Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran on Amendments 6, 13, 17, 250 and 251. I have also added my name to Amendments 11, 15 and 16. I remind your Lordships of my registered interests: I am a councillor in the London Borough of Bexley and was previously leader and a cabinet member for children’s services—hence my interest in this area.

I put on record my thanks to the Minister in the other place, Josh MacAlister, for the round table discussion on this subject last November. We discussed some of the points covered by our amendments today, so I hope he will find them helpful. Likewise, I understand that the Minister here opened up communications with directors of children’s social care across the country last summer during recess, for which I thank her; I know it was welcomed. I apologise if some of the points I am about to make today are similar to those they may have made to her last summer.

First, not everything in the Bill is bad; as I said previously, we all want a system that seeks to keep children safe. However, I do not understand the Government’s reticence on ensuring that the pilots are fully evaluated—and that information shared with others —before full implementation, which they are proposing happens before the end of the year. The noble Baroness, Lady Blake, just made the case for evidence-based changes; I hope that I am knocking on an open door.

When we met the Minister from the other place in November, he promised to share the evaluation, but the document circulated—from July 2025—was Implementation and Process Evaluation Report: Early Findings. Surely this is not sufficient to drive full implementation before the end of the year, and I hope to explain why. First, I hear that, in some areas, the case loads are increasing for the family health lead practitioners. I am also told that the number of Section 47s is increasing in some of those areas. There is a suggestion that it could be about enlisting the expertise of the multi-agency child protection team.

If these two points were consistent across the pilots, it would contradict the Minister’s suggestion that the proposal would decrease demand. More importantly, it puts demand on the service that is not currently there. Surely it would be sensible to understand why that is happening—is it happening in all the pilot areas or restricted to some, and what is driving it?—to ensure that, if there is an issue, it can be addressed to avoid it happening more widely? It has to be in everyone’s interest to understand the reason for the increase, which is why we are asking for the full evaluation.

It would be helpful if the DfE were to conduct and publish comparative data analysis from both wave 1 and wave 2 pathfinder authorities, including trends in referral volumes, assessment outcomes, escalation from early help to statutory intervention and Section 47 activity, to inform the rollout and ensure the right resourcing and the safe implementation of the multi-agency child protection teams.

Likewise, it would seem sensible to evaluate pilots from a cost perspective, across agencies, to ensure that funding is available to make sure that children are safe once the scheme is fully implemented and to see where the costs arise. That will avoid cost shunting but might necessitate new burdens funding from the Government.

The next reason is recruitment and retention of appropriate staff. I understand that the pathfinder areas reported significant challenges in recruiting both social workers and qualified practitioners for the multi-agency child protection teams, with particular difficulties for key partners, such as ICBs and the police, due to workforce shortages and funding constraints. Indeed, the early evaluation said:

“Resourcing was a key concern across Wave 1 and Wave 2 areas”,


this also being a key challenge across partner agencies. The partner agencies expressed nervousness about assuming the family help partnership role and the additional strain it would put on their already limited capacity.

However, the evaluation did not publish specific recruitment or vacancy data for the multi-agency child protection teams. Instead, it highlighted barriers, such as partner agency workload, funding uncertainty and delays in recruiting specialist roles. It would be helpful if the DfE published workforce metrics and proposed solutions to recruitment and retention challenges, including a competency, training and development programme for the multi-agency child protection teams and alternate qualified staff similar to that for qualified social workers.

The strain on resourcing from partners could explain some of the apparent lack of engagement seen in the pilots. The Minister in the other place told us that lessons had been learned from the SEND inspection process and that the police, health and schools would all be willing partners, but I understand that is not the finding of the pilot areas so far. He also suggested that there would be unique qualifications for health and police. My understanding of the letter published recently by the Minister is the same as my colleague’s, in that there was a suggestion that it might be open to police staff and specials. I look forward to clarification on that point as well. That would diminish the role, and those people would not necessarily be able to make the decisions or commitments that might be necessary.

Likewise, there is a concern about potential changing landscapes and how that might impact delivery. I refer specifically to local government reform and ICBs. In addition to workforce, how might that impact IT systems? The impact of cross-border cases also needs consideration, especially as the partner agencies involved might not be coterminous with the local authorities.

Finally, there is a concern about the inflexibility of the proposals. The Minister in the other place indicated that the system is overregulated and that the new expectation is of a “self-improving system”, using practice guides rather than the introduction of further statutory guidance, which could mean a way of reducing the financial burden on central government and potentially shifting it to local authorities.

How will the department ensure that the absence of tighter statutory guidance does not lead to variable implementation or a lack of accountability for best practice? What assurances can be given that practice guides will be sufficiently resourced and supported rather than just being aspirational documents? How will the department respond if local authorities are unable to implement best practice due to funding or resource constraints? Is there a risk of different levels of service and safeguarding from area to area for children and families?

The Government have invested a substantial amount of taxpayers’ money in setting up pilot schemes. It would be foolish not to analyse the experiences from those pilots thoroughly to understand and answer some of the issues I have just spoken about and to avoid repetition of errors. That would make best use of the investment; it would ensure that we listened to the professionals responsible for delivery, and, most importantly, keep children safe. I support the amendments.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I think I understand why government Amendment 12 has been tabled, but I am worried that it is imprecise, and I am not sure that it is absolutely necessary. The unique thing a police officer will bring to these teams is powers—power of arrest, power of entry and powers to seize evidence—but if the teams do not exercise those powers, it is not clear why they need the police at all.

More importantly, the person needs experience. The amendment talks about a member of the police staff—that is, somebody who is not a police officer—who has “experience”. I do not understand the imprecision and wonder whether the Government might try to find some way of making it more precise. Experience could mean one week or six years. There is an accreditation process for trained officers—perhaps the police might offer some form of accreditation measure before they put someone in this role.

I would like to see somebody with experience of going into people’s homes, dealing with situations where childcare is needed, sometimes arresting the parents, sometimes moving the child to another location and sometimes involving other agencies to make sure that the child is looked after in the future. The reality is that, on the whole, police staff will not have that experience.

The only argument I can see for the amendment is that you might have a police officer who is retired—so, has previous police experience—and has become a member of the police staff. If that were the case, I am not sure it is necessary. There is now a scheme of fire and rehire—most chief constables seem to be working on it. The basis is that someone retires from their constable post, takes their lump sum, abates their pension and carries on being paid as a constable. So, if the requirement is to have someone in the role who has police experience, I would see that as a reasonable reason for doing this.

My biggest concern—I say this against the police, who of course I love—is that the 43 forces might come to different conclusions about what “experience” means. Probably more worryingly, they might conclude that they want the cheapest option, which would by far be to put police staff into this area and not have to pay police officers. The Minister knows that I have concerns about whether the police should be members of these teams, but given that they are, it is probably best that they are police officers and not people whose experience we have an imprecise definition of, because police officers offer some judgment about the life situations that they deal with—and that other social services deal with—which might amplify their judgment in the cases that these teams will have to consider.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I stand here today as a rather inadequate replacement for my noble friend Lady Tyler, so I will be very brief. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, pointed out, in Amendment 6 we are talking about the most vulnerable group—certainly a group that does not have the added protection of, for instance, the school environment and people looking on. So, having greater attention paid to it self-evidently seems like something we should have. If the Government do not like the suggestion made by my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, perhaps they can tell us where else they will get it, because it is very important.

The other amendments in this group go into a new area of government activity—new teams. We should explore in considerable depth the concerns that have been raised about how it will work and the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. The experience of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, dwarfs any that I have in this field. I hope the Minister answers those questions thoroughly and explains why she thinks her amendments are necessary—I have no doubt that she will do that, as she normally does.

Amendment 17 really attracted my attention. If you are going into a new area, why not first check to see how it is working? There is a general agreement about the approach, but let us make sure that it is done properly. As well as the other amendments in this group, the House should consider those two amendments very fully.