Children and Families Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

There are some difficulties on this side.

[Lord Northbourne (CB)]

I confess to being one of those who finds it difficult.

[Baroness Northover]

Okay, I shall shout loudly.

I shall speak first to Amendments 26 and 29 on the issue of assessment and support for children returning home from care to their families. As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out, and as research has shown, almost half the children who return home later re-enter care, and almost one-third of those children have very poor experiences of that return. This is clearly unacceptable, and we recognise that. The noble Earl gave a very compelling instance of this, which was echoed by my noble friend Lady Hamwee.

This area is a priority for the department, which is why we established an expert group over a year ago to help us to understand and drive forward the improvements that we recognise are needed. The group includes academics, local authority representatives and sector organisations such as the Family Rights Group, the Who Cares? Trust and the NSPCC. We thank them for their work in this area. We are particularly pleased that the NSPCC is undertaking research in this area to understand how decision-making and support can be improved for these families. This will and must include ensuring that the voice of the child is at the heart of all decision-making, and I hope that that will reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, my noble friend Lady Walmsley, and others. The working group has focused on how data can be used effectively to support local authority practice improvements, identify the areas where the statutory framework needs strengthening, and help us understand how we can support changes in practice that are effective and sustainable.

The current statutory framework clearly sets out requirements to return a child to their parents and to provide information about the support services available for these families. It is important to acknowledge that the statutory framework is different for those children who are subject to a care order and return home and those children who have been voluntarily accommodated and then return. The current statutory framework clearly sets out the requirements for placing a child with their parents—that is, when a child will remain subject to a care order after returning home. For example, a robust assessment of the parents’ suitability to care for their child must be undertaken; a nominated officer must be satisfied that the decision to return a child to the care of their parents will safeguard and promote the child’s welfare; and the local authority must continue to review the child’s case, setting out the services and supports in the child’s care plan and reviewing this regularly. However, the statutory framework for voluntarily accommodated children is not as strong—and noble Lords are clearly aware of that. That is why we are consulting on changes that might be made to this.

The Improving Permanence for Looked After Children consultation launched on 30 September includes a number of proposals to address the issues faced by voluntarily accommodated children in returning home. We want to strengthen the statutory framework to ensure that the decision to return voluntarily accommodated children is taken by a nominated officer, that the plan for support following the return home is clearly set out and reviewed, and that these children and their families are offered continuing visits and support from the local authority following the return. Those are some of the issues that noble Lords have just raised and which the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, highlighted. Also, the department’s evidence-based intervention programmes announced in February 2013 include interventions forsome of the children who often return home, such as teenagers. There is, for example, a focus on developing multisystemic therapy and family integrated transitions; this intervention supports children and young people returning home from care or custody.

We also propose to place a duty on local authorities to review a child’s case within a specified framework where the return home is unplanned. The consultation on these changes will close at the end of November, and we expect to publish our response in the spring, with the changes coming into force in the summer of 2014. I hope very much that noble Lords will take advantage of this consultation and feed in their experience, expertise and ideas effectively by the end of November.

I now turn to Amendments 30 and 31, which refer to information and support available to special guardians. Special guardians do a very important job, which we heard from both the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and my noble friend Lady Walmsley. We agree that we need to look at whether they are being given sufficient support. The department therefore commissioned the University of York in March 2012 to carry out a two-year research project to investigate how special guardianship was working in practice, and the rates and reasons for any breakdowns. The final report is expected in autumn 2014. This is a major piece of research which will help us to understand how well special guardianship is supporting children and families.

We are planning to pilot personal budgets, as noble Lords know, as part of the adoption support fund prototypes over the next 18 months, to see how they work in practice and whether they deliver the benefits that we expect. These pilots, alongside the richer understanding that we will have by then of the way in which special guardianship is working, will allow us to reach an informed view about the potential for personal budgets for special guardians. If there is a need to change the statutory framework we will consider what secondary legislation and statutory guidance needs to be brought forward and will consult on these before implementation. I hope, again, that noble Lords are reassured by the work going on. I hope, therefore, that I have given noble Lords sufficient reassurance that the Government recognise and are committed to working towards supporting birth parents and special guardians, and that the noble Earl will withdraw his amendment.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness and speak to my Amendment 41. I support the amendment because of the importance of human curiosity. In recent child case reviews commentators have criticised professionals because they simply were not curious. They did not ask, “Why was this child bruised? Why did somebody not ask why the child kept coming back?”. They complained about the lack of curiosity among professionals. When Anna Freud, back in the 1930s, spoke to teachers about how to be a good teacher, she said that the most important quality was curiosity. She said, “We need you to be curious about the child, think about where he is, where he is going, and how to get the child to go there”.

Curiosity is so important and is reflected in our culture. Stories from Genesis or of Michelangelo’s most celebrated works of art are about where we come from. Another example is Haydn’s “Creation”. We are fascinated about our origins. The noble Lord, Lord May, is absent now, but he knows that we spend billions on finding out about the origin of the universe. How did we come into being? I am concerned that to deny young people the opportunity to find out where they come from is a way of undermining and frustrating their curiosity. It is a way of stifling their wishes and interest in the world if you say, “No, you can’t know where you come from; no, we will not help you with that”. This weekend I was looking at some photographs of my father from the 1950s which I had never seen before. I found them inspiring. I very much identify with the concerns of the noble Baroness and it was a privilege to hear her talking about her own experiences in this area. I hope that the Minister will give a sympathetic reply to her amendment.

My amendment deals with support for young people leaving the care system and allowing all young people to have access to personal advisers up to the age of 25. Currently, past the age of 21 it is restricted to young people in training and education. I give the example of a young man, Ashley Williamson, who is a care leaver of 21 or 22. He left care at the age of 16. I have met him on a number of occasions recently. He has chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People in Care; he has provided advice on matters around sexual exploitation of children in children’s homes; and he left care himself at the age of 16 and wanted nothing more to do with the system. He washed his hands and went on with his life. However, at the age of 20 he connected with his local authority again and asked for help. He found a fantastic personal adviser who was very supportive and helped him to get a fantastic home for himself. Now, in his early twenties, he has a good, solid base. He has been very helpful to me and I am sure he will be helpful to other young people in care because he is articulate, intelligent and thoughtful and has had that experience.

For so many young people, early trauma means it takes them longer to do what many of our own children might do. Give them the time to make mistakes and then to realise they need to come back and ask for help. If I remember the story correctly, a young man who was a foster child of a social worker, Kate Cairns, was, as the age of 19 or 20, in prison and addicted to very nasty substances. He was a very difficult person to deal with and yet, 10 years later, at the age of 30 he had his own family, was employed and was providing for his children. Given time, he changed.

Let me give more detail on this amendment. Most people continue to receive love, advice and, perhaps, financial assistance from their parents into their adult lives and the average age for a young person leaving home is 26. However, young people in the care system are often thrust into instant adulthood at just 16 and, like most 16 year-olds, they tend not to have the life skills to be able to cope independently at this age. Of course, they often find adult life especially hard due to the traumatic childhoods they have endured. So young people leaving the care system are disproportionately more likely to end up getting involved in crime and drug abuse and very often struggle to achieve good qualifications. Our failure to help this group of people, for whom we have a clear responsibility, leads not only to personal tragedy but to great cost to society.

At present, young people leaving the care system are designated personal advisers and have pathway plans drawn up for them. These help to smooth their journey to adulthood but, at present, are only available until they are 21 unless they are in education or training. Young people who are not in training or education also need support. I recommend that personal advisers be made available to young people up to the age of 25, whether or not they are in education or training. These young people need that kind of support even more. This would ensure that vulnerable young people leaving the care system receive the ongoing support and advice that other young people receive from their parents and take for granted. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I am not going to make a speech but I strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Young. The more I learn about and think about disadvantaged young people, the more I realise that the question they are always asking themselves is, “Who am I?”. Their second question is “Am I a person who could succeed?”. Some of your Lordships may remember the two Ofsted reports about schools which were outstandingly successful although the children were from very disadvantaged backgrounds. The three principal things those schools had in common were: outstanding leadership, very committed staff and, thirdly, every child believing that they could succeed.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 45, which has three parts.

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[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am pleased to inform noble Lords that the department is also funding Catch22 to deliver a project on improving support to care leavers from children’s homes, including looking at how providers can offer an environment in which young people from children’s homes can benefit from staying put-type arrangements.

On the question of 16 and 17 year-old care leavers returning to care, the statutory framework states:

“Local authorities should use joint protocols to ensure that: there is flexibility to enable young people to return to more supported accommodation if they are not coping with independent living … Provision and partnerships should be developed in such a way as to permit young people to move to other accommodation in a crisis, including returning to more supportive accommodation if appropriate”.

We are also planning to change the law so that directors of children’s services sign off decisions for 16 and 17 year-olds leaving care. We think that such a move will ensure that young people leave care when they are fully ready. We believe, therefore, that we do not need to impose new duties on local authorities, but need to ensure that all local authorities use good practice. Again, the new Ofsted inspection framework will lead to support for care leavers being given more scrutiny. I hope that the course of action that I have outlined will reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Massey, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott. I urge that the amendment be withdrawn.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, the noble Lord has said many times that local authorities should do this, that and the other, but we all know that some local authorities are under tremendous pressure and have difficulty in finding adequate social workers as they do not have enough money. Some of us were wondering whether the Government have sanctions to ensure that local authorities do it. What provisions are there for ensuring that it happens? I believe that Ofsted has to report on it but I am not sure.

[Lord Nash]

If the local authority has a poor Ofsted inspection on this matter, we can and will intervene. There is a specific section on care leavers.

[Lord Northbourne]

I thank the Minister.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

This amendment deals with a totally different subject. There are three amendments in this group but I do not propose to speak to Amendments 43 or 234 because I understand that those who tabled them will in due course ask to degroup them. Therefore, I shall speak exclusively to Amendment 39.

This amendment relates to the most disadvantaged group of children who come into this country. Very often, they are children brought here against their will, or certainly without any knowledge of what is going to hit them when they get here. They may be sexually exploited or they may be victims of domestic service or forced labour, such as the Vietnamese boys who run the cannabis farms in rented accommodation. Among them are boys who are trained, Fagin style, to steal, and there are other children who go through appalling sorts of slavery. When they escape, or if they are fortunate enough to be picked up at the border control, they are not as well looked after as adults.

This is an area where adult victims of human trafficking—modern slaves—are quite well cared for in this country in many ways. It is much to the Government’s credit that they have signed the European directive on human trafficking and, indeed, are in the process of implementing it. However, we fall far short of what should be done with the children. They are placed in the care of a local authority, not under care proceedings, which we discussed earlier today, but under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, which requires local authorities to look after a child in their area. They are placed with the nearest local authority by whoever has identified them as trafficked, and the local authority has an obligation to look after them under Section 20 of the Children Act. I repeat: it is an obligation to accommodate.

We know that very worrying numbers of children go missing from local authority care. Local authorities do not even know why or how some of these children have come into care because it takes anything up to 48 hours to register a child into care, and these children often go missing within 48 hours. In another place, Peter Bone MP sent a message to all local authorities asking how many children who go missing are trafficked children. No local authority responded with any figures at all, and only about eight out of all the local authorities responded at all but they had not identified the children who were missing as trafficked children.

If the children have a mobile phone, as they usually do, they are given a number and are told to ring the trafficker. The trafficker waits outside the care home, or very often the home of the short-term foster parents who have not had time to get organised with this child who is suddenly dumped on them: the child gets the telephone call, goes out of the front door and is never heard of again. Those children are trafficked or retrafficked. Something like 300-odd children have been identified as being trafficked, and that, I suspect, is the tip of the iceberg.

The reasons for asking for a local authority to have parental responsibility are twofold. One is that these foreign children do not have anyone in this country with any responsibility for them until they get to the local authority—perhaps with the exception of those who are trafficking them, who may be relatives. Secondly, the local authority does not have parental responsibility, as defined in the Children Act, for these accommodated children; it simply has a requirement to accommodate them. It is right to say that there is a requirement to look after them but if they do not have parental responsibility—and local authority social services know exactly what parental responsibility means—that is what they receive after they get a care order. Even an interim care order gives them a joint parental responsibility with the family. However, for these foreign children there is nobody with parental responsibility.

Parental responsibility may not be the best way of dealing with this; there are two views on it. I have tabled this amendment because I am concerned that, currently, local authorities are not treating these children with the seriousness that they should. Local authorities are overworked and very often under-resourced. These children are dumped on them at very short notice, identified as having been trafficked and are not given the same degree of care as a child who goes through the care process in this country. It seems that there are two ways forward here. Either the local authority makes a care application, which costs money—and it is getting more and more expensive for local authorities to make care applications—or, as I suggest, there should be an automatic parental responsibility. It would not cost a penny but it would flag up to local authorities the actual responsibility they have for these children who are dumped on them. They cannot just accommodate them and not really take that extra step of being a joint parent.

I am extremely concerned about the standards for the children we have been talking about last Wednesday and today. They are only a small number of children but, my goodness me, we are failing them. It is a blot on the England and Wales system, under which we are failing to deal with them. I do not know whether I really need to declare again an interest as a trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation or as co-chairman of the All-Party Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery, but this is a truly serious matter for a small group of children. One way of dealing with it is to give local authorities parental responsibility. It would hit them with the fact that they have to do something practical about these children.

Barnardo’s was given some money—I believe by the Government—to trial having specialist foster parents to look after trafficked children. I was told by one of the representatives of Barnardo’s that it was not taken up. I think that 15 specialised foster parents were trained and that local authorities were told they could have this for nothing. They were not being asked to pay a penny and they did not take it up. I think there were two or three places where local authorities did not do it, which is an indication of the degree of concern that I understand the overworked social services have for this group of children. Something absolutely has to be done. I beg to move.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I rise to reinforce, in a way, what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has said but also to ask some questions. I should perhaps declare an interest as a council tax payer in the district of Dover. As I see it, the amendment, as tabled, would require the local authority to bear the financial responsibilities of looking after these trafficked children, far more of whom probably come in through Dover than through any other point of access to the United Kingdom.

It so happens that a year or two ago, my wife chaired the Kent Community Housing Trust, which is for old people. During that time they received a panicked telephone call from the county council saying, “We simply can’t cope with this flow of people. Can you help us?”. Luckily, an old people’s home was able to be diverted for that purpose. As the noble Baroness said, it is not easy. In one case a child arrived at the children’s home absolutely white with fear and said that he had just seen a murder and the murderer. The child knew that the murderer had seen him, so he feared for his life. He was kept in the home for 16 days and at the end of that period he slipped down to the village to buy some fags and was never seen again. We are talking about quite a tough world.

What are the financial implications for local authorities which receive an enormous number of young people? My noble friend was being rather critical of the local authorities but they were presented with a very difficult problem at very short notice.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

The local authority has the obligation under the 1989 Act to accommodate children, so there are no financial implications that I understand. The only financial implications would be if the local authority were involved in care proceedings, when it would have to pay for the applications.

[Lord Northbourne]

How are they supposed to pay for this?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

They do it already. There is no difference. They have a requirement under the Act to accommodate. They have had that since 1989, or since 1990 when the Act came into force. I am talking about giving them a parental responsibility order, which is a wake-up call and has nothing to do with finances at all.