Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I will do that.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this short debate. I think it is clear to the Minister that concerns about this matter are felt around the House. I am pleased that he is committed to thinking more about those concerns and to action. I mentioned Pause. That is not the programme we use, partly because women are not entitled to become part of the programme until they have already had two children taken into care. We wanted to be able to intervene if necessary and if possible before then. I would be interested in talking further to the Minister about this, working with him and inviting him to look at some of the work going on that would support what is proposed in the amendment. We tabled the amendment on the basis of wanting the House to think about the matter and to push the Government further. On the basis that I believe that the Government are taking this issue on board—although I am not yet satisfied—I shall withdraw the amendment at this stage in the hope that the Government will demonstrate to me that they are prepared to continue to work on it.

Children: Local Authority Care

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister acknowledge that, for every child who goes into care, their trauma is added to because they want to know and understand what has gone wrong, and they want help to find the way forward? The more work is done with the family they have come from, the better the outcome will be. Some of the best outcomes come when children are placed in kinship care. Will the Government work hard to open up opportunities for social workers to learn more about who might be considered a kinship carer and make sure that that is the first option for children who come within the local authority sphere?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. It is of course appropriate that children are placed with families and friends where possible. We have done a great deal of work in this area: the adoption support fund can help in this area and help the special guardians. The Family Rights Group and Grandparents Plus have also been funded in this area and we will continue to push in this regard.

Rural Schools

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top

Thursday 28th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I just mentioned, rural schools will get a lump sum for a sparsity factor in the national funding formulas, so we are cognisant of their particular circumstances. As I think the noble Lord knows, we very much favour local schools working together in local clusters. Indeed, in the last few years hundreds of multi-academy trusts operating in their local regional clusters have come together, so this is absolutely essential.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if the Minister will understand this. I have visited a local school in Weardale, up in the north Pennines, where we have several schools with fewer than 50 pupils. I spent the day at that school, and the involvement of the local community in it both as governors, including the chair of governors, and as parental support is absolutely critical to children there having a whole and good experience. It happens to be an outstanding school. However, I also know from the multi-academy trusts that there is real concern that they will be asked to do things which they do not want or have the real capacity to do, because they are concentrating on schools where achievement really needs shifting. This is going to stretch the academy chains to breaking point. The Government are getting it wrong from both ends. Why will they not listen?

[Lord Nash]

I fully understand the point that the noble Baroness makes. I would recommend that any small, rural school which is concerned about the issue talks to people who run multi-academy trusts to understand the substantial staff benefits that there are from working together in this way. Most people whom I talk to in multi-academy trusts say, “When I was running one school, I used to lose all my good staff. Now I can provide them with career development opportunities across the group”. These benefits are very substantial.

Schools: Funding

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his good wishes. As local authorities are currently responsible for setting their own funding formula for schools, there are 152 varying local funding formulae. We are currently consulting on our proposals to introduce one single national formula for schools. From 2019, funding will be allocated directly to schools on the basis of that formula. This means that, for example, a secondary school pupil with lower prior attainment will attract the same amount of additional funding wherever they are in the country.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that deprivation and need must be part of fairness?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness. That will be very much behind our reforms.

Adoption

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have just announced a £20 million adoption support fund to be rolled out nationwide from May, following some very successful pilots across 10 councils.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House what the Government are doing to support kinship care? That is overwhelmingly the most successful means of looking after children who are very vulnerable.

[Lord Nash]

We are doing quite a lot. I believe that the adoption support fund will be available for kinship carers. I will check and write to the noble Baroness.

Birmingham Schools

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I think that what has happened in Birmingham is unacceptable to all the communities there, including most of the Muslim parents and teachers. I do not recognise the noble Lord’s analysis of the religion of Islam, which I see as a religion of peace. I do think that there are issues in relation to developing counter-narratives to extremism, but I do not think that there is time to go into that here.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

Does the Minister recognise that the department has to take its fair share of the blame and be accountable? It is not possible to put all the responsibility on to Ofsted for knowing what is going on in schools day in and day out. With academies, the department has the responsibility through its newly imposed regulatory system. How could it miss what was happening to girls in those schools, when many women were being dismissed from schools as cleaners, dinner ladies and so on, as well as teachers? Many of us feel very let down in this respect by the Government, with their centralised control of academies. I declare my interest as a member of Northern Education Trust and as a governor of Castle View Academy in Sunderland—so I am not against academies by a long way, but the Government have neglected these schools and have not now got the infrastructure to know when things are going wrong. What are they going to do to change that?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right that everybody needs to take their fair share of the blame in this. Nobody comes out of this particularly well. One could say, “How did the local authority miss these issues for years?”. It was only when Ofsted did a batch inspection of 21 schools and saw a common pattern of behaviour which had accelerated dramatically in terms of threatening behaviour in recent years that it became absolutely clear what was happening. As I said in relation to the actions we have taken with Park View Educational Trust, we dealt with these matters extremely speedily. We have now substantially tightened our procedures in relation to schools becoming academies and we will, as a result of events in Birmingham, look further at that.