Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Bill Esterson and Louise Haigh

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

I want to pick up on some of the points made about the smaller agencies’ concerns about the establishment of regional agencies. The quality of work often found in the smaller agencies is incredibly important. I come to this issue having experienced the value of a small adoption agency that specialised, at the time, in placing hard-to-place children; my wife and I adopted two siblings. The expertise, advice, guidance and support we received were all exceptionally good, and some of that was due to the fact that we used a smaller agency that could concentrate its time, energies and expertise.

Its inevitable problem, of course, was that funding was always a struggle. It ended up becoming part of a much larger organisation, and I am afraid that much of that expertise is no longer with us. I know that there are other examples; my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak mentioned the experience in Wales. We should work hard to ensure that in our attempts to improve the situation, we do not end up making matters worse.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said that delay can sometimes be the right thing for siblings or children with complex needs—provided, it is fair to say, that they are in a good placement. Although I do not disagree with that, I think there is always a balance to be struck between delay in order to get the right decision, and ensuring that that delay does not continue longer than necessary and that it is not bound up in lack of expertise and opportunity to find the best permanent placement for children, particularly those who find it difficult to be placed.

I want to pick up on some of the evidence that we heard on Tuesday. On the point about voluntary agencies and smaller agencies, Hugh Thornbery told us that,

“there is no necessary direct correlation between quality and size, and it would be tragic if we lost some of the real expertise that exists within some of the smaller voluntary adoption agencies, which focus particularly on trying to find the right family for some of the hardest-to-place children.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 53, Q19.]

His expertise, experience and credibility are such that we should take that on board. When the Minister replies to the debate, I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, will be keen to hear how he plans to make sure that such specialist knowledge and expertise are not lost because smaller agencies become less viable in the new structure. We do not want a repetition of the experience in Wales where smaller agencies were pushed out by local authorities. What assessment have the Government made of the potential impact of voluntary agencies becoming unviable and being unable to serve children’s best interests? Such questions need to be answered.

The debate on amendment 13 is an appropriate place to look at the suitability of the adoption system for finding placements for particularly vulnerable children, such as those with disabilities, older children, sibling groups and children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. I hope that the Minister can tell us more about how his proposals will help with the placement of hard-to-place children. As Andy Leary-May told us on Tuesday,

“unless we address the problems that exist…the children with the most complex needs may wait longer to find a suitable placement.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 56, Q23.]

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that a key performance indicator in this area should be not simply how long it takes to place children, but the breakdown in adoption places? Voluntary agencies are incredibly successful in that regard, with only 3% of adoptions breaking down.

[Bill Esterson]

That is an excellent point. Support is needed to make sure that those of us who adopt children overcome the very difficult challenges that we may face. Of course, children who are adopted have often had the most difficult start in life, which is why they have ended up being placed for adoption, and the challenges of dealing with the emotional difficulties and other background issues that those children present when they come to live with a new family are immense. It is incredibly important to ensure that support services are in place, albeit the level of breakdown overall is relatively small. I am glad that my hon. Friend raised that point, and I hope that the Minister will address the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, some of which I have touched on in my remarks, not least about children who are sometimes described as harder to place—although I feel that that is an unfair description of children who, through no fault of their own, have ended up in a situation where they need the support of a new family.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Margot James.)

Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Bill Esterson and Louise Haigh

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

Q 49 Okay. So we are not interested in high quality.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: It depends. How do you define local authorities as high performing? They are not directly responsible for the management of their schools, so what does that mean? If the schools in a local authority are doing well, does that mean the local authority is high performing? I think the headteachers of those schools would have something to say about that; their view would be that they have delivered.

Emma Knights: Or the governors.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: So if those heads and governors could take over schools, yes, I would agree with that.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

Q 50 While we are talking about data, the Local Schools Network has managed—incredibly, given the lateness with which the Government made public the regulations last night—to crunch the data and has found that 814 secondary schools would be defined as coasting under the Government’s regulations. Some 342 of those are academies, a high proportion of which are converter academies. That is surprising given that, as the Minister points out, those would have been good or outstanding when they were converted, but 125 of them had a progress 8 value added measure. Is progress 8 wrong, or is the Government’s definition of “coasting” wrong?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: Do you mean that they had a positive progress 8 measure?