with the skills and knowledge to succeed both now and in the future. It also seeks a guarantee that their well-being and protection be safeguarded. Further, I put forward the view that personal, social and health education, PSHE, is only partly a discrete subject in the curriculum. These issues form part of the whole school life; they are not just topics. Ofsted stated recently that PSHE is patchy in schools and not always of high quality. I want to try to describe how school policies, pastoral care, the school ethos, curriculum and democratic principles all contribute to enhancing opportunities for children and young people.
I believe that the Minister will agree with me on this, but I suspect that he may read out all the duties on schools and academies, and perhaps even on free schools, which are currently set out in legislation and guidance. I hope that he does not do that because we have gone through all this before. Yes, there is guidance and, yes, there is legislation, much of it couched in indirect language that is vague and aspirational. I suggest that that is not good enough. I hear a good deal from Ministers and the media about the rights and freedoms of schools, about league tables, and about what the curriculum should contain. However, I hear very little about the importance of fostering personal development and self-confidence in children, and how that often underpins the ability to learn. This is about the rights of the child.
My amendment does not prescribe what schools should teach or what might be their policies and practices. It simply requires them to state what they provide in relation to their policies, pastoral care, ethos, curriculum and democratic principles. In other words, I seek to make explicit for pupils, parents, governors and those otherwise connected to a school what that school delivers. There are no cost implications to this.
I was most interested in the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about two weeks ago, when he said that custodial institutions for young people should follow the practice in schools. I believe that the principles I have set down here would be very pertinent to young people in custody. I also maintain that in a safe and well ordered school, based on respect for self and others, learning and academic results will be improved. I have seen this happen often in schools that were at risk, which were turned around by placing an emphasis on respect, order and clarity of purpose.
I should like to speak first about school policies on bullying, behaviour, young carers and pupils’ health needs. It is reassuring that the Department for Education has recently announced that schools must have in place a policy on the long-term health needs of their pupils, but children—perhaps it is only a small minority of pupils—also suffer from the effects of bullying and bad behaviour. Pupils being bullied and those who do the bullying both need appropriate help. Expected standards of behaviour need to be clear to pupils, teachers, parents and governors. If no one knows what the school policy is on this, how do they know what to do?
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his responses and will come on to those later. Meanwhile, I sincerely thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this fascinating, very knowledgeable and passionate debate about the well-being and education of children and young people. Two key things have perhaps come out for me today. One is, as several noble Lords have mentioned, how the world has changed and how we need to address that change. We all have to tackle this, not only by helping children to have self-respect and respect for others but by tackling the dangers of the internet and other technology.
Secondly, the issue of child development has been central to many of our points. It is very important to understand child development. As my noble friend Lady Jones has just said, of course you do not teach five year-olds about the intricacies of sex. However, they can learn about friendships, respect and parenting: of course they can. Not a single person in this Room has even mentioned, as the Minister did, teaching children of five about sex. We have all learned our lesson about age appropriateness.
I tabled Amendment 231 because it encompasses—as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said—what should be good practice in schools: policies, pastoral care, school ethos, curriculum and democratic principles. I am not being prescriptive: all I am asking is that schools should make their approaches on these explicit to parents, staff, governors and, very importantly, to pupils. What does a school expect of its staff and its pupils? The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, talked interestingly about the protective function of education and the use of experts. I have never said that teachers should be able to do everything. They cannot, of course, but teachers and schools can—and most do—create a climate for good relationships and learning. My noble friend Lord Northbourne quite rightly said that this is about all relationships, not just sexual relationships. One example of this is that if children learn respect for themselves and others—if they have opportunities to explore spiritual, moral and emotional issues and learn about the importance of security, well-being and safety—then they may well become better parents and know how to relate to and guide their own children. This is different from maths, English and so on in the formal curriculum.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, is not in her place; I take her point about trained teachers. However, my view has always been that teachers go into teaching because they want to relate positively to children. I am not asking for miracles: I see generally trained teachers who, if they do not know something about a particular issue like drugs or first aid, will call in an expert to help them. That is what trained teachers do: teaching is about relating positively and sympathetically to children. If teachers do not do that then I really do not know what they are doing. Amendment 231 calls for schools to make clear how they are promoting things: it is not about making lists. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed their thoughts.
I am somewhat baffled by much of the Minister’s response. The amendment is not about writing things down in lists and I do not understand why he thinks it is. I find it quite insulting that the issues I raised in this amendment should be considered as a long list of things to do. It is not that: it is about what schools should be about. I am not being prescriptive and the noble Lord’s good example of turning a school round was exactly what I am talking about: heads and teachers—and, perhaps, pupils and governors—sitting down together and working out what policies they need and how those policies will be carried out to make the school better. That is not about making a long list: it is about having policies. Nothing is achieved, in any organisation, without policies.
School policy—or any policy in industry or wherever—should be written down, because pupils, parents and governors can then understand what is expected of them and of the school.
Schools: Curriculum
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether free schools and faith schools will be required to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum which addresses the needs of all pupils.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question in the name of my noble friend Lady Massey at her request. She has had an accident and sends her apologies today.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, in this group. They follow the original theme of the noble Lord, Lord Low. The amendment is intended simply to ensure that children are consulted about issues that affect them—in other words, the importance of listening to the voice of the child. I cannot help feeling that the amendments should be unnecessary, given the Government's stated position on the rights of the child. The coalition Government stated in December 2010 that they would give due consideration to the Convention on the Rights of the Child when developing new legislation and policy, while the Government's policy for youth supports the importance of involving children and young people, including those under 16, in decision-making processes. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that disabled children should be provided with assistance to help them participate in decision-making.
I turn briefly to an interesting global strategy on children’s commissioners published recently by UNICEF. I should declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF. There are two pithy quotations. The first is:
“Children’s participation in decisions that affect them is beneficial to both children and society. It helps strengthen children’s self-esteem and builds their capacity to contribute”.
The second quotation is:
“Participation is also a critical channel for accountability of decision makers at the local and national level”.
How much does that apply to children with special needs?
Successive Governments have become much better at seeking to involve children and young people in decisions that affect them. I am concerned about clauses, mentioned a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that seem to exclude younger children from participating in decisions about special educational needs. We cannot make legislation involving children unless it is child-proofed. I shall not go through all the clauses where younger children are excluded from consultation—the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has already done that—but I want to make a few supplementary points. In a recent inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children, which I chair, children were very vocal about their wish to be consulted, whether in education, social care, medical care or the legal system.
Professionals involved in that inquiry who worked with children recognised the value of contributions from children and young people, including those with special educational needs. I have heard people say that children under 16, because of a lack of maturity or disability, cannot be capable of having a say in decisions. I cannot agree. As parents, grandparents or relatives of children, we have probably all experienced insights from children that have enabled us to make better decisions about their well-being. Children do not have to talk or write to contribute their views. I know of several initiatives that, in order to gain the views of children, have involved drawing, role-play or other non-verbal methods. Again, I think that the Government have not applied their commitment to listening to children in some clauses of the Bill. I hope that they will think again and remedy that.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I, too, support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and supported by my noble friend Lady Massey. I shall also speak to our Amendments 120 to 122. Amendments 120 and 122 are similar to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey: they insert the word “child” or “children” into Clause 32 but, as noble Lords have said, there are other clauses where children seem to be expressly excluded. Amendment 121 would extend the scope of the clause to ensure that information was provided to young people and their parents in a wide variety of ways, as listed in the amendment.
The Minister in the other place said that there was no need specifically to refer to children because the term “young people” includes children. The main issue here, which the Minister has to address in his or her reply, is that the Bill is completely inconsistent on this point. Clauses 32, 36 and 38 refer only to parents and young people. Clause 33 talks about children and young people in its title and throughout. The Minister may say, “Ah yes, but that’s not intentional and the code of practice makes it clear”. Unfortunately, the code of practice does not make it clear because the code is also inconsistent. It is a bit more consistent than the Bill because it talks more often about children and young people than the Bill, which chops and changes. Still, though, certain sections, which are not specifically related to people over the age of 16, talk about the engagement of young people, not children and young people.
So there is complete inconsistency throughout the wording of the Bill and the code of practice. If that is not intended, it should be corrected. If the Bill is enacted as it is, a local authority provider reading that legislation could reasonably assume that it was an intended distinction—a distinction that we have all said we would not support.
A number of people, including my noble friend Lady Massey and myself, have had a lot of experience in engaging quite young children and in producing child-friendly material that young children, including those with a learning disability, can engage with. You can get views and experiences from them that are very meaningful to service providers, and they should be captured. The Bill and the code of practice should be very clear that throughout its provisions it is children, young people and parents whose engagement we want to seek in the provisions, the review of the provisions, the experience of the provisions, the monitoring and so on.
Children and Families Bill
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The Earl of Listowel (CB)
Amendment 26 is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen. Our two amendments relate to support for children returning home from care. Perhaps the best way to illustrate quickly what this is about is to give a couple of illustrations. Here is a quotation from a female caller to ChildLine:
“I’ve been in and out of care from a very young age due to my mum hitting me, neglecting me and taking drugs. Social services would come and take me away and I would spend some time in care, then mum would promise to change and I would go back home for the whole situation to start again. I don’t understand why social services keep giving me back to mum if they are going to end up taking me away again”.
Recently, I met a group of young care leavers, who shared with me their experiences. A 15 year-old girl—a lovely, lively young girl—had been promised that she was returning to a well equipped home. She found that there was no cooker and no microwave, and that she was sharing a pull-out sofa-bed with four other members of the family. There was no support. She had been doing well educationally in care, but when she went home her results plummeted. Another young woman did not want to return home. Her social worker offered to take her to McDonald’s; lo and behold, she was taken back to the family home and told that she had to stay there. I am sure there is good practice, but there is clearly a lot of work to be done.
I turn to the detail of my two amendments, which are supported by the NSPCC, the Family Rights Group, the Who Cares? Trust, the College of Social Work and TACT, the largest independent fostering and adoption agency. Returning home to a parent or relative is the most common outcome for children who have been placed in care. However, approximately half the children who come into care because of abuse or neglect suffer further abuse when they return home. Social workers often feel unsupported and lack the time and resources to support the children whom they return. In over one-third of cases, children returned home without an assessment. Parents’ problems often remain unresolved. Practice is highly variable in different local authorities. The Bill should be amended to require local authorities to assess, prepare, support and monitor a child’s welfare when they return home, and to ensure that parents know what support they are entitled to, just as has been developed in changes to adoption. It is vital that we improve support for all looked-after children if we are to protect our most vulnerable children from harm, and thus extend the entitlement in Clause 4 to support for children who return home.
Further research has shown that two-thirds of children who returned home remained with a suspected abuser even after concerns had been identified. Over one-third of children return home from care without an assessment, and a further 8% return after only an initial assessment. Research highlights children returning to households with a high recurrence of drug and alcohol misuse: 42% with drug misuse and 51% with alcohol misuse. Recent statistics published by the Department for Education show that almost half of children who return home re-enter care. In total, two-thirds of children who returned home experienced one failed return and one-third had oscillated in and out of care twice or more. A report published by the Department for Education concluded that appropriate services and support in place for a child and parents from the beginning of the care episode, throughout care placement and after the return home could significantly reduce the cost to the local authority. It costs around £2,650 per placement in care but it only costs £193 per month to look after a child in need. It therefore makes good financial sense to ensure that children and families get the support they need.
In a new Department for Education consultation on permanence, there have been welcome proposals in this area but they apply only to voluntarily accommodated children and, although it is more likely for such children to return home, it is important that support is also provided for all children returning home from care. Most importantly, the Government’s current proposals do not ensure effective assessment or that children returning home—and their parents—receive the support needed to increase the likelihood of a successful return.
I mentioned a recent meeting with some young people. In summary, they all found that they had not been given enough information about why they were returning home and their views were disregarded. One of them said that she had been promised regular monitoring for months after her return home, gradually reducing over time. She received two brief monitoring visits. None of them had received any substantial support to integrate back into the home and rebuild relationships, nor had their parents’ problems improved enough for them to stay at home safely. They all agreed that there needed to be more support for children and their families when they returned home and for this to happen over a longer period of time.
This amendment aims to increase the chances of successful return home from care for all looked-after children by requiring local authorities to adequately assess, prepare, support and monitor the welfare of the children when they return home from care, in line with support that is proposed, in Clauses 4 and 5, for children who are adopted. I look forward to the Minister’s response and beg to move.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendments 26 and 29, in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I will briefly state the arguments for my Amendments 30 and 31, which refer to improved support for special guardianships.
I want to reflect on some of the things which came up in Committee last week about children wanting to know; children having experiences and having a voice. We know, from children’s own stories, that support for them is not always there when they return home from care. Returning home to a parent or parents is the most likely outcome for children who have been in care and this can be the best result, but NSPCC research shows that about half the children who go into care because of abuse and neglect suffer the same when they return.
I will illustrate this with something I heard at the weekend, at the opening of a centre in Brighton which supports young people whose parents are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Children may be placed in care because one or more parents are addicted. The parent or parents go into treatment and are rehabilitated: they get clean. The children return and family stress may mean that the parent turns again to drugs or alcohol. The parents need support and the child needs support. I know from my experience as chair of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse that some local authorities and drug or alcohol agencies provide excellent information and support for parents, but others do not. So often in services, we end up with a vicious circle of rehabilitation and relapse—be it drugs or prison, abuse or neglect—with children in the middle. A recent report from the Centre for Social Justice talked of children falling between the cracks, and so they do. We have in the Bill an opportunity to strengthen local authorities’ responsibilities towards children returning home from care and increase the chances of it being a successful return. If that return is not successful, not only does it cause more stress for children and families but it is expensive, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said. Improving things is not likely to cause extra expense to the LA; it is likely to save money.
One key is assessments of the needs of the family and the child. It is worth asking families and children what they need rather than making assumptions about it, assuming that everyone is the same or that they simply need information. As Amendment 26 suggests, information is important, but it is not everything. Information about support services should also be in place. More than one-third of children return home without an assessment taking place, and assessment is not necessarily ongoing. Assessment should not be a one-off. Needs can change. I know that successful treatment for an addiction means revisiting the initial assessment regularly. The Department for Education produced a useful data pack entitled Improving Permanence for Looked After Children in September this year. It has messages and questions for local authorities, such as: what are all the assessment and decision-making processes for return to home from care? What services are available for returning children to their family? How do services link across children adult and specialist services—for example, can access to parenting programmes and drug or alcohol programmes be part of a “return to home” plan? What action are you currently taking to improve return on practice?
All those questions are important, but perhaps the most important is the linking of services. So often, services are parcelled out into child, adult, mental health, drug and alcohol, but often there are significant overlaps which are not recognised or responded to. Following a child’s return home from care, neither they nor their parents have a right to any support, and children often end up, as we have heard, back in the same situation—as I said, a vicious circle. Children have said, “I was left to it. I have been in care because my dad assaulted me. Since I have been home, he has been threatening me, pushing me around. I have been cutting myself and I feel like I want to die”.
We all know that behaviour change is difficult. It is perhaps especially difficult for troubled families. The needs of such families—of all families and their children—must be addressed before a child returns home. Engaging with families has been identified as an opportunity to enable the return home to be successful. Personal budgets are important and Clause 4 suggests that they should be available to parents of an adopted child. It is vital that that is extended to children returning home. I hope that the Minister will respond sympathetically to the amendments.
I shall say a quick word about my Amendments 30 and 31, which refer to special guardianship support services and personal budgets. I shall not go into detail on the amendments; they are self-explanatory. Their aim is simply to ensure that improved support for adopters in the Bill in the form of personal budgets and better information about support is extended to special guardians who, like adopters, are providing a permanent home for a child as an alternative to them being in the care system.
I am aware that this issue will come up again but, meanwhile, I hope that the Minister will respond favourably.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, no doubt the Minister will enlighten us but what I am saying is that where local authorities have discretion around the quality of the social work practice that they will deliver to different groups of children, as they do, it means that some of those groups lose out. Demonstrably, by the statistics, it appears that children who are sent home from care are sometimes sent too early or without thorough assessment, do not necessarily get the ongoing support and are not monitored sufficiently. Those kinds of things happen with other cases—with child abuse cases, perhaps. However, it seems as if in many local authorities a decision is made that the child can go home but the focus of attention does not continue on to that child, which is more likely to result in breakdown.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
I shall comment briefly on what the noble Viscount said. One of the main issues is that the children and parents have no right in law to support—support is discretionary.
Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)
My Lords, I start by declaring an interest as someone who has had direct experience of the childcare system and of accessing social services care records.
This amendment is informed by the experience of care leavers and by professionals in the Access to Records campaign group, which comprises, among others, the Care Leavers’ Association, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, the Childcare History Network, the Post Care Forum and Barnardo’s and is also supported by the charity TACT.
Whether they have spent all or part of their childhood and/or adolescence in the care system, for too many the current system simply is not working in a consistent, helpful way. At the moment, care leavers apply under the Data Protection Act for access to personal information held in care records, but unfortunately the DPA is often misinterpreted by local authorities, with some organisations severely restricting the information made available. There are too many examples of care leavers receiving such incomplete and heavily redacted records that their case histories are rendered virtually meaningless. Furthermore, the service given by local authorities is erratic and inconsistent: some are enabling and supportive while others are bureaucratic and obstructive. Some seem so concerned about negligence claims and media headlines that their position is defensive from the very beginning.
The relationship between practice and legislation was brought up in discussion on the previous amendment, and it is key here, too. Our argument is that, although there are regulations and guidelines in place, they are not working sufficiently well. Before I go into the detail of the amendment, I want to say something about the rationale behind it.
Many of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, last week in relation to Amendment 25 resonated with me, because very similar issues concerning identity, belonging and knowledge of family history are relevant to this amendment. The question, “Who am I?”, is fundamental; it is a question necessary for us to recognise our sense of self and our status as a distinctive and unique human being. We understand that responses to that question are highly complex: we are the sum of our experiences and memories, and of what other people tell us and how they respond to us. Some experiences are indelible and remain with us through memory; some experiences, even though they are an essential part of our experience of the world, may none the less be forgotten, especially if they have produced trauma of one kind or another.
If you have been brought up in care, you come to think about what kind of person you are and where you have come from, asking, “Who am I?”. However, these questions may be unanswerable. Who is there to tell you at what age you accomplished something or about a specific difficulty you had, or the circumstances of your early life? How is it possible to accumulate the kind of knowledge about yourself that people brought up in conventionally caring situations take for granted? It may be your story and your journey but it seems to belong to the state in the form of records, whether they are hand-written, type-written or whatever.
Several thousand people ask to see their records and many of these requests come from people in their middle or later years. The lifelong needs of adult care leavers are at least as pressing as those of adults who have been adopted, although this is rarely recognised in respect of access to care records and the aftermath. The DPA enables care leavers to see personal information about them on their care files. The problem is that when asking a local authority to see these files, care leavers’ experiences range from a response which is at best enabling and supportive and at worst bureaucratic, restrictive and inconsistent with the corporate parenting role. There are some examples of good practice but we want the Government to ensure that local authorities work with the Information Commissioner’s Office to enable care leavers to have all the personal information they are entitled to, and to exercise their discretion regarding third-party information in a less restrictive way.
As I have suggested, despite the requirements already in place, we think that the standard and quality of case-record keeping is not consistent across the children’s services sector. Organisations need to be mindful of keeping older records safely and under secure conditions, whether they are paper, scanned or microfilmed. We have heard too many instances where organisations with poor archival records and retrieval systems respond to the care leaver’s request for personal information with a statement that the files or records cannot be found, without any sense of the profound impact that that can have on the post-care adult. Without support, the persistence necessary to obtain care files places a substantial psychological and emotional burden on the individual, who may already be very isolated. Even if they are not isolated, the impact of disturbing revelations can have repercussions on current relationships and families.
We also need to make sure that we can track where records have moved to: for example, a children’s home might have been closed or a voluntary organisation wound up or absorbed into another organisation. Not being able to find records on that basis is also frustrating and works against care leavers. Regulations could provide a framework for the coherent transfer of care records systems across childcare service providers.
Our evidence suggests that the response from the authorities is often not focused on the rights and needs of the individual care leaver. Again, this echoes other points that have been made in respect of children. Although we are clearly talking here about adults, they still have rights and needs as care leavers that are not being respected by the rather defensive attitudes often displayed by local authorities, which seem to be worried about potential criticism or fearful of litigation.
Similarly, when it comes to sensitive personal data, care leavers can find that many data controllers interpret existing provisions narrowly and that the information withheld significantly reduces clarity about the information they want to access. There are circumstances where organisations can withhold information, and there are plenty of guidelines on that. However, again we come to this point: they are not being implemented consistently or necessarily in the best interests of the adult care leaver who is seeking to find out more about their past, particularly when it comes to relatives. Even if somebody gets hold of their care records, there is then the issue of whether they understand how and why the data controller has made decisions about what information is provided and about what has been withheld, redacted or left out. In relation to that, there is also the need for adult care leavers to at least be offered the opportunity to have some kind of support in going through what is often a difficult situation to navigate.
We understand that some data controllers feel nervous about making disclosures of a sensitive nature that particularly affect other people’s personal backgrounds—for example, a mother or father or other relative—and we want to make sure that data controllers have adequate protection in such circumstances, hence the latter part of the amendment. To summarise, care leavers seek information about their past for all kinds of reasons. It may be that they are starting a new relationship or becoming a family, or perhaps they have been bereaved.
I should like to give a flavour of the experiences of some adult care leavers who have been in touch with, particularly, the Care Leavers’ Association. In one instance, a care leaver—let us call him Arthur—wanted to connect with his records because he was coming to a new phase in his life. He was told that he had come into care because his mother was admitted to hospital but he was not told why. It was considered that the reason for her admission was private and that he had no right to know. It turned out that his mother had suffered from a long-term, severe mental illness.
A second example is of a social worker who took a boxful of records, unsorted, and handed them over to someone on their doorstep and went away again. So there was no support or help through that difficult situation at all.
Another care leaver said:
“I am now at the stage in my search of having applied to Council X three times, Council Y once … Council Z and Council Q as well as making numerous Freedom of Information requests about the children’s homes and other institutions I was kept in as a child”.
Again, the implication of this is that if your own family and children ask you, “What was it like? Where are the photographs of you? What was your family like?”, and you do not have that information, having to persistently knock on the door can be very debilitating.
The Care Leavers’ Association says:
“Care Leavers above a certain age are … a largely invisible group whose rights and needs to access basic information about their family background and childhoods are continually being denied. This discrimination needs to be addressed to ensure that they can access crucial information that may profoundly affect the decisions they make in life. Care leavers’ fundamental human right to access their social care files should be recognised in legislation and fully supported so that they can make sense of their past and go forward into the future”.
I beg to move.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I strongly support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. This is a very important issue. I applaud her efforts in challenging the current problems for care leavers in accessing their records and I respect her poignant experiences and her descriptions of the loss of identity, the “Who am I?” and the journey.
The treatment of care leavers can be about blatant discrimination and defensive responses. I have been told by two people how much distress and frustration this has caused them. As the noble Baroness said—I want to underline some of these matters—there are many forms of such discrimination. Those that I have heard of relate to organisations which have poor information, or have a reluctance to seek out information and respond that the records cannot be found—that they have lost the records. In one case, I heard that records had been moved. As the noble Baroness said, children’s homes close and organisations merge. Where do these records go? How does the care leaver find them? What help is there for them to find them?
Some local authorities or voluntary organisations become defensive or evasive, despite the fact that a care leaver has the right to access personal information. The request for information may also involve another person who has to give permission, although it may be deemed possible to give the information without permission, but some organisations which control those data may interpret the rules very narrowly. I know of one person who is still trying to access information after a year of trying. Redaction of records may occur, as the noble Baroness said. In this case, surely local authorities and voluntary organisations should provide explanations and offer counselling and support to those who receive their care records.
There needs to be flexibility about who can provide the information. People change residence. It should be possible for another local authority or voluntary organisation near where the care leaver lives to provide information and support the care leaver. People who have been in care may be desperate to access information about their life—just as those who have been adopted may wish to access records. To remove part of someone’s life history is surely cruel and unnecessary. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 37 in my name. Amendment 35 is about the effectiveness of local authorities with respect to care leavers. At its core is the need for monitoring and evaluation of their effectiveness.
In a debate on a previous amendment, I spoke about the Department for Education’s data pack on improving the performance of local authorities with regard to looked-after children. This data pack contains checklists and recommendations. I will not repeat the advice given there, but simply say that monitoring and evaluating effectiveness is good not only for clients—in this case, care leavers—but for the local authority. The duties on care leavers are set out in the Children Act 1989 and are clear. We all know that local authorities have many duties, and perhaps not much money, but surely evaluating practice is an important one. There is also good practice to share. After all, if local authorities do not monitor and evaluate practice, how do they know what is going on and how it might be improved? I was intrigued by the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, which seemed to be about the difference between “should” and “must”. Guidance is presumably the “should” bit, but guidance is not always respected. Does that therefore give rise to the need for a “must”?
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate, and the Minister for his clarification. I am particularly pleased that the issue of monitoring and evaluation of practice is coming up quite consistently; it is terribly important. I also look forward to seeing how the Department for Education guidance, which I have quoted already, is played out in practice and implemented. I shall be interested to see how local authorities use that guidance to improve practice.
My noble friend Lady Morris emphasised how looked-after children miss out, and talked about champions of spending. I am pleased that the Minister could confirm that the virtual school head will be made statutory. Again, I look forward to hearing how exactly that role will now be defined. Will it include the pupil premium, which is a very interesting and important issue—perhaps, as my noble friend Lady Morris said, in conjunction with schools? In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I, too, have my name on the amendment and support it wholeheartedly. The noble Earl, in his introduction, used the word “normalising”. We are trying to normalise the relationship between the young people and their foster carers because, as my noble friend Lord Storey pointed out, most young people who grow up in their birth family do not leave home at 18. They stay on.
I was interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said about the pilots. It did not have an adverse effect on the recruitment of foster carers; indeed, it had a beneficial effect. It occurs to me that the Government might be a little concerned that if we make it a right for young people, if they and their foster carers wish it, to stay on until 21, it will take away foster parenting places for other children coming into the system. Frankly, I think that we should be putting more effort into turning the tap off and giving more support to families so that children can safely stay with their birth parents, but that is an argument for another day. That might be the case, but I have a suggestion that might fulfil some of the need without the problem of taking away a foster-caring place for some other child. I have promoted this idea to successive Children’s Ministers over the past few years, who all say, “That sounds like a good idea”, but nothing ever gets done.
Many children go off to university or college, or to work somewhere else when they are 18, but they maintain a close and supportive relationship with their birth families. Why not allow foster parents, if they so wish, and the young person wishes, to have a sort of little stipend or retainer to act as a supporter and adviser to the care leaver for the next few years when they have left the bedroom in the house? That bedroom would then be freed up. A lot of young people who get on very well with their foster parents go back and visit them and ask for advice anyway. But many of them, knowing that the parents may have taken on another foster child and will be busy, would be hesitant to go back to the foster parent and ask for help and advice when things go pear-shaped, such as their accommodation or education plans going wrong, or they have trouble with their employment. Whatever it is, they would have somebody officially who was being paid a little bit by the state to help them and stop new arrangements breaking down. It is when they break down that the state has a great deal more cost liability to try to put things right. There is an existing relationship of trust, understanding, knowledge and emotion. If the Government cannot accept the noble Earl’s amendment—I very much hope that they will—perhaps the Minister will consider my suggestion of a sort of halfway house. The parent could retain that relationship formally and, one hopes, the care leaver would have no hesitation in going back to that person for advice if things went wrong.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. I have heard the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talk about this halfway house before. It is not a bad idea, but I hope that we can go the full way, for two reasons. First, there is the cost-effectiveness, which one or two people have mentioned. We sometimes forget that early intervention can actually save money in the long run; we should not forget that. Early intervention is not just about babies or children but older people. This example applies and it can be effective in this case. Cost-effectiveness was the first thing that I wanted to mention.
The second thing is the incredible importance of education, which has also been mentioned. Young people in education tend not to get pregnant when they are 15 or 16, they tend not to misuse drugs or alcohol, and they tend to do better if they are encouraged in that education. Like the noble Lord, Lord Storey, I was very impressed by the young woman at the meeting we had last week, who talked about the importance of education to her. As we know, education is such a key thing for all children, but particularly for these children. Therefore for me, cost effects on education swing this towards the Minister accepting this amendment.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I will not repeat all the arguments that have been made, but of course, I want to support this. However, I will take it from a slightly different angle. I am quite sure that the Government do not want to take away from the determination that the local authority has to do its work. I know that devolution is important, and that the independence of the local authorities, such as it is, is valuable. Therefore I can understand that that might well be a government point of view. I can understand that the Local Government Association may have some concerns about additional responsibilities being added in statute, and I can understand some of the arguments, such as that if we have older young people in placements, they may block placements when we are short of foster-parents.
I have looked at those issues. It is quite clear that unless there is something absolutely straightforward, either legislation or regulation, in this area, local authorities will not be consistent in their care of over-18s. I have numerous case studies, which I will not read out now, but they have made me think that I need to speak about this in this way, rather than supporting the independence of local authorities, as I usually do as a vice-president of the LGA. Time and again, we read of young people—and I have met them alone, and with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—who tell heartbreaking stories of their education and of how their success in other areas is being stymied because they have to leave their family in which they have all their relationships. We are failing significantly to understand that emotional context.
Noble Lords have talked on numerous occasions about their own children. Sometimes you do not get rid of them until they are 30. They do a lot of things in between, and you still take them back. I have not had children of my own but I have brought up more than most, and I know about that trauma. Secondly, I understand that fostering, and numbers, are now improving, and that we have to look at that in a different way. It was explained to me—and this is not an area in which I have recent expertise—that foster parents who take adolescents often retire, as has been said, but also tend not to take small children when they need a placement. You need a different set of skills and you are looking for different foster parents. The idea that these young people are blocking a foster place is not a real one.
I can understand that the voluntary way forward is preferred by the Government. It will not work in present circumstances in local authorities, pressed as they are, unless there is some very strong legislation or statutory guidance.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I am asking that Amendment 43 be decoupled from this amendment because it deals with a quite different issue. I wish to speak briefly to the amendment moved by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, if the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, will allow me. It is extraordinary that there are children in this country, from wherever they have come, for whom the local authority fails to take some sort of action. I do not often say this but, in my day, children would be seen as having no parental cover whatever and there would be no doubt that the local authority would have had a care order. There is no doubt that that would have happened in the past. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, agrees.
I understand why we want fewer court proceedings. Having been the chair of CAFCASS, I absolutely understand that. They are expensive and are often not helpful to the child’s experience, never mind that of the local authority. Under the 1948 Act we had a way of ensuring that children were placed under the equivalent of a care order by a process in the local authority. In the days of Sections 1 and 2 of the Children Act 1948, one lot of children went to court and the others went through a process in the local authority. We should ask the officials to look at this. Without a doubt we have a national responsibility to protect this small cohort of children. I have come into contact with them because I deal with serious sexual abuse issues. The girls who are trafficked are seriously sexually abused. It is not just prostitution; it is abhorrent prostitution. Unless we find ways of protecting these youngsters they will just slip away and disappear, not of their own choice. I support the noble and learned Baroness in her attempt to find a way that is not expensive but which secures these children’s futures.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, an issue that is not directly relevant to this amendment, but which is akin to it, is that of parental responsibility and the accommodation that these children go into. I know that these highly vulnerable children are put into shocking accommodation. They are followed by traffickers, drug dealers and criminal gangs. They are abducted and disappear or something even more terrible might happen to them. I want to emphasise that parental responsibility must include decent accommodation for these children.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I advise the Committee that I wish to decouple my Amendment 234 from this grouping. I apologise; I did not watch carefully enough the information from the Whips’ Office this morning.
Children and Families Bill
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Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I want to add a couple of comments to those of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, with whose words I totally concur. I have a great deal of sympathy with Amendment 10, and I urge the Minister to consider it and perhaps come back to us at a later stage with some further thoughts about it.
When we are considering all this, we need to bear in mind that adoption is not the only form of permanence, and we must not lose sight of that fact. It is not appropriate for many children. When it comes to considering placement with family and friends, on whatever basis, in my view you cannot do that early enough. A briefing that I received from the College of Social Work pointed out to me—I had not realised this before—that there is currently no duty on a local authority to consider family and friends before the child is taken into care. Given the 26-week limit that we are about to bring in, it would be very wise for the Minister to consider this amendment. It would mean that family and friends were considered even before the child was taken into care, and the concern that people have raised, that 26 weeks may not give family and friends time to come forward, would be averted if family and friends were being considered even before the child went into care. This amendment has merit, and I hope that the Minister will consider it.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I have two brief points. First, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I am concerned about the issue of consideration, and I would like to know at what stage this consideration kicks in.
Secondly, I have the greatest respect and admiration for family and friends carers, who do such a remarkable job, sometimes in very difficult conditions, and I take on board the issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, raised about timing. I am curious about the dropping of the preference for looking first at family and friends carers as appropriate to a child. I am surprised that that is not being strongly supported by the Government. I believe that something like 86% of kinship care proceedings are initiated by the prospective kinship carers themselves, not by social workers, and surely that is quite the wrong way round.
I am also surprised that the Government do not seem to consider the costs of kinship care and care by friends. I believe that a foster care placement costs something like £40,000, while the average cost of care proceedings is more than £25,000. I hope that the Government will look again at the whole issue of placing family and friends care at the head of the proposals. I am aware that it is not always appropriate and I accept that, but to have dropped the idea of preference, if appropriate, is a mistake.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I have three points. I begin by saying that I believe that legislation should enhance and underpin practice. I declare an interest as being a member of the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, along with my colleagues who have already declared that interest. It was quite clear to us that, were we able to improve practice in a number of areas, the legislation would simply not be necessary.
The Government should return to thinking about that issue, particularly in relation to the practice of social workers and the difficulties they face at the moment, and the pressures of local government. I am sure the Minister will want to concentrate on what he has before him but unless the Government take a more strategic and broader view of children’s needs, we will simply add to the legislation and the difficulties that local authority social workers are experiencing rather than meet the needs of the children.