Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
“( ) The person appointed by the local authority must be trained to have an awareness of speech, language and communication needs.”
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I will be brief. These amendments require all speech, language and communication needs to be assessed, and those concerned to be trained. Any assessed needs should then be treated—something we discussed earlier in the Bill. I am therefore simply referring them to the designated people who are listed in these clauses. I beg to move.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, as has already been pointed out, this group is closely related to the group beginning with Amendment 30 on ensuring that the voice of the child or young person is heard and understood. These amendments would ensure that personal advisers have an awareness of speech and language communication difficulties and needs. Personal advisers do not need to be fully trained speech and language therapists, but they need to be aware of any possible lack of communication skills on the part of young care leavers.
I listened with interest to the Minister on Monday when she said that the Government have put £650,000 into speech and language support—this at a time when the proportion of children in the population is increasing. From 2010 to 2014, the birth to 17 year-old population grew by around 550,000, an increase of 4.9%, and the rate of children being looked after has increased from 57 per 10,000 in 2010 to 60 per 10,000 in 2015. The sum of £650,000 appears to be woefully inadequate. Over the same period, local authority budgets have come under intense pressure and as a result some non-statutory preventive services for children have been considerably reduced. Over the spending review period, against the baseline, in 2010-11 local authority spending on children’s centres and early years reduced by 38%, or £538 million, while spending on youth services reduced by 53% or £623 million. Without adequate awareness of the speech and language needs of children and young people, personal advisers will not be able to support them in the way I believe the Government intend. More resources other than the £650,000 already mentioned will be needed for their strategy to be successful. I fully support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that comprehensive response and to the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for her comments. I also support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, which came from a different angle, as it were, from the rest of the group, but nevertheless were very meaningful. As I said in respect of Amendment 30, the importance of having speech, language and communication needs assessed and treated is that unless they are, the children who are the subject of this Bill will not be able to understand or engage in any of the changes the Bill proposes. As I said in that debate, when we in the all-party group conducted our review of the link between speech, language and communication needs and social disadvantage, we discovered tremendous inconsistency all over the country, both in the understanding of what was needed and in the training of the people who were responsible for doing the assessing. We discovered, for example, that in Northern Ireland, the social services and the health visitors worked together very closely, but in other places the two were not connected. As I mentioned, we discovered in Walsall that continuous training was done throughout the secondary school stage, but that was rare elsewhere in the United Kingdom. In talking about children previously in care, we are talking about the needs of people who have slipped through the net much earlier.
Therefore, I am very concerned that the Minister should suggest that these amendments are not necessary; I think they are. She mentioned the Communication Trust, which is a considerable partner in the all-party group that I have with worked very closely. There would be considerable merit in the Communication Trust, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and the ministerial Bill team having a discussion before we come to Report, so that hopefully, the Government can decide that they can include such a provision in the Bill, rather than our proposing amendments such as this. Such a provision is very important to the Government’s achieving their aim. I know from talking to both organisations that they would be very happy to do that, and I suspect that a number of noble Lords would like to be involved in that discussion.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Before the noble Lord sits down, yes, we would be very happy to have an early discussion.
Lord Ramsbotham
“Profit-making and children’s social services functions
(1) Social services functions conferred on or exercisable by a local authority so far as those functions relate to children shall not be discharged by a body corporate that is carried on for profit.(2) “Social services functions” has the meaning given by section 1A of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970.”
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, first, let me correct an omission from my contribution at Second Reading—namely, that I did not publicly thank Thomas Brown for his typically helpful Library note, from which I quoted Dr Ruth Allen, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, who said that government reforms,
“need to be driven by social worker knowledge and skills”.
Noble Lords may question the words “be driven” and prefer something like “take account of”, but the sentiment is the same. Partnerships imply co-operation, and co-operation includes consultation.
I acknowledge that an amendment that seeks to give extra force to an existing ban on profit-making in children’s services by regulation by enshrining it in primary legislation does not sit easily in the group of clauses headed, “Care and adoption proceedings in England and Wales”, but neither does any fear that the Government might use Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 in this regard, which enables the social care functions of a local authority to be discharged by a body corporate. That would not sit easily with partners such as the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and many other organisations, which rejected any profit motive in the provision of children’s services in the consultation that the Government held in 2014 on draft regulations concerning a significant extension to the children’s service functions that could be outsourced. In its response, the association said:
“Decisions taken about a child’s life should only ever be based on what is in the best interests of the child as assessed by skilled and qualified social workers and the courts system. These decisions cannot, and must not, be subordinate to the pursuit of financial profit”.
In their response, the Government said:
“The proposals were concerned with improving the quality of children’s services rather than savings, ‘privatisation’ or profit-making”.
They inserted a prohibition on profit-making into the final regulations, which extended the children’s services functions that could be outsourced.
Local authorities are living in hard financial times that are likely to get harder rather than easier, as many noble Lords have pointed out. I do not believe that a single penny of what is allocated to protecting children and young people and keeping them safe should be diverted from that purpose. In ideal circumstances, of course, such services should be funded adequately to ensure that they are effective and timely, but what is absolutely clear is that no one should profit out of that allocation other than children.
The Minister said at Second Reading that the Government had no intention of removing the ban on profit in child protection. However, the 2014 regulations and Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 allow the outsourcing of many other children’s services functions. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified exactly what the Government’s position is regarding a profit ban on children’s services. Regulations are easier to circumvent than primary legislation, which is where I believe any ban should be. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, children’s social care services are some of the most important functions of local authorities and, of course, councils should be able to work with local partners to secure some elements of children’s well-being while retaining overall leadership and accountability for commissioning and delivery. But because of the mandatory duties, the majority of the experience and expertise in undertaking safeguarding work remains with councils. The complex and difficult tasks in child protection do not readily attract commercial or not-for-profit providers, and it is crucial that we do not create a situation where the easy or profitable aspects of children’s services are cherry-picked, leaving councils with an unmanageable portfolio of the really difficult services.
We had a briefing from the LGA, which believes that the introduction of a perceived profit motive into decisions about our most vulnerable children and young people risks undermining public confidence in this hugely challenging work. I agree with the association. It is significant that it has briefed us, because this work is difficult and costly, so it would have been easy for the LGA to leave things as they are and not encourage us to support an amendment that seeks to put this in the Bill. It is an indication of how seriously the LGA is taking this matter.
As we have heard, in 2014 the Government consulted on draft regulations which significantly extended the children’s services functions that could be outsourced. The responses at the time overwhelmingly disagreed with the regulations. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services pointed out that a local authority’s duty of care is not delegable, although of course its functions are. It felt that services designed to keep children safe should not be predicated on a profit motive. There is far too much temptation to cut corners where there is a profit motive, especially when budgets are tight and the funding of the contract is very challenging, which often happens. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has just said, such decisions should only ever be based on the best interests of the child.
The Minister told us in the meeting we had before the Committee began that the Government are not minded to remove the current ban on for-profit organisations but, unfortunately, that ban is only in regulations, which we all know are not difficult to remove by negative resolution. That is why I support this amendment to put the matter into primary legislation, because it is far too important to put it at risk.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that and to all those noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. I must admit that, on this issue, I am something of a cynic, because I watched what happened when the probation service was taken over by the profit-making sector, including the pernicious system of payment by results. We have no indication that that is the way in which this is moving, but I think that it should be put in primary legislation and not merely left to reassurances—although I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity in giving that reassurance—or to regulations. This is a matter to which we ought to return on Report, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, the amendment would ensure that information is shared and that notifications are made to relevant authorities when a looked-after child is placed out of area. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, referred to the amendment earlier. It concerns the fact that health services, in particular, are losing track of these vulnerable young people when they are placed out of authority.
Currently, there are a variety of different procedures for placing children out of area, which are dependent on distance, the type of placement and the home nation in which a child is placed. There are also different information-sharing requirements, which means that in some areas crucial safeguarding partners are not always aware of vulnerable looked-after children living in their area and any risks that they may face.
As of March 2015, 37% of looked-after children were placed outside their local authority, with 14% being placed more than 20 miles away from their home authority. Sometimes, an out-of-area placement is important in keeping a child or young person safe—for example, where a child is targeted for exploitation in their home area.
Currently, a distant placement—an out-of-area placement that is not in an adjoining local authority—must be approved by the responsible authority’s director of children’s services and all other out-of-area placements must be approved by a nominated officer. I am grateful to the coalition Government for introducing this change, which means that the director of children’s services has to be involved in the process of sending children out of their local authority. Local authorities across England adopt their own notification processes, but a different approach has been taken in Wales, where a national out-of-area notification protocol is in place to ensure consistency.
Children living outside of their local area are more likely to be reported missing or absent: 50% of all looked-after children reported missing or absent are placed out of area. The Children’s Society sees in its practice many examples of the criminal exploitation of young people thus placed. It sees particular difficulties in ensuring an appropriate multi-agency response because of a lack of information sharing and confusion about responsibilities with these children. It is estimated that 60% of suspected child victims of trafficking in local authority care go missing and almost two-thirds of trafficked children are never found. Most victims go missing within one week of being in care, many within 48 hours and often before being fully registered with social services.
Given these significant risks, if information is not shared with partners before the placement is made there may be significant delays in responding to the child if they go missing or are targeted, while the police and other partners try to gather all the information about a child that they need to keep that young person safe. Does the Minister agree that the police and health services are as important as local authorities in making sure that looked-after children placed out of area are appropriately safeguarded? I beg to move.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I added my name to this amendment, and entirely agree with what my noble friend has said so far. I endorse his proposal that the Wales protocol should be adopted in England as well. The number of people they put on the informed list under that protocol is interesting, as it means that most people who are likely to need to know, such as the police, health services and the director of social services, are included.
This reminded me of something that happened when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, when the chief inspectors of constabulary, the courts services, education, probation and social services were collectively worried about the lack of information flowing around the system. We published a thematic review of what each of our particular responsibilities needed of the others, what was readily available, what was obtainable only with difficulty and what was not obtainable. We presented this to our respective Ministers, who were interested, but the tragedy was that it fell on stony ground because no one Minister was responsible for cross-governmental working to ensure that all this information was shared by those who needed it.
To the categories mentioned by my noble friend, I would just add that of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, who are frequently moved from their port or airport of entry to local authorities all over the country in order to share the burden. We need to know where they are and what is happening to them, so the information mentioned in this amendment needs to be shared by many others—not just the directors of social services but immigration authorities and others covered in the Wales protocol. I recommend that, which is why I support my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am very glad to wind up for the Opposition and speak in this short debate. As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, there are sound reasons why out-of-area placements may occur, but they present real challenges, not least the inconsistency of approach between different local authorities and this particular problem about a multiagency response.
The noble Earl raised the issue of vulnerability to trafficking, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, brought unaccompanied asylum seekers into consideration. I have already referred to my own concerns about the role of the National Health Service. We know that mental health services, especially child and adolescent mental health services, are inadequate and that many disturbed young people are being sent a long way from home.
The Minister in a previous debate referred to an agreement, or work, between his department and the Department of Health in establishing the care pathway. That is to be welcomed, but I would like to hear more about how he is going to make it grip when it comes to children who are being placed out of area and a long way from their homes. Has the Minister’s department had an opportunity to see how the Welsh protocol is working in Wales and whether there would be an opportunity to build on the good practice that has been developed there?
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. I do so because it reminds me of my experience of being acquainted with a young woman who left care some time ago. She did get access to mental health support and saw a therapist over a quite considerable period. She is thriving; she is doing well and supporting young people leaving care. When she spoke to me about her experience, she highlighted how important it was for her to have that access to a counsellor. So if this amendment helps her with that, I would definitely like to support it. We will hear from the Minister about the Children Act duties and I hope that will comfort the noble Lord, Lord Warner.
This woman has a younger brother in care and she is concerned about the access that he is getting to therapy. This is a real issue for many young people in care and care leavers, so I am looking for as much reassurance from the Minister as possible in his response.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I, too, rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in his amendment and particularly his plea that we should have some meeting to clarify the various amendments that have been tabled. In the next group, I shall refer to some of these amendments and it strikes me again that this is something that ought to be tied up between the Bill team and those of us who are taking part because otherwise we are in danger of having a thoroughly ill-constituted Bill to send forward to the other place.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I also support the noble Lord’s amendment. He said that other bodies might be involved and I would draw particular attention to the position of the justice system in this context. Some of the young people involved will already have been involved in the justice system or may subsequently go into the justice system and, of course, have to emerge from it. It is important that there should be adequate liaison between the local authority and its services and those who have responsibility in the justice system, whether that is a custodial institution or another service. When the noble Lord returns to this—perhaps at a later stage—he might want to consider including that in the ambit of his amendment.
Lord Ramsbotham
“( ) A local authority in England must, in carrying out functions in relation to the children and young people mentioned in subsection (2)—(a) undertake a screening of the children and young people’s speech, language and communication needs;(b) to ensure those working with the children and young people are trained in awareness of speech, language and communication needs;(c) ensure appropriate support is provided for those children and young people with speech, language and communication needs.”
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, in moving Amendment 30 I shall also speak to Amendments 32, 44, 57, 63, 65, 67 and 69, which continue the discussion on Clause 1 and refer to the local offers covered in Clauses 2 and 3. I must declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties, which three years ago published a report on the link between social disadvantage and speech, language and communication needs, or SLCN. I am conscious of the caveats about local authority resources made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and my noble friend Lady Howarth of Breckland but I believe it is better to set out the total of what is required and then decide what cannot be done, rather than leave anything which is not in the Bill.
The inability of children to communicate is the scourge of the 21st century, fuelled by the use of the social media and a whole host of electronic gadgets to which too many of them devote far too much time. Someone has described the language that young people use to speak to each other, if they do so at all, as binary grunts. At Second Reading both I and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, pointed that unless their SLCNs were assessed and treated, the children who are the subject of the Bill would be prevented from understanding or engaging with any of the changes proposed in it. The noble Baroness also made this point to the Grand Committee last Wednesday. To explain my case, and in acknowledging the risk of boring the Committee, perhaps I may repeat how I came to appreciate the fundamental importance of this issue.
In 1997, as Chief Inspector of Prisons, I visited Polmont, the young offender institution in Scotland, while researching for a thematic review that was being conducted of the treatment of and conditions for young people in prison. As its excellent governor and I walked round the institution, he suddenly said that if he had by some mischance to get rid of all his staff the last one out of the gate would be his speech and language therapist. Not having come across such a person on the staff of any young offender institution in England I asked why, to which he replied that too many young people could not communicate either with each other or with staff and that, until and unless they could, it was impossible to discover what problems they had and plan what help they needed. His speech and language therapist assessed every young person on reception and advised the discipline, education and healthcare staff on which identified SLCNs should be included in individual sentence plans.
To cut a long story short, I have been campaigning unsuccessfully for a speech and language therapist to be on the staff of every young offender institution ever since. Proof of their value was provided by the governors of the two institutions in which therapists were funded for two years as a pilot by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. Each said to me within a month of their therapist’s arrival that they could not think how they had managed without them. The all-party group has campaigned for every child in the country to have their speech, language and communication ability assessed by the age of two by a health visitor trained by a speech and language therapist to identify potential problem areas, so that individual SLCNs can be treated before a child starts primary school, with the aim of enabling them to engage with their teachers and therefore with education. We would therefore like to see regular SLCN reassessment throughout a child’s school career, including pre-employment assessment on leaving, to ensure that they are able to communicate during each stage of their schooling. I have seen outstanding work during secondary schooling in Walsall, for example, that picked up problems that had been missed during the primary phase, saving children from possible truancy and/or exclusion.
Amendment 30 includes three requirements of local authorities: that they ensure, first, that the SLCN of every child and young person subject to the provisions of the Bill is assessed by someone such as a health visitor who, secondly, has been trained to identify potential problems; and, thirdly, that they ensure that appropriate support is then provided to treat identified needs. More widely, every child should have what is now called an education health and care plan, which are currently made only for those with special educational needs. For most children, the default plan will be the normal educational system. Recent legislation has laid down that home local authorities have responsibility for ensuring that such plans apply to those in custody as well, as the Minister will remember.
As for an assessment tool, I recommend that developed by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists for use by the Youth Justice Board in its AssetPlus programme, which provides an excellent model that could be followed with advantage. Amendment 32 requires that the Secretary of State include those three requirements in any guidance that is sent to local authorities. Amendment 44 includes the provision of speech, language and communication support in all local offers. Amendment 57 requires personal advisers of former relevant children to be trained in SLCN awareness, and Amendment 63 includes SLCN in the subjects to be assessed and included in pathway plans made by local authorities for such children.
The aim of Amendment 65 is slightly different, in that it is tabled in the same spirit as the amendments I tabled to Clause 1. As many noble Lords have said in relation to other duties required of local authorities, there should be no ambiguity about their duty to inform relevant children of their right to request advice and support. The word “must” says it all. The background to this amendment is that prison staff working with care leavers in custody have reported considerable difficulty in identifying local authority leaving-care managers, particularly for home local authorities nowhere near their prison. Some local authorities go so far as to record care leavers as not in education, employment or training, and therefore outside their responsibility. The aim of my amendment is to ensure that local authorities establish links with prisons and other justice agencies, in which children and young people for whom they are responsible are held, and institute effective joint working methods. This seems entirely in line with the Government’s care leaver strategy and by linking regional and NOMS care leavers’ champions, should ensure that there is a framework on which planning and support for relevant children can be based.
Bearing in mind the high proportion of care leavers with SLCNs, Amendment 67 seeks to ensure that both advice and support are given to former relevant children in a language that they understand, which must include the avoidance of bureaucratic gobbledegook. Amendment 69 may seem like a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but even though they may have been informed of their right to make a request—if Amendment 65 is agreed—many of these children have not the slightest idea of to whom to go to make one, let alone how to make it, even supposing that they can read and write. Civil servants, who may not understand this, must be reminded of their responsibility for providing clear and transparent information, set out in straightforward terms, which will enable care leavers and former care leavers to access what is on offer to them.
My final amendment in this group, Amendment 38, is completely different in concept but is also designed to improve local offers and is based on pathway plans, as outlined in the Children Act 1989. A report by the Children’s Society, The Cost of Being Care Free, found that too many people leaving care with no family to support them were falling into debt and financial difficulty, which suggested a lack of sufficient financial education. Again, we are up against inconsistency because the report also found that other than encouraging advice by personal advisers, nearly half of local authorities do not commission additional financial support. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has drawn attention to accumulation of debt, threats to their tenancies and their inability to avoid this through careful budgeting being issues of continuing concern to care leavers. Hence Amendment 38 and the proposal that “financial education” be included in the list of supported services included in local offers. I beg to move.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 30, 32, 40, 44, 46, 57 and 63, to which I have added my name. I support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who has, I think, given all the detail that the Committee needs. I spoke on this issue at Second Reading.
It is important for government and all who have responsibility for looked-after children to recognise that they could have unidentified or unmet communication needs. This unidentified or unmet need could prevent children and young people understanding and engaging with the changes to their lives that are being proposed and therefore they could struggle to have a meaningful input into those decisions. A lack of identification and consequent intervention for those with communication needs could lead to a range of negative outcomes in relation to their health and well-being, education and training, employment and participation in society. In addition, as shown in the statistics given at Second Reading, it could lead to their involvement in the criminal justice system, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has already told us.
Those of us debating this issue today have good communication skills. Most of us cannot imagine what it is like not only not to understand what is being proposed for our lives but to be totally unable to respond in a way that adequately reflects the turmoil and uncertainty that we feel inside. Looking into the eyes of a child while explaining the processes and outcomes for them may assist those dealing with the child to tell whether the information has been understood. However, it is not a very scientific test, and it will certainly not assist the child or young person to respond if they have communication problems. Access to properly trained speech and language therapists is essential to ensuring that these extremely vulnerable members of our society are able to have a voice. Unless such help is provided, I fear that we will see statistics showing an increase, not a decrease, in the number of care leavers suffering from poor mental health and becoming prevalent in the criminal justice system.
Listening to the voice of the child is paramount. Children have a right to express an opinion on their care. Those providing help for young people about to leave the care system must be able to assess their ability to read and digest the written word, as well as the financial implications for them. As we discussed last week, this is essential in ensuring that they are able to budget and manage their money so that they do not fall into debt or find themselves facing sanctioning from the jobcentre or eviction from their accommodation.
I hesitated to use the word “illiterate” in Amendment 40, as labels, once attached to people, are often very difficult to shake off. Care leavers do not need this added stigma. They need help to overcome their difficulties, with information provided in a format that they can access, whatever that may be.
Personal advisers for care leavers up to the age of 25 should be properly trained in identifying and helping to overcome the communication difficulties of the young people they advise. Without this, there will be a huge gap in the support they are able to provide. Will it be up to local government to ensure that adequate trained support is provided? This should not be a charge on the local council tax payer; it should be properly resourced and funded by central government via the NHS. If the Government are serious about assisting care leavers to make the best of their lives, they will ensure that the funding is made available to cover the costs. I hope the Minister will be able to give us a positive response on this group of amendments.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, as I am to all those who have taken part in the debate on this group. I must admit that I am always nervous when I hear the phrase “comprehensive legislation is in place” because it reminds me that we are serving under what has been called the “management complex”. It may be all very well for people in Whitehall to lay things down and think that it is comprehensive, but a word that came up over and over again at Second Reading, as it is doing during Committee, is “consistency”. It is not a matter of laying stuff down; it is a matter of seeing that it is delivered consistently everywhere.
What worries me about much of this—about Section 22 and SEN and so on—is that it is all very well as seen from here but it will not be good enough unless it is reflected on the ground. I have taken note of what the Minister has said and I will come back on Report with some examples of inconsistency—that is, where it is not happening on the ground. It is very important that officials realise that rather than merely issue the instructions.
I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, mentioned relationships. In young offender institutions where speech, language and communication therapists were introduced, the first thing that was noticed was an improvement in relationships. With that improvement, the whole atmosphere and the way that things were conducted in the institution improved. Somebody described it by saying that they were communicating with each other using the mouth rather than the fist. That was a pretty good basic description.
Had my noble friend Lord Northbourne been here, he would yet again express the concern he expressed to me that we hear an awful lot about corporate parenting but there is nothing about parenting skills themselves in this Bill. Those are hugely important, and at the basis of all the social work we are talking about. I am surprised that there is no mention of that in the Bill. I very much hope that may be rectified in government amendments that will install in the Bill some of the things the Government have assured us are in place. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s response and particularly for what he said about keeping an open mind and thinking further about the degree of the burden on local authorities from keeping in touch with and being proactive towards young people up to the age of 25. What he said about guidance on being proactive was very welcome. Are there currently issues regarding those up to the age of 21? Under the current duty, do local authorities express concern that the duty sometimes causes them to expend resources unnecessarily? Do young people feel a bit harassed by the current system? Otherwise, I am not clear why one should treat those over the age of 21 any differently from those under 21. If there are no current issues, I am not sure why it should be an issue to transfer the provision to under-25s. However, I am sure that that can be answered in subsequent discussions and, as I said, I am grateful to the Minister for his response.
Lord Ramsbotham
I noticed that the Minister has kindly arranged a meeting with Mr Brokenshire, the Minister in the Home Office responsible for immigration. Will the provisions in Clause 2 apply to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children until the moment they lose the right to remain and have to leave, with them then appealing?
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I shall speak briefly in favour of Amendments 75 and 135. It would be very helpful if there were a duty on the Secretary of State to address the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the way that the amendment describes. It would be helpful if there were child rights impact assessments for every piece of legislation—for instance, on the housing legislation that we have debated recently. Low-income families have suffered most in the recent years of austerity. We heard earlier about the closure of children’s centres, which are a vital tool in transforming the lives of these young people. It would be very helpful if central government were more aware of the impact of every piece of legislation on children and families, particularly poorer families. There was hardly any mention in the housing Bill of the impact of homelessness. There was some mention of families in temporary accommodation but I suggest that not nearly enough attention was paid to their needs.
Moving to Amendment 135, I was very interested to hear from the Leeds deputy director of children’s services four or five weeks ago. Leeds had been a struggling local authority in terms of children’s services but that was turned around, and he described the process. First and foremost, the foundation of the change was to consider the UNCRC—it was the very basis upon which the change was made. Leeds recognised that to improve children’s services it was necessary to look at all the children in the city and to think about how to improve their lives, listening to their needs and wishes to understand them better. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 135, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has already quoted from the 2016 report by the observers from the UN Human Rights Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was very damning. I want to draw attention to the fact that in 2008 there was an earlier damning report and the Government’s response to that in 2010 was to say that they would give due consideration to the rights of the child in all new legislation and policy. I have to say that there has been precious little sign of that, which worries me.
The other thing that worries me about this is the comment made by the noble Baroness about the inequality that exists in the observance of the rights of the child in the various parts of the United Kingdom, with England consistently lagging behind. I really think that this Bill is an opportunity to do something about this, and we ought to seize it.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I omitted to say that there seems to be a real issue in the United States, France and this country about a large section of the population feeling left out. The success of globalisation has in many ways simply left them behind. This would be one helpful measure to ensure that those at the bottom of the heap are better treated and feel better treated.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees
I must advise the Committee—rather unusually—that, if this amendment is agreed to, I shall be unable to call Amendments 2 to 28A for reasons of pre-emption.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
I will speak to Amendments 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19 and 20. I do not disagree at all with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. Indeed, I welcome the fact that she has spelled out a lot of the responsibilities on local authorities which were not present in the original Clause 1.
Before speaking to my amendments I would like to place on record that my request at Second Reading that Committee should be delayed so that we had the opportunity to prepare properly for it, rather than trying to complete all the procedures during the Recess, was not honoured. It has been a nightmare trying to get things done without the expert briefings that we are normally accustomed to, as well as meetings with Ministers, and trying to deal entirely by email with the Public Bill Office. I sincerely hope that the usual channels will note this and that in future we shall not be expected to come so ill-prepared into such an important bit of legislation.
My concerns about these amendments are not to do with the corporate parenting principles but are all built around the word “must” in Clause 1. As my noble friend Lord Bichard would have said, if he had been here, the whole point of setting out corporate parenting principles explicitly is to make those responsibilities explicit and leave those most affected in no doubt as to what their responsibilities are. My concern about Clause 1 as currently represented is that words such as “have regard to” can equally be “disregard”—and we do not want any of these principles disregarded. Therefore, I hope very much that the Government will consider altering the words rather than waiting until Report before having a vote. That applies to Amendment 6. Amendments 8, 11, 12, 13 and 15 remove the word “to”, which again makes the language if anything more robust rather than leaving anything to disregard.
I would also like at this stage to introduce the problems faced by children in the criminal justice system. My noble friend Lord Laming produced a masterly report called In Care, Out of Trouble, which I referred to at Second Reading. The duty on local authorities and their responsibilities must include the children in the criminal justice system. My noble friend in his report points out that one of the problems of not having clear instructions to local authorities is that you have inconsistency. For example, it is laid down that a child who is going to be placed after release should have that location confirmed to them at least 10 days before release—but all too frequently that information does not reach the child until the day of release, which makes it impossible to plan for a child’s engagement with education, employment or other services.
Therefore, I am calling for an acceptance that corporate principles are laid out and that the language should be robust, so that there is absolutely no doubt in the mind of local authorities as to where their responsibilities lie.
Lord Ramsbotham
I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, for raising that point because it informs what I was going to say about Amendment 9. I was going to explain what I meant, and that is the amendment on which to do it.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I agree with much of what has been said so far. I am looking at the end product—the child who will one day grow up to be a parent. We need to demonstrate all the skills necessary for that child to understand what parenting means. Perhaps all of us should become corporate parents as a way of making sure that, when young people grow up, they understand what parenting is. Many young people who go through sexual abuse and grooming misinterpret what love, understanding, nurturing and caring are about. So when we read every detail in these amendments, we should do everything possible to make sure that we get it right for the children because the end product is that one day they will become parents and grandparents.
Lord Ramsbotham
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, Amendment 2 is a probing amendment. After all the things that have been said about laying out too many details on what the responsibilities on local authorities are, I am conscious that by raising the question of relevant authorities I am also raising the spectre of spelling out what those relevant authorities may be. I am aware of the danger of being accused of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs but I plead that, in research carried out recently, it was discovered that only 17% of the community commissioning groups in this country realised that they had a responsibility for funding healthcare support for probation. Therefore, it is worthwhile considering whether the Bill should not include, at least in general terms, the partners whom the local authorities will need to consult and work with if they are going to achieve the aims set out in the corporate parenting list.
Who are they? They are children’s social care, mental health and health services commissioning bodies, the education services, the police and the criminal justice agencies. The purpose of my probing amendment is to find out how the Government intend to ensure the co-operation of other departments and agencies in the delivery of services for looked-after children. We look out at a silo-ridden world and one thing that has been pointed out in report after report on children’s services is the lack of consistency between local authorities, which therefore introduces a postcode lottery—which we cannot do. The aim of the Bill is to establish consistency and therefore I hope that, in spelling out the relevant partners in more detail, it may be possible to ensure that consistency by helping local authorities to set up a tick list, if you like, of who they ought to consult in looking after these children. I beg to move.
Lord Ramsbotham
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. Many issues have come up during the course of the debate, not least those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. I suspect that this subject will reoccur on Report and I hope very much that, unlike the period in the lead-up to Committee, it will be possible to have meetings with the Minister and his officials to discuss it. I suspect that at least the Local Government Association and local authorities will wish to be consulted on what actually appears in the Bill. So in the hope that that may happen—
Lord Ramsbotham
I am most grateful to the Minister. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ramsbotham
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, this is where I can offer an explanation to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, about what I am seeking in terms of prevention. The report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, was by no means the first to raise these concerns. What I am aiming at is not protection for children who commit serious offences, but protection for children in care whose minor offences would not attract police attention if they had been committed in a normal parental home. There is nothing new about this issue; it was the subject of a thematic inspection in 2012 by Ofsted and the Inspectorate of Probation, and was examined by the Justice Committee in another place in the same year. It was also the subject of a report by the Department for Education in 2013. Moreover, the National Police Chiefs Council identified this as a major problem and stated that every effort should be made to avoid the unnecessary criminalisation of children in care by making sure that the criminal justice system is not used for resolving issues that would ordinarily come under the umbrella of parenting.
The evidence produced by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, in his report about the importance of prevention through the operation of good parenting, whether corporate or natural, showed that the offending rate for looked-after children was six times higher than that for normal children, but that the rate of their movement into the criminal justice system was not inevitable, as was proved by some very good work undertaken in Surrey over four years which reduced the rate by 45%. That shows that it can be done through good joint working.
The Department for Education issued statutory guidance in 2015, which is generally sound, but the noble Lord, Lord Laming, has shown up once again that there is a lack of consistency—we come back to that vital word—in the way that the guidance is applied in local authorities up and down the country.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for these amendments —Amendment 9 regarding the unnecessary criminalisation of looked-after children and Amendments 14 and 28 concerning access to legal advice and representation for looked-after children. The first of the noble Lord’s amendments seeks to make it a requirement, linked to the principles, for local authorities and their relevant partners to prevent the unnecessary criminalisation of looked-after children. I understand why the amendment has been proposed and strongly agree that we must avoid children in care being unnecessarily criminalised. Local authorities should adopt a restorative approach wherever possible so that police intervention is viewed not as a first but a last resort. As noble Lords have said, children’s life chances can be badly affected by unnecessary involvement with the criminal justice system.
Existing guidance requires local authorities to have clear strategies in place to help protect and divert children from the justice system. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, in some areas the police, local authorities and children’s homes have worked very well together to ensure that restorative approaches are used wherever possible.
The framework of corporate parenting principles in the Bill already makes clear what it means for a local authority as a whole to act as a good parent. Good parents will not hesitate to safeguard their children from the risks of offending or involve the police unnecessarily. However, it is an important issue and we intend to cover it in the new statutory guidance that will underpin the principles. For instance, the guidance will stress the importance of co-operation and joint working between local authorities, the police, children’s homes and foster carers, and it will emphasise the importance of keeping a sense of proportion in relation to challenging behaviour.
The noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Warner, rightly raised a number of the very important issues highlighted by the Laming report. They will also be aware that Sir Martin Narey is currently carrying out a review of residential care which also looks at this issue in detail. In addition we have Charlie Taylor’s review of youth justice. All three of these reports and their findings will help and support us in developing guidance in this area and will give us a clear picture of other actions that we may need to take.
The noble Lord and the noble Baroness also proposed inserting a new corporate parenting principle to promote access to legal advice and representation for looked-after children. I agree that it is vital that we hear the voice of the child being cared for rather than simply treating them as part of an administrative process. Under the existing arrangements there are a number of adults who children in care can talk with and turn to. They include court-appointed guardians, their social worker and a named independent reviewing officer who will follow their case long term and can also advise the court.
Under the existing requirements, local authorities are required to make looked-after children aware of potential advocacy support to make representations or complaints, most significantly the advocacy services clause set out in Section 26A of the Children Act 1989, from which various pieces of guidance flow. An additional legislative clause is unlikely to impact further on either children’s or local authorities’ awareness. The associated statutory guidance will make clear that local authorities should consider how they can best listen to and hear from looked-after children and care leavers.
A number of noble Lords raised a range of issues relating to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The majority of these children will continue to receive support under the Children Act 1989 if they have a legal right to remain. Once that right is exhausted, they then get accommodation, subsistence and other social care support under the Immigration Act until they leave the UK. The Department for Education has been working closely with the Home Office to ensure that children receive appropriate support. However, in the light of the detailed points raised by noble Lords raised today, I would be very happy to arrange a further meeting to find out what has been happening. Given the depth of our discussions today, that would be better than me attempting to respond, not very well, to their points today.
I hope that on that basis the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, particularly for her closing remark because many noble Lords would welcome such a meeting. Although there has been mention of liaison between the Department for Education and the Home Office, it does not appear so in the legislation before us.
Once again I am very grateful to noble Lords who have spoken. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, was speaking, I was reminded of an inquiry I conducted into the unlawful killing of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who died on an aircraft. One of the witnesses who came before us was the Immigration Services Commissioner. She told us that one of her problems was trying to get some form of control over the people who were allegedly advising asylum seekers on their legal rights. She was looking for a job, as it were. She is an official; she is there. It seems to me that if anyone is going to get a grip on this, she will do so as someone already in the system with a responsibility to the asylum seekers who might be involved.
I absolutely agree that something needs to be done to co-ordinate all these activities. How the prevention is going to be done is probably by picking up good practice from somewhere and applying it to other places. I mentioned the work that has been done in Surrey, but it is not alone. As the noble Lord, Lord Warner, knows, there are many good things going on in various parts of the country that could be adapted with advantage. However, I have another concern over the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. An extremely good report on this was produced by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, which recommended that offenders should have their offending looked at at the age of 18 and that anything other than the most serious offence should be expunged so that they start with a clean slate. I have put forward a Private Member’s Bill and I hope to include that as priority number one.
I return to something the Minister said which gives me slight heebie-jeebies, which is that yet more statutory guidance is needed. I mentioned at Second Reading that there was concern over the number of Henry VIII clauses already in this Bill; we want to be very careful about adding yet more, not least in view of the remarks made previously by my noble and learned friend Lord Judge in the House. I hope that what comes out in the discussions that we will have between now and Report can lead to further consideration of these two very important issues and I look forward to taking part in them. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
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Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, last Thursday, in moving her Motion on the balance of power between the Government and Parliament, and the case for Parliament having full details of all legislation that it is asked to consider, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, introduced an issue that has already come up during our processing of this Bill. She said that there were,
“more provisions for the Secretary of State to use regulations than there are clauses in the Bill, including on issues that should be considered matters of significant policy”.—[Official Report, 9/6/16; col. 860].
Later in the same debate, my noble and learned friend Lord Judge, in addition to making some devastating comments about the increasing number of Henry VIII clauses in current legislation and highlighting the number of them in this Bill, asked,
“when are we going to actually achieve something before our ... arrangements disappear into some vague unknown future?”.—[Official Report, 9/6/16; col. 875].
Both their concerns were echoed in yesterday’s second report of the Constitution Committee, which commented on this Bill:
“We regret that, despite the concerns expressed in the past by this and other committees, the Government continues to introduce legislation that depends so heavily on an array of broad delegated powers”.
Also last Thursday, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child published a damning follow-up report to its previous damning report of 2008, warning that, despite some progress, the United Kingdom Government are not doing enough to prioritise children and give them the opportunity to fulfil their potential. In particular, it said that it is,
“seriously concerned at the effects that recent fiscal policies and allocation of resources have had”,
and that they are,
“disproportionately affecting children in disadvantaged situations”.
With others, I welcome the overall aim of this Bill, which addresses some of the deficiencies criticised by the UN committee. However, I firmly believe that the children’s social care system would be more effective if a whole-system approach was taken to safeguarding and promoting the well-being of children. As I have said many times about proposed improvements to the criminal justice system, further jaw-jaw about the promotion of children’s well-being is all very well, but when will we have war-war on the problems?
Before commenting on the content of the Bill, I would like to ask the Minister three questions about its timing. First, was any consideration given to delaying its publication until after the report from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child? To disregard it would seem both discourteous and unwise. Secondly, why has the Bill been published in advance of the Prime Minister’s promised life chances strategy that we are told is due later in the year? Surely the Bill could have been used to action some of that strategy.
My final question is, I know, beyond the Minister’s competence to answer. However, I ask him to bring it to the notice of the relevant authorities as a matter of urgency. The Companion states that a minimum interval of 14 days should be observed between Second Reading and the start of the Committee stage of a Bill. On this occasion, except for tomorrow, we will be in recess on every one of the mere 13 days that are being allowed. As there seems so little business on the agenda of the House, why this unseemly rush?
To add a purely selfish concern from these Benches, without the help of party offices, preparation for the Committee stage of a Bill, including the framing and tabling of amendments, takes individual Cross-Benchers such as myself a considerable amount of time, including attending organised briefings by experts from outside organisations, which are being denied to us. I submit that particularly for a Bill with such serious implications for vulnerable children, it is essential that working time is made available for us to prepare to do our constitutional duty and that it is totally unreasonable to expect noble Lords to be able to do that blind, in Grand Committee, on the day of our return.
Therefore, while welcoming the stated aims of the Bill, which demonstrate that the way between the Department for Education and this House is paved with good intentions, I admit to a number of concerns about its content, as I know do many others.
Many noble Lords will mention concerns about local offers and the need for the principles of corporate parenting to be extended to all organisations supporting children in care, so I will not do so. Nor will I repeat the many concerns that have been expressed to me about the Henry VIII clauses, Clauses 15 to 19. However, I give notice that I shall table stand part Motions to allow full discussion of them.
I declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language difficulties. Communication skills are central to a child’s development and educational achievement, and therefore life chances. They enable the child to understand and be understood.
The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, in welcoming the aim of the Bill, points out the importance of recognising that such children could have unidentified and/or unmet communication needs, which could prevent them understanding or engaging with the changes that the Bill proposes. Local authorities should be required to conduct mandatory assessments of special educational and speech, language and communication needs on a child’s entry into the care system and provide access to therapy to address identified communication needs, and I will be tabling amendments to that effect. But as the Minister knows, speech and language therapists come under the Department of Health, so cross-government direction will be needed.
The Bill also includes provision for relevant children under the age of 25. But the provision of the Home Office’s Immigration Bill 2016, on which this House has just spent a considerable time, specifically excludes unaccompanied and refugee children from services after they have turned 18. Furthermore, should they wish to appeal against compulsory deportation, they can now do so only from their country of origin. Two-thirds of these unaccompanied children are presently in foster care, in which the Bill makes others eligible to remain until they turn 21. In view of these apparent contradictions, has there been any liaison between the Department for Education and the Home Office regarding the plight of these doubly unfortunate children?
Finally, I mentioned the excellent report In Care, Out of Trouble, prepared by my noble friend Lord Laming for the Prison Reform Trust, about the prevention of children in care becoming involved with the criminal justice system. He recommends that a Cabinet sub-committee should be formed to provide national leadership in protecting looked-after children from unnecessary criminalisation, by ensuring that there is good joint working and proper regulation and policy development, across UK government departments, acting as an example to local government by:
“Commissioning and disseminating a cross-departmental concordat”,
requiring,
“local authorities, police and other relevant agencies to set and deliver locally agreed outcomes”.
Why not a similar Cabinet sub-committee covering children and social work, which is not to question the calibre or commitment of the admirable Children’s Minister, Edward Timpson MP?
Because, properly amended, this Bill could actually achieve something, I look forward to contributing to its processing, which I hope may begin later rather than sooner, to allow time for detailed preparation. We are bound to have an active Report stage, votes not being allowed in Grand Committee, but, from past experience, I know how fortunate we are that we shall be doing business with such a courteous, conscientious and receptive Minister.
Children: Drugs
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Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, on the point that has just been made, a former American drug chief, General McCaffrey, coined the phrase “Prevent tomorrow’s market” as the theme of all the education that should be given in schools, but he found that unfortunately there was a lack of skilled teachers who were able to make the point. Therefore, it is very important that any programme is accompanied by the resources; namely, the people who can actually get the point across. Is the Minister satisfied that there are sufficient people with the knowledge and ability to carry out that task in our schools?
Schools: Substance Abuse Education
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Lord Nash
It is true that figures show that alcohol abuse among young people of school age is down, but that may not be the case for those in their late teens or early 20s. On the noble Lord’s point about the private sector, we are trying to make sure that all state schools have an active extracurricular programme so that these kinds of extracurricular courses are well attended.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that drugs education is on the syllabus of young offender establishments? Although there may be treatment, there is not much evidence of education, which is just as important.
Cadet Units in Schools
Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, and thank him for obtaining this debate. I also congratulate him on his leadership of the CVQO, which I know is much appreciated.
I make no apologies for diverting slightly, but the noble Lord mentioned the youth justice system. Recently the Secretary of State for Justice announced that he wants to put education at the heart of the youth justice system. I therefore feel that there is a connection between the subject of this debate and what is wanted in the youth justice system. I will explain some of the things that have happened in the past which give me encouragement to speak like this. Before I do so, I join the salute to the noble Lord, Lord Astor, for all he has done, and say how welcome that letter was. I cannot believe that it resulted from anything other than a great deal of work on his behalf, so I thank him for that.
When I took over as Chief Inspector of Prisons in 1995, very soon afterwards the then Home Secretary told me that he wanted to impose what he called a “boot camp regime” based on what he had seen in America. He thought that the only place where he might find that was in the military prison at Colchester. I told him that that military prison was not a prison—it was the Military Corrective Training Centre and that it had two parts: one was a sort of resettlement prison, returning people to civilian life, and the other gave a second start to people who had made a bad start in their careers. They therefore did basic training again, which resulted in an 84% success rate. Indeed, the MCTC counts 11 regimental sergeant majors among its successes.
One of the very interesting facts about the population of the MCTC was that virtually none of the people who came through that programme had ever been in the cadets. Having been in a regiment which strongly supported the cadets and indeed welcomed people with cadet experience because they had had, as it were, a flying start to their regimental career, I was very interested in that. Therefore one of the things I hoped was that, as a result of the experience of sending young offenders to the MCTC—where they grew up amazingly and responded to military discipline in a way which was immediately recognised by their parents, quite apart from their instructors—perhaps a cadet force might be formed in a young offender institution. Indeed, one was started at Feltham. It has not taken off as well as it might, but I suspect that that is as much because of lack of encouragement rather than lack of opportunity.
Recently, there was the idea of setting up, for instance, a secure foundation, which is a local area responsibility in a one-hour radius by public transport for young offenders. Incidentally, all the local councils, in seeking what the place should do, all wished a cadet force to be part of the curriculum because of what it offered the young people. Therefore, my plea to the Minister is that he should contact his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, commend to them that the military ethos in schools programme should be extended to young offender institutions, because it clearly works, and do all that he can to encourage this. You never know, out of the youth justice system we might rescue some people for the Armed Forces, quite apart from anything else, and nothing has a better track record of dealing with young people and building up their self-esteem than the cadet force.
Early Years Intervention
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Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and thank her for obtaining the debate. I also pay tribute to her for the informed, determined and far-sighted way in which she chairs the all-party children group. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, in paying tribute to Heather Evennett for her excellent Library Note. Finally, I pay tribute to the Minister who, ever since he has taken up his post, has made himself available to those of us who wish to discuss developments with him. I am particularly grateful for the provision of education, health and care plans for those in young offender institutions, which I know he is responsible for.
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, mentioned SkillForce, with which I have been associated ever since it began as a project in the MoD. While observing the children looked after by SkillForce, and during my time as Chief Inspector of Prisons, I began to wonder how the children who appeared in the criminal justice system had got there, and what could be done to prevent them entering it. That led me on to the two hobby-horses which I intend to ride for the remainder of my contribution.
First, communication skills were referred to persuasively by my noble friend Lord Sutherland. I discovered that an awful lot of people in young offender institutions were simply unable to communicate and, of course, if they failed to communicate, you did not know what was wrong with them. By trialling the use of speech and language therapists in those institutions, we discovered that a great deal could be done. However, that in turn led to the conclusion that if this process had been started far earlier in these young people’s lives, they would not face the prospect of entering the criminal justice system at the age of 15.
I chair the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties, which published a report on the link between speech, language and communication needs and social deprivation, which is the subject of this debate. Some of our conclusions have already been referred to in the debate—for example, a talented child from a poor background will be overtaken by a less talented child from a privileged background unless something is done to identify, nurture and develop their talents. We strongly recommended that every child’s communication needs should be assessed before the age of two. Indeed, that is happening in some parts of the country. It is being done by health visitors who are trained by speech, language and communication therapists. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, what is needed is co-ordination so that this happens across the country. Good practice needs to be identified and become common practice everywhere. As the noble Lord, Lord Winston, mentioned, people change and therefore an assessment is needed not just at the age of two; rather, a programme of assessments is needed throughout these young people’s childhoods because their circumstances and conditions will change.
The second thing I want to say links up with what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said about the adolescent brain. I have been fascinated by the question of nutrition, and declare an interest as the vice-chairman of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour. We have done work in schools and prisons that found that correct nutrition leads to a reduction in bad behaviour. More than that, Professor Michael Crawford has carried out a great deal of work on the importance of nutrition on the unborn. If I have one request to the Minister, it is for education on nutrition, particularly for girls, to be included in schools and young offender and other institutions so that they may prevent some of the problems that we have been talking about being developed by the as yet unborn.
Employment: Young People
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Lord Nash
I am grateful for my noble friend’s comments. Of course, we have involved employers greatly in the redesign of the curriculum, particularly, for instance, in computing. The involvement of employers in the syllabus and the curriculum of UTCs is central to that programme. I can see that this company would be a very good conduit for employers to make detailed comments to us about the context of the curriculum.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, as the Minister was speaking I could not help reflecting on the late, lamented Donaldson report, which was so surprisingly rejected by the previous Government. I seem to remember that it suggested that a valuable service would be provided if some census could be made of skills needs and skills shortages by industry, which could then be passed on to the education world so that the two could be matched. Can the Minister say whether such a census might be made a responsibility of the new company?
Social Justice Strategy
Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, among the customs of this House that I hope will never be changed are the courtesies around the making of maiden speeches. The inevitably nervous speaker is encouraged to pay due and richly deserved tribute to our wonderful staff and no one is allowed to move in or out of the Chamber until the courtesies are completed by someone both welcoming and responding to the speaker. As I reflected on this happy opportunity, I noticed many parallels between the path of the right reverend Prelate to this House and that of my father, who as the Bishop of Wakefield made his maiden speech on a similar subject to today’s.
The first time I went to the right reverend Prelate’s lovely cathedral in Ely was as a student at Cambridge when I attended the installation of one of his distinguished predecessors, Bishop Noel Hudson, a great friend of my father’s. Bishop Noel had a very keen sense of humour. With the invitation he included an Osbert Lancaster cartoon of two bishops in full fig filling in a football coupon during the Church Assembly, one saying to the other, “Cave Basingstoke, the Arch is looking”.
Before being ordained, the right reverend Prelate taught at Glenalmond, where one of my brothers was educated. He was ordained in Durham Cathedral and spent the first 20 years of his ministry in the diocese of Durham, including two years as the Archdeacon of Durham. My father was the Bishop of Jarrow and Archdeacon of Auckland for eight years, living beside that incomparable building. Although Bishop Stephen’s time as Bishop of Ramsbury was nearer to mine on Salisbury Plain during my Army service, I note that since his installation he has been on a mission to southern India, where my father was sent in 1952, resulting in a succession of Indian archdeacons living with us in Durham during their return visits.
This has been a notable week for the Church of England in the House, with the legislation for the ordination of women bishops on Tuesday and now the right reverend Prelate’s outstanding maiden speech during this important debate. I think he has given a very clear indication that not only does he know and care a great deal about social justice, but he will make an important contribution to the work of the House. So, on behalf of all Members, I most warmly congratulate him and hope that we will have the pleasure and privilege of hearing much more from him in the future.
I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, on obtaining this debate and pay tribute to her work in this area. I also thank Maxine James for her extremely helpful Library Note.
I must admit that I always cringe when I hear Ministers and officials talk about strategy, because if the absence of a national security strategy is anything to go by, too little coherence of thought and action in too much of what passes for government policy seems to be the norm in Whitehall. I always remember being chastised by a civil servant in the Home Office for banging on about strategy. She said, “We don’t need strategy; all we need is strategic direction”. I said, “What do you mean by that?”. She said, “Top-down, of course”, and I said, “Well, that explains why we’re in such a mess”. Therefore, I have to admit to being much heartened by seeing the remarks of the Secretary of State, Iain Duncan Smith, about the Social Justice: Transforming Lives strategy—incidentally, he was once a subaltern in the Scots Guards under my command in Belfast. When he launched the strategy, he said that,
“we cannot conduct our social policy in discrete parts”,
with different parts of government working on discrete issues in isolation. He said that strategy had to have a “fundamental vision” and “driving ethos”, without which it would be “narrow”, “reactive” and unworkable. As a result, a Cabinet committee for social justice had been set up to ensure that all government departments drove forward the aims of the strategy.
At least, that was the intent, but I have to say that I am singularly unhappy that that intent is not being realised. I agree with the five principles of the intent: the focus on prevention and early intervention, so wisely spoken to by my noble friend Lord Northbourne; the concentration on recovery and independence, not maintenance; promoting work as the most effective route out of poverty; most effective solutions being designed and delivered at local level; and interventions providing a fair deal for the taxpayer. Nobody can argue with those, but I worry about how they are being turned into an outcome.
I want for a moment to concentrate on three of the seven key indicators of those principles, because they are those about which I know most. Key indicator 2 is to see an increase over time in the extent to which children from disadvantaged households achieve the same educational outcomes as their more advantaged peers. I am, among other things, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speech and Language Difficulties. We did a report 18 months ago on the link between social disadvantage and speech, language and communication needs. I was inspired to do that by my firm belief that the only raw material that every nation has in common is its people—woe betide it if it does not do everything to identify, nurture and develop the talents of all its people, because if it does not, it has only itself to blame if it fails. Right at the start of all that is the need to enable all our children to communicate and engage with their developer or teacher. The fact is that in too many families, or what pass as families around the country now, there is precious little communication between child and parent or whichever adult happens to be there, with the result that they cannot communicate and engage. Therefore, as the Minister will recollect from our discussions during various education Bills, one thing that I have been very keen to see is every child having their communication ability tested and assessed before they are two. It has been discovered that that is the wisest age to do it. The test can be carried out very simply by a health visitor who has been trained by a speech and language therapist. Armed with that ability to communicate, children have some hope of engaging with education but without it there is no further progress.
However, it does not stop there. At all stages of a child’s development up to the time of leaving school, their ability to communicate with the next stage must be assessed. It is interesting, as I have found going round the country that, for example, in Walsall, people tested at secondary school were found to have had slipped through the net at primary school and were not able to go on. Similarly, we found people at the end who could not communicate with employers.
This assessment must happen. It cannot just happen if the Department of Health is left to do the initial assessment. All sorts of other ministries are involved. There is the Department for Education, of course. There is the Department for Communities and Local Government, too, because a lot of this depends on local delivery. Unless there is a proper driving of this strategy to make certain that this happens, it seems that it will not happen. It will fall through the cracks of the discrete operations of individual ministries.
The second key indicator I focus on is key indicator 3, to reduce the,
“percentage of young offenders who go on to re-offend”.
One thing mentioned is the provision of gang advisers in Jobcentre Plus offices. I know very well one of these remarkable gang advisers, a man called Junior Smart. He was himself a pretty good villain and he has employed a number of similar villains to work under the St Giles Trust in one of the toughest parts of London. When I spoke to Junior the other day, he said, “I wish people would stop demonising everything about gangs. What you must remember is that, for many of these unfortunate children, the gang is the family. They have nothing else. Therefore, we must use our work to recreate the family part of what the gang is doing and hope we can eliminate the others”. I thought that was very wise.
One thing that worries me is that, currently, the Government have embarked on a complete negation of all common sense about the treatment of young offenders—ie, the establishment of what they call a secure college in the middle of Leicestershire for 320 12 to 17 year-olds. The truth is, as everyone knows, that the present cohort of children in there is particularly disadvantaged. The people who are less disadvantaged have, thanks to the good work of the Youth Justice Board, been got out of custody. You are left now with the most troubled and damaged. Some 50% have been in care and 80% have some form of mental health problem, including a multiplicity of personality disorders. They have all been absent from some form of school for one reason or another for at least two years. They all come from chaotic and dysfunctional families. The last place they should be is in a large, impersonal institution where they have very little hope of developing the crucial relationship with a responsible adult which is the key to getting them out of this.
I am very worried that the Ministry of Justice is launching on a route that is clearly at variance with the fourth principle listed in the strategy—namely, that most effective solutions are designed and delivered at local level. It has long been known that the three things most likely to encourage the prevention of reoffending are a home, a job and a stable relationship—what used to be called “family” but you cannot call it that now in every case. All of those are put at risk by imprisonment, and there is no group for whom it is worse than children, particularly vulnerable children. I wish that instead of launching this £78 million venture, which still has so much to be proved about it, the Government would set about improving the criminal justice system. I briefly mention four elements.
First, there is the diversion scheme, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. I pay huge tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, for his work on this, because if it is rolled out nationally, it will make an enormous difference: diverting children into proper treatment, particularly mental health treatment, rather than into custody. Secondly, we need vast improvements to the provision of work in the community, which involves not just the Ministry of Justice; it involves the Home Office, the Department for Education, the Department of Health, the Department for Communities and Local Government and, of course, the DWP. If only there were better work in the community for those children, how much better might their future be? Custody needs to be improved; no one would argue with that. There are too many in there and they are not receiving the right treatment. Finally, there is the all-important transition back into the community which, again, requires every ministry to work together.
Those two particulars are currently needed even more than when the Secretary of State launched his strategy in 2012. Although the intent was there, what worries me is that I do not see the concerted effort of the Government to acknowledge that the principles enunciated to enable those things to happen—and for the disadvantaged people whose lives are put at risk by what is not happening—are not being improved in the way that they should be.