Social Workers Regulations 2018
Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords for their comments and questions on the regulations. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, is right that he does have something of an advantage over me here on a subject that he has spent a lot more time on than I have. I shall certainly try to answer as many of noble Lords’ questions as I can. On those that I am not able to answer, I shall write.
I reassure noble Lords that the procedure for making regulatory rules is intended to provide more flexibility for Social Work England, rather than act as a means of giving the Secretary of State control. As noble Lords will be aware, the rules for the other nine existing health and social care regulators need to be approved by the means of a lengthy Privy Council process. If the Privy Council process chooses not to approve rules, the regulators need to make changes to address any concerns before starting the process again. For Social Work England, we have provided a more streamlined procedure, drawing on the findings of the Law Commission’s 2014 review while still providing clear and robust oversight. This allows, importantly, oversight that is enforced by advice by the Professional Standards Authority as needed, while not unduly hampering the regulator’s ability to make rules following consultation and to plan effectively for their implementation.
Of course, for any oversight procedures to be effective, there needs to be an element of veto. That is what has been provided for in the draft regulations. It might be used, for example, when consultation feedback has clearly not been taken on board in the final rules. Let me reassure noble Lords that the language of modification is not intended to allow for further control by the Secretary of State but will simply reflect reality. If rules are deemed not to be acceptable, they need to be revised. Although the language used is different, that is what would happen under the existing Privy Council system.
On noble Lords’ concern about a possible loophole, it is important that Social Work England can change its procedures quickly and efficiently. We do not expect minor and technical provisions to be used often; when they are used, it would be where small technical changes were required to rules. This is not intended to be used in the case of substantive changes, where we would expect the full consultation and oversight procedure to apply. Of course, the Professional Standards Authority will also have oversight of the operation of Social Work England’s functions and report on that annually to Parliament. I fully expect the PSA to highlight any inappropriate use of the provisions.
In establishing the legal framework we have taken the opportunity to provide a power to annotate additional qualifications and specialisms on the register, when that is proportionate to the regulator meeting the public protection objective. Annotation of additional qualifications and specialisms will ensure that the public register gives a transparent, informative record of social workers in England with specialist expertise, such as best-interest assessors and approved mental health practitioners. That will provide further assurance to the public and employers that individuals have the necessary specialist expertise relative to their particular role. Regulations will require Social Work England to set any additional qualifications or specialisms that are to be annotated in rules which are subject to public consultation.
On the transitional arrangements, the Government, Social Work England and the Health and Care Professions Council—the current regulator—are all committed to and working towards a smooth and safe transfer of regulations. As part of the transfer arrangements, ensuring that social workers are treated fairly will be of paramount importance.
I turn to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, some of which were wrapped up in some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, made. He made two specific comments that I have noted. One is on the quality of the guidance that will sit alongside the regulations. I spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, yesterday, and he impressed on me that, in his short time in tenure, he has been very anxious to reach out to important stakeholders. I have no doubt that he will continue to consult broadly the important stakeholders who will be affected by them.
Social Work England will be required to operate a scheme for the approval of courses of social work education and training in England, social work qualifications, tests of knowledge of English in England, and courses for those who wish to become approved mental health professionals. I suspect that this situation will evolve over time.
As all noble Lords here will know, I am one of the newest Members of this House. In closing, I add that the contribution made by this House shows it at its best in taking on board important reforms, bringing to bear the significant expertise that exists here, and helping to improve this vital mechanism.
Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)
Clearly, I have avoided speaking on these regulations because I have a clear and obvious conflict of interest, so I do not wish to comment on the debate that has just happened. But, just before the Minister sits down, I take this opportunity to reinforce what he said about the contribution that noble Lords in this House have made to the establishment of Social Work England. I have found them particularly helpful over the last few months. I have engaged with and received wise wisdom from many of them, and continue to do so.
I put my thanks on record to the several hundred people I have spoken to, from service users to higher education providers, and from the social work profession to employers, who again have been very engaged in discussions. That certainly will continue.
There is one reason I wanted to speak today and this is probably rarely done. I have worked with lots of government departments and officials in a number of guises, NDPBs and other things. I have not come across a group of officials before that have been so passionate and so committed, and given so much time to developing the foundations for this organisation to go forward. I put on record my thanks to the officials from the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, because they have really worked hard. I have never seen such passion and commitment to making an organisation come together.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. In closing this debate, I hope this provides reassurance to him: in seeking the chair of this new organisation, we have reached out across the political spectrum to get the very best person that we could for this important job.
These regulations provide a strong foundation for improved and effective regulation of social work in England, and I commend them to the House.
Children: Racist and Islamophobic Bullying
Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Nash
I am very sorry to hear of the distress that my noble friend suffered when she was at school. School staff should support all pupils and the nature of that support will depend on the circumstances. It may well be that the staff can support the victim adequately but otherwise the school can involve a specialist charity or organisation which can provide counselling or mentoring, such as Kidscape or Beat Bullying, which my department funds, or Place2Be, a very good counselling charity.
Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, mentioned the bullying of Muslim children and their being called “bombers”, linked to the media. The Government have a clear strategy—the Prevent strategy. Can the Minister tell me how his department links into the Prevent strategy and what it is doing to support teachers in that respect?
Children and Families Bill
Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Patel of Bradford
My Lords, the Bill has a number of very important measures, many of which are positive. However, like other noble Lords, I have a number of concerns, particularly around the issues of fostering and adoption, such as the removal of explicit duties to consider the ethnic origins of a child when placing for an adoption and the proposed 26-week time limit for care and supervision proceedings especially for complex cases—issues that I would like to return to in Committee .
However, in the time available today I want to focus my contribution on Part 3 of the Bill and seek some assurances from the Minister, whom I welcome to the Dispatch Box with his first major Bill. My concerns are around the impact of SEN provision for young people with complex needs aged between 19 and 25, particularly those supported in independent schools and the non-maintained special school sector. I have sought advice and information from the National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools, which, as noble Lords may be aware, is a membership organisation that provides information, support and training to its members in order to benefit and advance the education of children and young people with special educational needs. The association has more than 215 members spread over the whole of England and Wales, and through their non-maintained and independent special schools they cater for around 13,000 of the most vulnerable children in the country with a very wide range of complex needs.
Like other noble Lords, I welcome the proposals in the Bill that extend parent choice and give help to some of the most vulnerable children and young people, many of whom have very complex needs. I particularly support the Bill’s proposal to replace SEN statements with plans from birth to 25. I hope that, alongside the Care Bill, this will result in a stronger focus on preparing young people for adulthood.
In recent years I have noted an increasing number of independent special schools developing services for young people with complex needs. This support is sometimes delivered through independent specialist college provision, but many non-maintained and independent special schools deliver adult social care plus a variety of health, social enterprise and employment services. Often, this provision has no formally recognised education component and is funded through adult social services or continuing care support.
While the Bill is positive with regard to this proposal, I, like my noble friend Lord Touhig, would like clarification from the Minister that those people aged 19 to 25 with complex needs would be eligible for the continuation of their plans. Young people with complex needs such as profound and multiple learning difficulties, aged between 19 and 25, who are supported in the non-maintained and independent special schools sector, need to keep learning past the age of 19, especially as they learn much more slowly than their mainstream peers. Many of these young adults will require a period of time after their formal schooling in a transition service, as they may not be able to navigate these transition years as other young adults can.
The years between 19 and 25 are socially accepted as a time of experimentation and of finding limits and boundaries. We do not expect non-disabled young adults at the age of 19 to settle down into an adult life or go into an adult home environment where they stay for the rest of their lives and, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has just said, it is difficult for children in foster placements to leave at the age of 18. Young adults with complex needs therefore particularly need support to make sense of the transition years and to develop a sense of themselves as adults and what it means to be an adult.
For example, some of these young adults may have limited life experiences and might need to continue to experience such things as going to the supermarket, how to go shopping, choosing which film to watch at the cinema and how to go to local restaurants. The period of time that they spend in such a service will mark the transition from childhood to adulthood and be a type of, I suppose, social apprenticeship—a period of their life that helps them to develop as an adult and prepare for a more independent life.
Creating the right environment to achieve an understanding of adult life is an important part of supporting development, and young people with complex needs would clearly benefit from the continued protection of the plan. I will give noble Lords an example from my own part of the country, West Yorkshire. Young people with complex needs are fortunate to have the services of the Hollybank Trust in an area called Mirfield. In the past five years, all its school students have made the transition into adult services with the support of the trust. This has enabled them to focus on crucial areas of development such as communication and independent living skills.
However, young people attending schools in other areas have not always been so fortunate. The Chailey Heritage Foundation in East Sussex has just launched an innovative new life skills service for young people aged 19 and over. Young people can use their personal social care budgets to pick and choose the elements of service that they wish to access, such as life skills development and well-being and leisure opportunities. The reasons for this service being developed are interesting. It has been developed in response to the difficulties faced by young people with complex physical and learning difficulties on leaving school. The reports that I have looked at from adult social services in the area reveal cases where school leavers moving to adult care homes had had their communication aids removed from them and stored in the office, and had had their motorised wheelchairs turned off as they were causing wear and tear to furniture and walls. These were young people at great risk of losing the skills developed across their schooling and which would have enabled them to lead more independent and happier adult lives.
I was encouraged by the Government’s amendment to the Bill in Committee in the other place that will result in a duty being placed on clinical commissioning groups to secure the provision of health services as agreed under the EHC plans. However, I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that those young adults with complex needs will continue to receive the support that they require in order to help them make the transition to adulthood. Clause 45 outlines the conditions for when a local authority may cease to maintain an EHC plan for a child or young person. I draw the Minister’s attention to subsection (3), which says:
“When determining whether a child or young person no longer requires the special educational provision specified in his or her EHC plan, a local authority must have regard to whether the educational outcomes specified in the plan have been achieved”.
I would like to see subsection (3) amended so that plans will not be cut off when “educational outcomes are achieved”. The fact that young people with complex needs often have different educational outcomes needs to be recognised in the legislation.
Similarly, Clause 45(4) says:
“In determining whether it is no longer necessary for an EHC plan to be maintained for a young person aged over 18, a local authority must have regard to his or her age”.
I am concerned that subsection (4) and a number of other clauses—Clauses 36 to 41—will result in some young people with complex needs losing a plan once they turn 18. I suggest that Clause 45 should be amended so that instead of starting with,
“A local authority may cease to maintain an EHC plan for a child or young person only if”—
paragraphs (a) and (b) are met, it should read, “A local authority must maintain an EHC plan for a child or young person until their 25th birthday”, unless paragraphs (a) or (b) apply. This strengthening of Clause 45 will provide some confidence that young adults with complex needs will continue to get the support that they need.
In conclusion, children with complex needs have an entitlement to education, and this should not stop at this crucial stage in their lives. This entitlement must be extended to them when they become young adults. Moreover, considerable time, effort and investment has been put into their education as children and, in order to ensure that the social and financial investment that has been made during these school years is protected, the Government must guarantee that young people with complex needs will have continued support past the age of 19. I hope that the Minister will look again at these important issues.
Marriage
Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Patel of Bradford
My Lords, I add my thanks to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for calling this important debate. I share an interest with him in the rights and dignity of prisoners, an area in which I know he has been very involved. I need not remind noble Lords of how many of those in our prisons come from backgrounds marked by family breakdown, disadvantage, poverty and the lack of stable and loving relationships. I therefore welcome the opportunity to discuss the role of the state in supporting people to enter into and sustain stable and committed relationships, and in particular how that can strengthen our communities and society as a whole.
Many excellent points have already been made and the quality and interest of the contributions show just how important this debate is. Before I make my own small contribution, I take a brief moment to add my warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, and thank her for such an insightful, extremely relevant and clearly purposeful maiden speech. I truly look forward to her future contributions in debates in this House.
We heard last week in our debate on children and parenting how important it is to have stable relationships in our earliest years. It is clear from some of the points raised so far that there is much in common between that debate and the one that we are having today. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford said in his thoughtful and welcome maiden speech, children flourish best in the context of the relationships of stable, loving couples. This is what must be at the forefront of our minds today in discussing marriage and marriage support; it is simply not enough to talk only of marriage.
I am mindful that, notwithstanding the many benefits that have been recognised around marriage, we cannot ignore the fact that in recent decades the proportion of children living in lone-parent families in the UK has steadily increased from 12 per cent in 1981 to 23 per cent in 2008. In addition, divorce and remarriage create stepfamilies, with their own challenges. In 2005, more than 10 per cent of families with dependent children in Great Britain were stepfamilies.
Let us also not forget the growing number of same-sex couples entering into civil partnerships. Indeed, I welcome the Government’s commitment to sustaining support for civil partnerships and, in particular, their intention to allow same-sex couples to register their contracts in religious settings for the first time. It is often overlooked that there are many same-sex couples, especially among lesbian couples, who have children.
A number of noble Lords have raised other issues—of diversity, faith, extended families and age—which must not be ignored. All these issues are summed up by the statement that my friend, the right honourable Harriet Harman, made when discussing these matters. She said:
“Families come in all shapes and sizes. We don't favour one way of family life over another. We want to support and back up all families... Government dictating family structures doesn't work”.
We have to be careful in suggesting that support for one form of loving, stable union between couples should be favoured over another. We must also bear in mind the great many numbers of cohabiting couples who have clearly made a choice not to formalise their union but who nevertheless need support in difficult times.
The danger in focusing support on married couples only, such as with tax breaks, is that we risk not only alienating the many unmarried couples but supporting married couples without children at the expense of families with children, which is clearly unfair. We should focus on the provision of support for people to enable them to enter and maintain stable and long-term relationships. That support must not be solely a matter of fiscal policy—I think that another noble Lord mentioned that—but part of a much wider, co-ordinated approach to tackling the deep-rooted structural inequalities that exist in our society.
That point was recognised by the previous Labour Government, who made families a priority in a way that had never been done before. Issues such as childcare and support for parents were brought into the policy mainstream for the first time. The commitment of the previous Government to support parents and families was also clearly underlined by the establishment and the work of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which took the lead responsibility for these issues.
I am anxious that this Government have shown something of an ambiguous commitment to families, despite making the family an important tenet of the election campaign. For example, the Department for Children, Schools and Families was quickly dispensed with and is once again simply the Department for Education. That ambiguity concerns me because, in the past decade, we have seen fiscal support for families increased significantly. I am sure that none of us would wish to see that lost.
In the 2002 spending review, £25 million was allocated to the Parenting Fund to invest in parenting support. That first round of funding was followed by two more rounds of £14 million and £12 million respectively. In 2008, the then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families announced a further £5.1 million of funding for organisations delivering relationship support services and £5.5 million of funding for better co-ordinated local support for separating couples. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, mentioned some of that funding.
The Children’s Plan was published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2007. It particularly recognised the significance of the adult couple relationship and one of its components was to ensure that outreach workers from Sure Start children’s centres received training to give them the confidence to support relationships after the birth of a child. However, I am greatly concerned that the tightening economic climate and the increasing limitations on resources mean that these vital services are facing dramatic reductions in funding.
A recent survey by the Daycare Trust and 4Children found that: 250 of the centres are expected to close over the next 12 months; 2,000 such centres will provide a reduced service; 3,100 centres will have a decreased budget; and, at 1,000 centres, staff have already been issued with “at risk of redundancy” notices. The Government’s response has been to establish an early intervention grant, which they believe will give local authorities the freedom to make the best decisions for families in their areas. The Government claim that this grant will support the existing network of children’s centres, but its level is 11 per cent lower than the equivalent funding for the previous year and the protection around children’s centres has been removed in the shake-up of budgets.
It is important for us to understand just how vital these services are to families across the country, particularly the most vulnerable, and what a devastating impact this will have. This was recently made clear to me when I was contacted by the husband in a married couple in my home town of Bradford. Mr Paul Farmer has given me permission to share his letter. In fact, he has asked me that the questions he raises are answered by the Minister. Let me read it out:
“Dear Lord Patel of Bradford,
Let me first introduce myself, my name is Paul, I live in the Buttershaw area of Bradford and I am married with one child and one child due in a few weeks. Both myself and my partner work as civil servants with jobcentre plus and to do this we place our son in nursery 5 days a week.
When Christopher was born 3 years ago my wife experienced quite serious post natal depression. This was alleviated by the health visitors in the area, friends and family and by the local sure start children's centre. Here she met other parents, learnt baby massage (which helped both of them a great deal), received tips, help and sometimes just a shoulder to cry on.
As I stated earlier we are now expecting our second child after losing a previous pregnancy in terrible circumstances. We were looking forward to using the children’s centre, receiving the same help and support, and purchased a buggy so that my wife (who is disabled) could walk to the centre when needed.
Last Saturday we were informed that the centre is to close, the nursery attached (the nursery my son goes to) is to close and all help will be lost.
Reevy Hill children’s centre has been a god send. This has come at the WORST possible time for all of us, Christopher will be unsettled, my wife has support taken away from her and our new baby’s health and well being may suffer as a result.
We were assured that none of this would happen and for it to happen with such little warning is disgusting. Please can you tell us why this has happened and what can be done about it, we are desperate for help and this valuable resource needs to be preserved and built upon, not closed.
Yours sincerely, Paul Farmer”.
I am sure that your Lordships will feel, as I did when I received this letter, that the situation Mr Farmer and his wife find themselves in is both tragic and unnecessary. His letter more than adequately describes a situation being faced by a great many couples, as the full impact of the closure of vital support services is being felt. The impact this is having on ordinary parents and families who are already struggling to cope with job cuts and higher costs of living cannot be underestimated. When we talk about support for relationships, we must realise that this involves all those services that affect families and children, as these things cannot be separated.
The Minister assured us last week that Sure Start children’s centres remain at the heart of the Government’s vision for early intervention. In fact, Sure Start has been widely recognised as a highly valuable service and the Prime Minister himself had promised to protect it and build upon it. Those assurances are greatly welcomed but I remain concerned about the commitment to their practical delivery.
In particular, I ask the Minister three key questions. First, why has the protection around children’s centre funding been removed? Secondly, as the level of the early intervention grant is 11 per cent lower than the equivalent funding for the previous year, how can this Government expect local authorities to have the resources to continue to provide support services to the most vulnerable parents and families? Finally, will the Minister make a commitment to build on the achievements we have seen during the past decade in family policy and provide the support needed to build strong and stable families?
I want to make it clear that the aim of my arguments here, while noting the progress we have undoubtedly made, is to emphasize that there is clearly a lot more to do. A truly integrated and mainstream family approach across the whole range of government departments and local services is still a long way from being realised. We need an integrated approach to support for relationships that embraces all aspects of government policy across areas as diverse as housing, criminal justice, disability, asylum and refugee status and neighbourhood renewal. I also echo particularly the issues that were raised about volunteers and their funding.
In conclusion, I once more thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for introducing this debate and I hope that noble Lords and the Minister will agree with my concerns: that we must approach this on a broader basis, encompassing all support for families and parents—not just those who are married—especially during these difficult and challenging times.