Children: Local Authority Care

Lord Laming Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Laming]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that children in local authority care are placed in a location close to their extended family and current school.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to take account of wider family and school networks when placing children. At 31 March 2015, 77% of placements were within 20 miles of the child’s home. However, all decisions are subject to the placement being the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Ofsted inspects how well local authorities perform in this area, and where there are inadequacies, we will intervene.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. He and indeed the whole House will understand that when the services of the state remove a child from its immediate family, that can be extremely distressing. It can be made worse if the child loses contact with its extended family, school, friends and familiar places. It can be made even worse when the local authority that places the child at a distance does not want its social workers to traipse up and down the country, and therefore contact is lost, and the local authority in whose area the child is placed will not know of its existence. This is an illustration of the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind”. Will the Minister remind local authorities that being a good parent to these vulnerable children is about more than just putting a roof over their head?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord raises an extremely good point; I know he is very experienced in this area. Local authorities must notify each other when placing children out of area, and a placing local authority has a duty to visit looked-after children to supervise arrangements and to promote their welfare. Every child should be visited within the first week, and thereafter children must be visited at intervals of no more than six weeks for the first year, and in subsequent years visits must also take place at intervals of not more than six weeks unless it is a permanent placement, in which case it is every three months. The IRO must monitor the performance of the local authority, as does Ofsted. However, I will take back his concerns to make sure that local authorities are completely aware of their duties in this regard.

Grammar Schools

Lord Laming Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I have said, this is a long-running debate. We have had plenty of representations for the return of grammar schools. However, as I have said, we will not make any decisions without deep consultation.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that grammar schools will benefit a minority of pupils? That is well recognised. They will not benefit the majority of pupils because, as I was, they are deprived of the opportunity to go to a grammar school.

[Lord Nash]

I am fully aware that there is evidence to support the noble Lord’s case. There is also evidence to the contrary. We will look at this very carefully. Views are divided. It is obvious from today’s discussion that the issue is contentious. We are considering all our options and any decisions we make will be driven entirely by considerations of social mobility and that we have a schools system which works well for everyone.

Childcare

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right to say that the recent report is concerning—and we are concerned. Local authorities of course must publish certain information, but only to a limited extent, so the new Bill will go further to ensure that we have better information. I can assure her that we are very focused on deprived areas, and indeed there has been a substantial increase in full daycare places in those areas over the past five years.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the question of the noble Baroness, does the Minister agree that this requires much more than putting a roof over the head of any child who has had a terrible start in life? It requires a robust and effective care plan to be devised for each child in order to help them overcome their difficulties. We have only a very few years in which to get that into operation.

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord, who is very experienced in this area. We all know that these are the most important years in a child’s life, but I am encouraged that of the providers who have been inspected under the early years inspection framework, which is a more rigorous one, we now have some 85% of them being found to be good or outstanding, up from 69% five years ago.

Child Exploitation in Oxfordshire

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I have already said, we will consult on widening the offence of wilful neglect. I am sure that, as a result of that consultation, we will look again at all possible legislation and offences that we could bring into the piece. As no doubt the noble Baroness heard me say, sex and relationship education must be taught in all maintained schools and is taught in virtually all academies. We welcome the supplementary advice, Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) For The 21st Century, issued by the PSHE Association, the Sex Education Forum and Brook. They produce some excellent resources, which are available to all schools.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, this is yet another thoroughly dispiriting report. Many of these young people were in the care of the local authority for their protection and safety. Will the noble Lord assure the House that he will continue to do everything that he can to persuade local authorities that when they assume parental responsibility for a child or young person, they have not only a legal duty but a moral duty to be a good parent to those vulnerable children?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord. In the course of this Parliament, we have sadly intervened already in 50 local authorities. Doncaster’s facilities are going to a trust, as are Slough’s.

Young People: Personal Finances

Lord Laming Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. The draft programme for study states that pupils will be equipped with the financial skills to enable them to manage their money on a day-to-day basis as well as to plan for future financial needs, and that they understand the concept of wages, taxes, credit, debt, financial risk and a range of more sophisticated financial products. I should hope that any proper education on that front would cover those points.

[Lord Laming]

Will the Minister assure the House that in his new ministerial responsibilities he will give particular attention to young people who have been in the care of the state? Does he agree that we expect the greatest coping skills from the young people who have had the fewest opportunities in life and do not have families to support them after they leave school?

[Lord Nash]

I note the noble Lord’s comments. We have met with a wide range of SEN groups in formulating our plans. Appropriate adjustments will be made to exams for pupils in that category.

Children: Looked-after Children

Lord Laming Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Earl on securing this important debate. His commitment to this subject commands the respect of the whole House. It was a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who has already made such a helpful contribution to the debate.

I feel sure that on all sides of the House it is recognised that removing a child or young person from the care of their parents is a decision of immense significance. The state has to be careful about exercising such power. Clearly checks and balances must be in place so that the exercise of such authority is reasonable and demonstrably in the best interests of the child.

If the state makes the momentous decision to remove a child from parental care, then at the very least that brings with it the huge responsibility of ensuring that the state is a “good parent”. Sadly, it is all too clear that often that may not be so, yet the state has not only a legal duty but a moral responsibility to ensure the safety, well-being and proper development of each child and young person for whom it becomes a substitute parent. It has a responsibility to ensure that that child or young person has the best opportunity to recover from what has happened in his or her early life and to develop into a fulfilled citizen in our community.

Sadly, the reality is that many of the children coming into the care of a local authority have been let down by the adults in their lives to whom they were entitled to look for care and protection. Instead, they will have experienced chaotic lifestyles, serious neglect or even deliberate harm. The duty of the state is, first, to ensure that these children and young people are provided with a safe place to live that provides a consistent, reliable framework offering a structure to their daily lives. It is from this foundation of that secure framework that it is possible to make an individual assessment of their needs and the beginnings of an individual care plan that will promote their recovery and development.

In the past, most children and young people coming into care had an initial experience in a specialist residential home. These homes generally had skilled and highly regarded staff. Of course, we all know that some establishments turned out to be absolutely ghastly, and appalling things were done to children who were easily exploited and even abused. The haste with which foster care has come to be relied on as the main and, generally, the only way of responding to the needs of children has led to residential care being neglected, downgraded and often regarded as a placement solely of last resort.

In my view, the rush into foster care was influenced, sadly, not by a belief that it was right for every child for most of their time in care but, regrettably, because it was seen as a much cheaper option. Of course, there can be no doubting that our society is deeply indebted to a large number of wonderful foster parents who should rightly be regarded as heroes of the state. That phrase in no way overstates their contribution to our society. They are heroes of the state. However, that is not a justification for the serious neglect of residential care. We need the widest range possible of facilities to meet the needs of these very damaged children and young people. The very best homes provide not only stability but also the staff who are able to begin the important therapeutic work which facilitates the healing process so that a young person can begin to trust adults again, to develop self-confidence and become optimistic about their future.

By 1998 it became evident that some local authorities, particularly inner-city local authorities, were closing all of their children's homes and moving the residents to distant places which offered—guess what?—the cheaper option. In exceptional circumstances, we all know that it may be right to send a child a long distance from their home area and their environment but, sadly, these decisions are seldom taken with the needs of the child or young person in mind, and are almost entirely dictated by the financial cost to the authority. When a placement is hundreds of miles away, who ensures the quality of care that is provided to that young person? Who provides continuing contact with the child? Who can the child or young person turn to when things go wrong in their lives?

My fear is that these placements are often characterised by nothing more than “out of sight, out of mind”. Is it any wonder that many of these young people receive either seriously inadequate or no education? Is it a wonder that they run away? Given so little opportunity for them to develop their potential or to be helped to prepare for adulthood, is it any wonder that so many end up in penal establishments? One of the most chilling comments I have ever read came about when a senior officer concerned with the recent cases in Rochdale was asked how a 14 year-old girl in care was able to be out of the home so late at night being sexually abused. He is reported to have said that for this child, “This was a lifestyle choice”. No vulnerable child in the care of the state should be given the option to be away from the protection of the services designed to promote their well-being.

I hesitate to burden the House with a personal experience, but I am encouraged to do so only because it is of no credit to me, yet the impact on me has endured. I hope it will have an impact on the Minister, who is very well respected in this House. For more than 20 years, I had been responsible in a large local authority for all of the social care services. The announcement that I was leaving the authority to take up another post attracted the attention of the local media. Before I left I attended a well publicised event, which was at a facility for adults with special needs. During the visit, the officer in charge of the day centre told me that there was a young man outside who wanted to meet me. She had invited him in to meet me and offered him tea but he refused. He would not come in so I had to go outside, which I was happy to do. I met a young man in the second half of his teenage years. He told me that he had been in the care of the local authority almost throughout his life; I had been the director of social services throughout his whole life. The few formal letters that he possessed had my name at the top, so before I left the local authority, he wanted to meet me so he could put a face to my name. That young man had spent his entire life in the care of the authority for which I was the chief officer responsible for his services, yet I did not even know that he existed. Nothing has been so powerful in making me realise the burden of responsibility that we have for the care, protection and development of these young people. I was then, and I remain, chastened by that experience because we must never allow these young people, who are our responsibility, to be lost in the system. It happens so easily.

I met a young woman who had been in care and who told me she had been sent to 19 different placements, and that with every placement there came a move to a different school. Is it any wonder that her education had been disrupted? We must take the needs of these young people more seriously than we have done in the past. We know the ingredients of good-quality residential care. We know how to ensure that children and young people in care can have the disruption in their lives minimised by our facilitating continued contact with their wider family, their grandparents, their friends and their school. I urge the Government to set up an independent, comprehensive and robust review of residential childcare services in this country. I believe that nothing less will do. In an earlier report, I ended by saying, “Just do it”. Today, I end with a plea to the Minister, “Please do it”.

Citizenship Education

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 14th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, your Lordships’ House is a good example of an institution where we frequently discuss questions such as the meaning of citizenship and its importance. I know that many Members of this House take part in the Lords outreach programme and explore exactly these issues with children; so far about 30,000 pupils have been seen by Members of your Lordships’ House as part of that programme. We need to explore these issues. The thought at the back of the noble Lord’s mind is probably the distinction between us being subjects and citizens, and I would be happy to explore that with him on another occasion.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is a connection between the first two Questions that have come before the House today? Some of the issues that were addressed by the first Question relate to second and third-generation children. Would it be possible to include in citizenship education the rights of children in this country and, more particularly, the ways in which they can get help if they are subject to exploitation or abuse?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with the noble Lord that there is a link between the two Questions: they are linked fundamentally by our values as a society and the values that we want our children to have. Part of that can be explored through the teaching of citizenship, part of it is done through civil society generally and part of it through families. Part of the answer to the question—and to the last part of the question about inspection asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, which I failed to answer—is that the requirement to look into the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of a child through the Ofsted framework provides an opportunity to explore these issues.

Youth Services

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My noble friend is absolutely right about the statutory duty that local authorities are under. Under that same legislation—I think it is the 1996 Act—the department is able to chase up local authorities to see what they are doing. Ultimately, there is a power to intervene if the Secretary of State thinks that local authorities are failing to fulfil those duties in the long term. Across the country a varied picture is emerging of how local authorities are responding to the funding challenge that they face through the early intervention grant. As we have debated many times before in other contexts, we think that local authorities are best placed to exercise that judgment. However, at a difficult time, we are seeing across the piece a growing focus on providing support for disadvantaged young people particularly.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, how will the Secretary of State make a judgment on whether the provision by each local authority is adequate to meet the needs of its young people?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I fear that I am not going to be able to give a precise answer to the noble Lord. As is often the case, these judgments need to be made on a case-by-case basis, but those powers do exist in that legislation. I know that this is something that my honourable friend Mr Loughton, who is the responsible Minister, is aware of.

Sure Start

Lord Laming Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, about the important role that children’s centres can play in helping to tackle disadvantage and helping young children to get off to the best possible start. On his second point, we have put money into the early intervention grant to pay for a network of Sure Start children’s centres, but we have a difference of opinion with the party opposite about whether those services are best delivered by local authorities with flexibility about how to spend the money—which is what I think local authorities are keen to have—or whether it is delivered through a ring fence. We took the view that we put the money in and then give local authorities the discretion to make the decisions themselves.

[Lord Laming]

With that in mind, what steps can the Government take to make sure that the benefits of the remaining Sure Start schemes are directed toward the children and families who are most in need of that kind of help?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, one of the initiatives that my honourable friend Sarah Teather is taking forward, which addresses the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, is a series of trials, with payments based more on results, that will look specifically at the kinds of points that the noble Lord raises, particularly at how services are delivered to help families suffering from the greatest disadvantage. We will, however, try to get the focus to shift to the outcomes and the results from those services rather than simply the buildings themselves.

Education Bill

Lord Laming Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Rix]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 99, tabled in my name, regarding issues around the duty for schools to co-operate with other agencies. I also thank the Minister for the opportunity he gave me nearly four weeks ago now to meet him and to summon his officials to discuss this matter in more detail, and for the letter that he subsequently sent me on the issue which, thanks to the vagaries of the post, arrived 14 days after it was posted. Tempus fugit but apparently not for the postal service.

The co-ordination of services for children with SEN, including those with a learning disability, is an approach for which the disability sector has been calling for a number of years. Co-ordinated support is a holistic approach that ensures that disabled children and their families are at the centre of the services that are aimed at improving their access to a full and meaningful life. The amendment tabled in my name aims to retain the duty on schools to co-operate with external agencies, which the Bill in its current form seeks to remove. Even the Government’s own SEN Green Paper refers to the importance of multiagency working and the role of partnerships in delivering the best outcomes for disabled children. By removing the duty to co-operate, I fear that the Government are sending out completely the wrong message, and I encourage Ministers to return to the aspirations as set out in the Green Paper.

However, in his recent letter, to which I referred earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, advised me that new inspection requirements for schools will be explicit about disability and SEN. As these inspectors will include the,

“leadership and management of the school”,

the Government hope that schools will fully consider their responsibilities when working with external partners and other agencies in the interests of the children concerned. Perhaps to pre-empt all this, there was a meeting last Thursday with the noble Lords, Lord Laming, Lord Low and Lord Touhig, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Benjamin, to which I was invited but was unable to attend because I had to go to hospital.

The noble Lord, Lord Laming, has received a letter from the Minister. I hope he does not mind if I quote the words:

“I said that I would need to consult Ministerial colleagues, but confirmed that I intended to return to this matter at Report Stage”.

Therefore, although of course I am very happy to listen to others, at the same time when the time comes I shall withdraw my amendment.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has indicated, the Minister generously met a group of us last week. I think we would all agree that we had a very useful meeting where we were able to express our thoughts fully and the Minister was responsive to our concerns. As the noble Lord, Lord Rix, said, the Minister has since written to me and indicated that he has given the matter further thought. The letter is written in what I would call careful language, perhaps even a touch cautious, and therefore no bunting is to be unrolled as yet. However, I am sure that I speak on behalf of the group when I say that we are extremely grateful for the Minister’s thoughtful approach to this and we look forward to returning to this on Report.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I point out to the Committee that my noble friend Lord Storey has withdrawn Amendment 100ZA, but for some reason that has not appeared on the Marshalled List. That amendment is probably the reason for the reference in the Minister’s letter on the Health and Social Care Bill. It related to the possibility that the new welfare public health boards might be more appropriate organisations for schools to co-operate with when it comes to children’s well-being. We have been persuaded that it might be more appropriate to lay that amendment to the health and Social Care Bill when it comes to us.

That future legislation, besides the SEN Green Paper that will undoubtedly lead to further legislation, is one of the reasons why it was suggested to the Minister that the Government might consider waiting and not making this change to legislation just at this moment, but might instead leave the potential for that change until we know what is coming in the legislation that follows the SEN and disability Green Paper and what will transpire in the Health and Social Care Bill. It makes sense for the Government to keep our powder dry for the time being and postpone any decision about removing the duty to co-operate until we see what legislation is coming down the track and how that might be affected by this idea.