Local Authorities: Child Protection

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

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

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

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that child protection, such as that called for by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, requires not just numbers but intense social work casework with troubled and problem families? If there were sufficient people undertaking enough of that, would it help to address some of the horrific problems that we heard about this morning from the Deputy Children’s Commissioner of children being forced into sexual activity, often associated with violence, at an unacceptably young age?

[Lord Nash]

The matters to which the noble Baroness refers are of course shocking. As I say, we have innovated and started the Troubled Families programme. It seems to be working well and having quite substantial effect, which is why we are expanding it to 400,000 high-risk families until 2016.