Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Warner Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Warner
“Regulation of social workers: General Social Work Council
(1) Her Majesty must by Order in Council set up a body to be known as the General Social Work Council, for the purpose of regulating social workers in England.(2) The General Social Work Council is to have responsibility for the following matters—(a) keeping a register of social workers and of people who are undertaking education or training to become social workers;(b) restrictions on practising social work and using titles related to social work;(c) professional standards in relation to social work;(d) education and training for social workers and those training to be social workers;(e) discipline of social workers and fitness of social workers to practise;(f) appointing advisers on the regulation of social workers;(g) the publication and sharing of information relating to the regulation of social workers;(h) cooperation with other bodies in respect of the regulation of social workers;(i) the charging of fees in connection with the regulation of social workers;(j) advising the Secretary of State on the creation of offences related to the regulation of social workers; and(k) consultation about the regulation of social workers.”
Lord Warner (Non-Afl)
My Lords, Amendment 135B seeks to replace the existing Clause 20 and much of Part 2 of the Bill with a new clause that establishes a new general social work council as an independent regulator of social workers accountable to Parliament through the Privy Council. This amendment needs to be seen alongside Amendment 135C, which seeks to set up a new social work improvement agency, and will be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It is no accident that both these amendments have the same names attached to them. We all start from a totally different position from that of the Government on social work regulation and improvement, as I think was very clear at the briefing meeting on Part 2 held last week. That is why I enlisted the help of the clerks in producing this amendment, and I am very grateful to them for their efforts.
The purpose of Amendment 135B is twofold. First, it would separate the work of regulating social workers from improving their development. Secondly, it would make the regulation of the social work profession independent of Ministers, as is the case with all other health and care professions. Under Part 2, the regulatory and improvement functions are combined. I think this totally misunderstands the function of profession regulators, who are there to protect the public by setting and upholding standards of conduct and competence, controlling entry to the profession and taking action in response to concerns about conduct and competence. Regulators are not there to secure improvement to a profession’s training, practice or continuing development. Those functions are for others. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others will say more about this second role when we come to the next amendment. All I would say now is that muddling these two separate roles is highly likely to produce a muddled and less-effective regulator. The former General Social Care Council, before its abolition by the coalition Government, was criticised for having an unclear remit covering both regulatory and improvement functions. A review of the Nursing and Midwifery Council in 2012 by the Professional Standards Authority criticised that council for increasingly seeing,
“its role as supporting the development of nurses and midwives beyond ‘fitness to practise’ and so had strayed into trying to provide a broader professional leadership role”.
Combining regulatory functions with those of professional development distracts people from the main purpose of a regulator, which is to protect the public by upholding standards. With the Bill in its present form, the Government are doing just that. They are repeating the failings of the General Social Care Council, which they abolished, and are not learning the lessons from the regulator oversight work of the Professional Standards Authority. The likely outcome is muddle and delay in the important fitness-to-practise work of a regulator that protects the public from unsatisfactory professionals.
The other major shortcoming of Part 2 of the Bill, as drafted, is that it could well lead to the Secretary of State exercising direct control over social workers. This can only jeopardise their professional independence and lead to a loss of public and judicial confidence in the independence of social workers. They could quickly be seen as agents of the state. This interpretation can most easily be avoided by the new regulatory body being independent of government but accountable to Parliament through the Privy Council. This amendment does just that, and has the added advantage that it avoids removing social workers’ regulation from the oversight of the Professional Standards Authority and retains the position it shares with other care professions. This will ensure the effectiveness of the regulation of social workers.
I recognise that the same effect could be achieved by keeping the regulation of social workers under the aegis of the Health and Care Professions Council, which would certainly be a little less disruptive and would avoid the cost of change. However, I can see the merits of the Government providing social workers with their own regulator and that that might enhance the standing of social work. The amendment provides for this. I hope the Government can see the force of the arguments for separating the functions of regulation and improvement, and for separating the governance of the regulator from too close a relationship with the Secretary of State. I hope it will be seen by the Government and the Minister as a reasonable compromise. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, I have to inform the Committee that if Amendment 135B is agreed to, I cannot put the question that Clause 20 stand part of the Bill by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Nash
I will come to that. In its totality of standards, there is very little which is focused on or particularly salient to social work education. The current regulatory model also does not focus on setting professional standards for post-qualification practice. This sets social work at odds with other professions, such as nursing and midwifery, and the current model sets requirements around continuous professional development which are generic and applicable to all the professions that the HCPC regulates. We believe there is clear scope for improvement, and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, agrees.
Lord Warner
Everything that the Minister said seemed to relate to social workers in the services for which his department is responsible. Is he saying that all these same considerations apply to social workers who work with adults? If he is, let us see the evidence. None of us has seen this evidence, and I have certainly not heard that there are these kinds of concerns about social workers who work with adults in a co-operative and increasingly joined-up way with the NHS.
Lord Warner
What expertise does the DfE have in relation to the work and performance of social workers working with adults? The Minister has no responsibility for that. His officials have no knowledge or responsibility for this area. Where is the evidence? Does this come from the Department of Health? Where has it come from?
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I did not get an answer to my question about which Secretary of State it would be. Strangely enough, although Clause 21 refers to “Secretary of State” in the singular, in his response the Minister talked about Secretaries of State. Will he clarify whether we are talking about the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Health in agreement? If so, what will happen if they do not agree?
Lord Nash
As I said earlier, the recent report by the DPRRC agreed that it was not inappropriate for the Government to place the regulation of social workers in subordinate legislation, despite the width of powers being conferred. In respect of our ambition to establish a bespoke regulator of social workers, we believe that delegated legislation remains the most appropriate vehicle for a number of reasons. These include the level of operational detail in the establishment and transfer of regulatory arrangements, the need to regularly review matters such as professional standards, and the mechanics of operating a professional register, all of which, in our view, point to the need to make appropriate use of secondary legislation.
In closing, I reiterate that reforms are needed as quickly as possible. I believe that our approach can ensure a new system of regulation for social workers—designed in partnership with the profession—which is transparent and has the flexibility to meet the needs of this vital profession both now and in the future.
I hope that the safeguards and governance arrangements that I have set out, the commitment to wide-ranging consultation with the sector and a clear point of review will provide the necessary reassurance that the proposed model of regulation is fit for purpose. In view of this, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his amendment and agree that these clauses should stand part of the Bill.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I listened to the Minister with increasing disbelief and I think that many Members sitting on this side of the Room did as well. I do not really know where to start, other than to say that I am totally unconvinced by his arguments. He and his department simply do not understand the difference between improvement and regulation, and I shall take up one or two points.
He said that fitness-to-practise decisions will be taken by experts on behalf of the regulator. That is what he said. But the regulator takes the decisions—that is why the regulator is set up. It is not some other set of experts but the regulator who takes the decision on fitness to practise, which effectively is often a decision to stop someone’s livelihood as a professional. That is why it is very important.
I found some of what the Minister said extraordinarily strange. He is asking us to take it on trust that there will be a set of consultation arrangements with the professions and all these interests if we just give him the powers in the Bill. That is the nub of what he is saying: “It will all be alright on the night because we are good guys and will consult people”. I might be more trusting of that if I had seen some evidence that the Minister and his department had consulted all these interests before coming forward with this Bill. In my view, one of the best predictors of future behaviour is past behaviour, and I do not see much sign that evidence has been put to the profession. There might have been a chat between the chief social worker and a few trustees out there, but to many of us it does not look like much more than that.
I am astonished that the Department for Education, of its own mere motion, is taking responsibility for the regulation and improvement of social workers who work with adults. There is a major machinery-of-government issue and my starting point is to go to the Cabinet Secretary and ask whether proper processes have taken place within government between these two departments. From the evidence I have seen and heard so far, they have not.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I do not intend to repeat the arguments of the previous debate, but I will pick up two things that are relevant to improvement. First, on my noble friend’s point about integration, those of us who are mainly health orientated find it quite extraordinary that at a time when health and social care are increasingly being integrated, adult social care regulation is being taken away from a health and care regulatory function and being put under the auspices of the Secretary of State for Education, who clearly has no remit or interest in adult social care.
It is well known that the Department of Health opposed the changes. As happens in the machinery of government, in the end it was forced to give way, but this is clearly a department that knows very little about the world outside education, that makes policy on the hoof and that has made a quick decision to legislate. This is clearly a cut and paste job given to parliamentary counsel at very short notice. We have here the makings of a complete shambles, which we know will end up in tears if allowed to go ahead. Everyone on this side of the House—we have huge experience in this area—knows that this is a shambles, a debacle in the making.
The more I hear the Minister, the more I agree with him on the issue of improving standards. There is no disagreement on the broad principles, it is simply that his department has confused regulation with improvement. It keeps insisting that they can be done together. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, said that the Professional Standards Authority has expertise and experience, and, of course, it does. I take him back to the evidence we received a few days ago about the importance of separating the roles of regulation and improvement. He said that the role of the investigative agency was to set and improve standards. What the PSA says is:
“Regulators are responsible for protecting the public by setting and upholding standards of conduct and competence, controlling entry to the profession and taking action in response to concerns about conduct or competence”.
On professional development and improvement, it says:
“Professional bodies, such as Colleges, are generally responsible for improvements to education, training, professional practice and continuing professional development”.
The Minister is consistently talking about the latter responsibilities, not about regulation. I have a low-cost solution, which is to focus on the improvement agenda, which we are all behind. I take his point about what happened in the past. I understand the tensions there between a statutory improvement agency and the role of BASW.
I thought that the Education Select Committee’s report was helpful in this regard. It set out what it believed should be the functions of a new professional social work body and said that it should:
“Be a ‘broad church’ that represents a diverse workforce of social workers in a range of settings … Provide high profile leadership and a national voice for the profession which explains what social work is and what social workers do … Make the profession an attractive choice by building a professional identity and culture … Defining the continuing professional development and post-qualifying pathway for all social work … Promote practice excellence … Shape and influence national and local policy and … Build good working relationships with the Government”.
It is a remarkably good report and I cannot disagree with it.
The report then says:
“We recommend that the Government facilitate the development of a professional body for social work, working in partnership with … (BASW), other social worker representatives and the wider sector”.
That seems perfectly sensible. Why do the Government not just do that? We would support it. I have no problems with the Secretary of State having oversight of such a body, so all that the Government need to do is to say that they will leave regulation to the HCPC and get on with the vital job of leadership and improvement. The Minister would have our support and he would not disrupt the profession with these really ludicrous proposals to take a low-cost, well-functioning regulatory system away from the HCPC, which his Government and that department put in place only three or four years ago. I beg to move.
Lord Warner
My Lords, my name is on this amendment, which is probably bad news for the Minister, and I support what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said. I want to add a couple of points on setting up a new unit by coming back to the issue of the Department of Health and adult social workers. It needs to be a unit which would deal with both groups of social workers, which means it needs some machinery that represents the interests of both the Department of Health and the Department for Education. I still see no really convincing evidence that it has been thought through in terms of those departments working together on something to benefit the range of social workers—those who work with children and those who work with adults. If we were to go down this path, there would have to be an agency or unit. I do not think one would mind what it is but it would have to be a convincing agency that looked across the spectrum of social work with children and adults.
I also want to pick up on some of the Minister’s comments in the discussion on my Amendment 135B. At the end of the day, if the Minister has all this money and wants to get on quickly—he said that he had the money and wants to get on speedily with the job of improving social work—then I would say, having been a Minister in government, that the fastest way to do that, as some of us have done, is to set up some kind of grouping across the piece. It would include the types of social workers for adults and children, and all the outside interests. The Minister could almost do that before the autumn and before we come to this on Report. At a later stage, that could be turned into an executive agency if he wanted to do that. There is nothing to prevent the Government putting in place very quickly indeed something of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested if they have the money and the capability. If they have those then they should do it; they do not even have to ask Parliament.
If the Government want to improve some of the training requirements for social workers, they could also have a conversation with the HCPC, which will be looking at education in September. It has committed to that as part of its work programme. I am sure that any regulator in this area would always listen to a government department or the Government of the day and consider the evidence for change.
If the Minister is really in a hurry and wants to take people with him, why does he not use what is available now, get on and have a discussion with the HCPC and set up a unit jointly with the Department of Health to do as much improving and make as many changes as he wants? Why are we all being subjected to, and spending some of the best years of our lives discussing, the shambles that is Part 2 of this Bill? It is a sad waste of parliamentary time and I do not think that it is terribly good for the profession, which is being subjected to a lot of uncertainty when it needs more confidence and more certainty. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Minister can see that there are some merits in the approaches of the two amendments.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I was attracted to putting my name to Amendments 135B and 135C because of their cleanliness and simplicity, and the fact that they picked up all the points that had been made in the Government’s policy statement, Regulating Social Workers, which was published last month. There was nothing missing. Furthermore, what the amendments proposed was independent and objective, and therefore they were likely to attract the support of the profession.
I could not help reflecting on two things. One was that when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, when I inspected a prison that had an under-18 wing the social services were responsible for under-18s at that time, so I took a social services inspector with me. She said that if it had been a secure children’s home, it would have been closed because of the lack of facilities. Those facilities were then under the direction of the Home Office, which claimed to be responsible for young people in custody. That has always suggested to me that government should not get close to the delivery of these things.
The second thing, which I admit struck me as strange, was on page 19 of the Regulating Social Workers report. One paragraph says:
“Ministers will lead on issues such as setting standards and delivery of responsive improvement programmes to raise the calibre and status of the profession”.
The next paragraph says:
“While Ministers retain ultimate responsibility, decisions will be kept at arm’s length”.
How can you lead at arm’s length? It struck me that there was considerable confusion in all this and that therefore the Government can consider the clarity of Amendments 135B and 135C as helping them to deliver what they want. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, we all want improvement as quickly as possible, and I think that the profession does as well. We appear to be in the mire of confused thinking, which could be avoided by withdrawing from it.
Lord Nash
My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said about how we are apparently wasting everybody’s time, I will try to be brief, but I shall deal with his first point about the involvement of the DoH. The two departments have been working very closely together and will continue to do so. I have two officials from the DoH here today, and both departments will be involved in the governance.
Amendment 135C seeks to establish a new social work improvement agency under the auspices of the Government which will have responsibility for promoting the highest standards of practice, conduct, education and training and professional development. I understand the intention that this new agency would work in partnership with an independent regulator to raise standards across the social work profession.
As noble Lords will be aware, regulators traditionally have three key roles: first, to set and maintain standards; secondly, to control entry to the profession; and, thirdly, to take action in response to concerns raised about registrants. These functions are distinct from the quality improvement activities commonly carried out by a professional body or college. We understand the concerns that have been raised by the sector and the Professional Standards Authority about conflating regulatory and improvement functions in the one organisation. We agree that the blurring of these functions can lead to conflicting and competing priorities, and can leave regulators open to accusations of marking their own homework.
Let me be clear: we do not intend to set up a regulator that also doubles as an improvement agency, nor are we setting up a professional body. The agency, however, will have a remit that goes beyond simply setting minimum standards for public protection. Just as the GMC standards define good medical practice, so the standards of the new regulator will seek to set out what constitutes good social work practice rather than what is just acceptable. Social work requires an approach that goes beyond the traditional safety net role of professional regulation. Social workers take critical and complex decisions in high-risk environments on a daily basis. Therefore, it is only right that regulation is focused on ensuring that all social workers have the knowledge and expertise to not only be fit to practise but to be able to practise well. We make no apologies about this.
Unfortunately, the social work profession has been unable to sustain a professional body to support the work of a regulator in raising standards. Most other healthcare professionals are supported by strong professional bodies which take an active role in quality improvement, supporting and completing the work of the regulator. The Government have invested significantly —over £8 million, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred—in the College of Social Work to address this gap. However, the College of Social Work was unable to attract the membership required to make it financially sustainable.
The Government understand that the development of a strong professional body is important to raise the status and standing of the profession in the long term. The Government cannot do this alone. An organisation that can articulate the views and interests of social workers and complement the work of the regulator is needed. However, our recent experience with the failed College of Social Work makes clear that this is for the profession to develop, own and maintain. We are not asking the agency to also perform this role. We are happy to continue to talk to the sector about whether it can establish its own body but, as I say, it must be developed and maintained by the sector.
As I set out previously, to bring about the reforms needed the social work profession needs a bespoke regulator with an absolute focus on raising the quality of social work education, training and practice and setting new and more specific standards. Alongside improvements to the regulatory system we will, of course, continue to invest in supporting the profession. The new agency will have a wider regulatory remit than traditional regulators and will go beyond minimum standards. It will do this through the setting of specific and higher standards.
The reforms that are needed to practice standards cannot be addressed through the development of an improvement agency. To allow us to rapidly deliver improvements and to embed the new regulatory system, the regulator will set new tougher standards for initial qualification, focus on professional standards for post-qualification, set new standards for continuous professional development, maintain a single register of social workers and oversee a fitness-to-practise hearing system, to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Pitkeathley and Lady Pinnock, have referred.
I can assure noble Lords that the Government do not intend to set up an agency with dual and conflicting roles. The new regulator will ensure that all social workers have the knowledge and expertise needed not only to be fit to practise but to be able to practise well. I hope the arguments I have set out will give the noble Lord the confidence to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Warner
Perhaps I may take the Minister back to his opening remarks, which were meant to reassure me because he had a couple of Department of Health officials behind him. However, the Minister is not taking seriously the machinery of government issue.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Warner Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Warner (Non-Afl)
Will the Minister think about a very simple question? If you take powers to bring things up to national level and away from local level, I suggest that you then have an obligation to monitor what happens to the output from that new national body and to account yourself for whether anything has been implemented. Can the Minister explain to the Committee a little more about how that aspect of all this is going to work?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, in this group Amendments 105, 107, 108, 109, 109A and 110 concern places of detention, serious child safeguarding cases and serious harm. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Baroness Walmsley, for these amendments. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for his very encouraging opening remarks—but I understand that the new Prime Minister will not be in No. 10 until Wednesday evening, so noble Lords will probably have to put up with us at least until then.
Before I turn to these amendments, I confirm that I would be delighted to convene a meeting to give noble Lords more detail on the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel. A meeting was specifically requested at our last Committee session by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but the invitation obviously extends to all noble Lords.
I will begin with Amendments 105, 107 and 110 concerning places of detention. I had hoped that I had reassured noble Lords about the independence of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel at the end of the last Committee sitting—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who raised these concerns. As I said then, the establishment of a strong, independently operating national panel is essential. Because of its independence, the panel will have the autonomy to use its judgment about the circumstances in which it deems it necessary to carry out a national review, although we intend to provide guidance that will aid its decision-making in this regard. I assure the noble Lord that we will take particular care to reflect on the importance of children held in detention, and to consider carefully the ways in which the guidance for the panel reflects not just the deaths of children, but children who have been abused or neglected.
The existing 2015 statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, sets out that a serious case review should always be carried out when a child dies in custody, in police custody, on remand or following sentencing in a young offender institution, a secure training centre or a secure children’s home. The same applies where a child dies who was detained under the Mental Health Act. We will want to consider carefully how any new guidance produced for the panel takes this into account, bearing in mind the panel’s basic functions of the panel.
On Amendment 109A, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that anyone may notify the panel of serious events in institutional settings, or indeed of such events in any place. Clause 13, as drafted, deals with requirements on local authorities but does not prevent others making direct notifications. In respect of the proposal to add a specific reference to guidance, I assure the noble Lord that Clause 12 already provides for the panel to have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State in respect of its functions, and Clause 13 provides the same in respect of local authorities’ duty to notify. We will make it clear that others may notify the panel of events directly.
I now turn to Amendments 108 and 109. Amendment 108 seeks to add to the definition of serious child safeguarding cases by including specific reference to cases where physical injuries or harm are caused by unlawful or abusive restraint in any institutional setting. Amendment 109 seeks to broaden the scope of the definition of serious harm to include both ill treatment and the impairment of physical health. I agree entirely with the premise behind the amendments. However, inevitably, any such definitions cannot be exhaustive and include all circumstances, or cover all settings within which children might suffer injury or harm.
The definition in Clause 12 of serious child safeguarding cases includes reference to children who have been seriously harmed. This is based on the definition set out in the current safeguarding statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, which was drawn up following consultation last year. The definition of serious harm includes the factors stated in subsection (9). The wording proposed is not intended to cover all scenarios. Great consideration was given to the factors to be included in the definition of both serious child safeguarding cases and serious harm for the purposes of the clause. It will be for the panel to consider each case in line with these definitions to identify serious child safeguarding cases and determine what form of review is required. We expect that to include cases where factors such as those outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, are a feature.
Clause 12 sets out the functions of the new panel. The panel will identify serious child safeguarding cases in England that raise issues that are complex or of national importance. The purpose of any such review will be to ascertain how practice by local authorities or others to safeguard children can be improved as a result of learning from the cases. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that this is about improvements in practice that can be disseminated nationally, not about the blame or public censure of individuals. Any disciplining of individuals will be done through the usual employment processes where they are working, or with reference to professional bodies, if needed. Reports on serious cases should not name individuals, whether they are professionals, children or family members. Writing reports in a way that ensures individuals are not named has been a long-standing convention in serious case reviews, and this should continue under the new arrangements. I assure the noble Baroness that the guidance will make this point absolutely clear.
As for her point about Amendment 114, we will come to it in detail in two groups’ time.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I will speak to this amendment, which enables a request for information by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to be enforced. It is essential that the panel is able to request information to enable it to perform, or assist it in performing, its functions. This may also include normally privileged information, which is frequently an integral part of what has to be considered as part of the review process. This is already set out in Clause 14.
This amendment enables the panel to apply to the court for an injunction, should a person or body refuse to comply with a request by the panel for information. In the case of normally privileged information, the panel will consider the reasons for that. It may ask the person or body to justify any refusal, but may ultimately compel that information to be provided. As previously discussed, however, this provision would not apply to the judiciary, whose independence is a constitutional matter.
The Wood review highlighted the critical importance of effective and speedy sharing of information and data in relation to protecting and safeguarding children. This clause will underline the importance of sharing relevant information with the panel, backed up with the power of enforcement. I beg to move.
Lord Warner
My Lords, we had a good go over the issue of the judiciary on our last Committee day. The Minister slid very quickly over this particular issue in his remarks—namely, that judges are exempt. Can he pray in aid what the provisions are that stop a review panel looking at the conduct of a judge? We spent a lot of time on the case of Ellie Butler, but that was clearly a case where the practice of the judge could be called into question—not just on the individual circumstances but on the systems issue of whether the judge could actually replace social workers who had been protecting the child for some period and bring into being a new review of the child’s circumstances by a set of private social workers, for whom the child was a new client. That is a systems issue; it is not just about the judgment of the judge but about a piece of practice that seems to me to be at least arguable. Why, in that set of circumstances, should the judiciary be exempt from review by this panel?
Lord Warner
My Lords, could I ask a number of questions, particularly in relation to Amendment 116, on information? Before doing so, I will leave the noble Lord with a thought about my experience of local safeguarding boards in Birmingham, when I was the Children’s Commissioner there. A common feature of that board, which covers a very big area—I suspect it is a common feature of many other of those boards—was that often there was no consistency in who turned up for the meetings between the different agencies. There is a moving cast of characters turning up at these boards on behalf of particular agencies. Unless we can ensure greater consistency, we will not make those boards more effective.
On Amendment 116, I am not sure whether the Minister knows that some of us have been involved for a very long time—it seems as though it is since Adam and Eve—in trying to get the public agencies to accept a common identifier for children. If we want information to flow smoothly and quickly between agencies for children, particularly those who are at risk and in the child protection system, we need to listen to some of the people who have been working on this, such as Sir Cyril Chantler, an eminent paediatrician often used by the Government to undertake inquiries, to progress that. If you talk to paediatricians who have been involved in this area, the common villain of the piece—I use the term loosely—is the Department for Education, which simply will not accept that the NHS identifier is the best one to use because all children have one. Will the Minister take this back to his department and have another go? If he wants information to flow smoothly in child protection cases between the agencies, let us move towards using the NHS number as a common identifier. I assure him that that will get the information moving much faster through all the agencies concerned.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
I shall add one more question to those posed by this very important set of amendments about how to improve local arrangements and have more effective multiagency safeguarding. I can think of nothing more important than that this works.
When I looked again at Alan Wood’s very interesting report, I saw two sentences that so far have not been picked up in this debate. They read:
“I would also add that national government departments do not do enough to model effective partnership working between themselves for local agencies. The join up demanded of local partners is not particularly evident at national level”.
For the new arrangements to work, and it is critical that they do, it is vital that government departments are modelling more effective collaboration in the area of safeguarding. I would be grateful to the Minister if, when he responds, he could tell us what steps government departments are taking nationally to model this behaviour.
Lord Warner
I will speak to Amendment 130 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I will also speak to the proposed deletion of Clause 15 from the Bill. Rather unusually, I would prefer that Clause 15 were removed from the Bill altogether than that the Government accept the amendment in my name and that of the noble Baroness.
Given the widespread concern outside this House that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has already mentioned, we need to understand much better than we do at the moment why the Government are so keen to have this sweeping power in Clause 15. I find the underlying premises of Clause 15 extremely strange—even more so than when I spoke about the clause at Second Reading. First, the clause seems to presuppose that in some way legislation is blocking the delivery of good quality children’s services. There was an opportunity to explain these alleged blockages in the Minister’s latest document, Putting Children First but, on a quick read, I cannot see that that opportunity was taken except for some rather generalised remarks about testing “deregulatory approaches” and a quote from Professor Eileen Munro about “unnecessary legal rules”. But my understanding is that in her review of child protection, Professor Munro was not arguing for changes in primary or even secondary legislation, but for amendments to statutory guidance. Will the Minister clarify what the primary and secondary legislation blockages are, preferably in writing to all members of the Committee before Report?
To compound the confusion, I understand that the Government have already used existing statutory power to amend statutory guidance following the Munro review by issuing directions to particular local authorities. Ofsted’s annual report shows local authorities adopting innovative practice without the need for changes in legislation. Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned, the Government’s very own Red Tape Challenge, as it was called in 2014, seems to have revealed very little to remove for children’s services. Again, will the Minister clarify that, preferably in writing? So far, the Government have produced no evidence that primary or secondary legislation is impeding innovation in children’s services. They already have plenty of scope for amending statutory guidance or issuing directions to particular local authorities without the wide-ranging power to repeal or modify children’s social care requirements in Clause 15 that would last, I understand, for at least six years.
One is entitled to be a little suspicious about what the Government are really up to with Clause 15. Of course, I am the sort of chap who takes for granted that Ministers are well intentioned when they bring measures before your Lordships’ House, but could it be that what lies behind this provision is a short-cut way of outsourcing whole chunks of services? Ofsted seems to be claiming that up to 25% of children’s services are inadequate. Rather than working with some external turnaround capacity to improve matters, is there a new-found enthusiasm within DfE for trying to get quicker results by removing legislative impediments to outsourcing?
Personally, I have no particular objections to outsourcing if that can be shown to have a beneficial effect for children after trialling. I have been trying to probe what the DfE is up to with the transfer of children’s services to trusts. On the answers that I have received, this is clearly an expensive process, it can be very time-consuming, accountability can become extremely blurred and at present there is no body of evidence to support it as a general remedy for failure. Moreover, the DfE has still to publish the report that it commissioned in 2014 from LaingBuisson into developing capacity and diversity in the provision of children’s services. I know from my involvement in that work that it did not suggest that creating a market in children’s services would be easy.
I turn briefly to Amendment 130, which would require the Secretary of State to set up an independent review panel to consider whether any exemptions or modifications under Clause 15(2) are likely adversely to affect the legislative safeguards or rights of children approved by Parliament and to consider the published advice of such a panel before acting. I consider this the least that we should do if the Government persist in proceeding with Clause 15. To sum up, we need much more transparency and clarification from the Minister on why the Government need Clause 15 and why they cannot use their existing powers of direction and statutory guidance to secure their espoused innovation objectives.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in arguing for this amendment. If these clauses eventually remain in the Bill, which is in considerable doubt, although I will leave it to my colleagues to argue that case, it is vital that children’s rights and entitlements are not diminished in the process. These clauses, to my mind, fundamentally undermine rights that have been enshrined in children’s social care legislation following intensive debate in Parliament. They are to be removed at our peril. However, given that some local authorities have seen an 82% increase in the number of children in need between 2010 and 2015, at the same time as local authority budgets have continued to decrease, there is a danger that these new powers might be seen as a way to save money. However, undermining children’s basic rights should not be the penalty for innovation. Many local authorities have vastly improved the service that they give to vulnerable children by trying new things without seeking any exemptions from the children’s rights.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, mentioned Professor Eileen Munro. He is quite right that she never suggested that we needed to repeal primary or secondary legislation; she just asked for less onerous guidance. Innovation has been done effectively through waiving statutory guidance in some authorities. Importantly, outcomes have been monitored and reported on and it is from such reports that lessons are learned. That is the way forward.
I question the necessity for this part of the Bill. In particular, I want to ensure that the Secretary of State can be assured by independent experts that the benefits to children’s rights will be greater than the risks. The key word here is independent because, according to the Bill, the only people who have to be consulted are the Chief Inspector of Schools and the Children’s Commissioner. I point out that both of them will already have been appointed by the Secretary of State. Although I have every respect for the current incumbents of those offices, we need more independence than that. That is why I support this amendment. Innovation should be encouraged within a framework of fundamental rights and entitlements within the law.
Baroness Walmsley
Before the Minister replies, would he reflect on the fact that those of us who came to the meeting last Thursday were given what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is asking for—three examples of where local authorities would have liked exemptions—and that we were not convinced by any of them? In every case, we could think of another way in which that difficulty could have been got around by a creative local authority in order to produce better outcomes for children, and of course there is no other excuse for doing it. We really were not convinced.
Lord Warner
I really must help to reinforce this message to the Minister, because from what he has said so far he does not seem to get it. What we need, in writing, are the primary and secondary legislation blockages that are stopping innovation and why in those cases you cannot use the Secretary of State’s power of direction or an amendment to the statutory guidance. That is the issue, and he has not come anywhere near tackling that proposition.
Lord Nash
I heard the noble Lord the first time. I have not got very far but if I am allowed to continue I shall get to it. This power is about creating a safe mechanism to test new ways of working to improve outcomes for children. It creates a controlled, time-limited space to test new ideas. It is not about eroding children’s rights or removing the basic duties of local authorities to safeguard children. The power is not about questioning the fundamentals of what local authorities need to do, but about exploring how things could be done better.
I will try some more illustrations. I do not suppose they will get me very far but since I have more to say, perhaps people could bear with me. I shall illustrate this point with two examples. First, it is felt that on some occasions applying the full gamut of care-leaver regulations associated with children on remand, who automatically become looked-after when in custody, is not always the best option for those children. Local authorities are interested in developing a service that better responds to their needs, informed by the young person, which, where a local authority can make a professional decision, would ensure better and informed choices without an unwanted service automatically being triggered by legislation. A real-life example of that was given to us by one of our partner in practice local authorities. In this instance, the young person was returning to live with their grandmother. Applying the burdens and processes associated with looked-after children placements unnecessarily overcomplicated matters for both the authority and, most importantly, the young person and their family.
Secondly, as I highlighted at Second Reading, there is a widespread view that adoption and fostering panels do not always add value, and can often delay the process of approving prospective carers. These panels are only advisory, with the ultimate decision resting with the local authority. Local authorities explain that they think they could get to the same decision quicker without the panel in some circumstances. The freedom likely to be requested would be to remove the requirement always to have the panel in place for all cases, and for the agency decision-maker, who currently makes the decision, to continue to exercise their professional judgment. In straightforward cases, the decision would be made quicker to allow the best solution to be progressed faster so that children get the support they need. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said about the concerns that Coram has in this respect, and we will be very happy to talk to Coram about its concerns in some detail.
I will speak to other examples as I go through my response to the amendments. In turn, the department will look to evaluate the use of the power so that we understand the impact, where there is a case for permanent changes to the legislative framework—changes that would of course come back for further scrutiny to this House.
I turn to Amendment 129, clarifying the purpose of this power to innovate. I agree that a focus on improved outcomes for children and young people is key. However, the drafting of the clauses already makes clear that the power is focused on outcomes for children and young people. Clause 15(1) refers to children’s social care legislation. The Children Act 1989 and its associated legislation is designed with the outcomes for children and young people at its core. By referencing children’s social care legislation explicitly, it is clear that the clause is directed at outcomes for children and young people.
On Amendments 130 and 131, I agree that the Bill should not lead to any changes that adversely affect the rights of children or lead to the withdrawal of support or services that they depend on. The whole point of these clauses is to allow local authorities to do things better. We do not propose to put an independent review panel in place. However, there will be a variety of safeguards in place to ensure that the power is not misused and that all applications are subject to very robust consideration before they are approved.
In particular, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the requirements both on the local authority to consult its safeguarding partners and relevant agencies and on the Secretary of State to consult Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills and the Children’s Commissioner. Of course, representing the views of children and young people is a key part of the Children’s Commissioner’s role, and Ofsted will also need to consider its functions of promoting the best interests of children when consulted on the use of the power. It is also important to note that any changes to primary legislation will be debated in both Houses, which in many ways constitutes the independent reviewing process that these amendments seek. In answer to the point on consultation with children in care and their representatives made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, I agree that the voice of the child should be recognised when requested freedoms are being considered.
While I am not proposing to accept the amendment, I would like to provide reassurance that children are at the core of this provision. In most cases, we would expect local authorities to have consulted children affected by any change and in fact many of the possible changes that local authorities have discussed with us originate from requests from children, as I have already said. For example, in the case of independent reviewing officers, children have fed back to our partner in practice authorities that they do not like additional people who they do not know to be present at their case reviews discussing intimate information. More specifically, in the case of North Yorkshire, just over 400 children and young people are looked after. The vast majority are very settled and achieving well. Older young people in this position tell the authority that they find regular formal reviews unsettling and that they would like to be treated like their non-looked-after peers. There is then a much smaller number, on average 20, who are not currently settled and require regular in-depth reviews. This is one area in which a request for use of the power to innovate may well be made to make more effective use of the experienced cohort of independent officers.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about the risk assessment of exemptions. I agree that it is vital that we consider this carefully before any exemptions are agreed. We will need to do that, looking at the merits of each application from the local authority, when bringing forward regulations under Clause 15. Noble Lords may know that in responding to the DPRRC report I committed to bring forward an amendment to ensure that all regulations will be accompanied by a report setting out anticipated benefits and the protections to be put in place by local authorities to mitigate risks. That, combined with the other safeguards that we have in place, means that risk will be assessed and managed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, raised a point about how local authorities would be chosen. I would expect any local authority that wants to apply for an exemption to demonstrate strong leadership and either strong performance or a clear trajectory of improvement consistent with the approach that it wants to test. Ultimately, the Secretary of State will not take forward any requests if she has concerns about the local authority’s ability to implement the change safely or to learn from the testing and share its insights with the wider sector. That is why I anticipate that the first application will be from our partner in practice authorities—a group of 11 of the best-performing children’s services in the country.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, raised points about Professor Eileen Munro and what she wanted. She said:
“I welcome the introduction of the power to innovate set out in the Children and Social Work Bill. This is a critical part of the journey set out in my independent review of child protection towards a child welfare system that reflects the complexity and diversity of children’s needs”.
I am delighted that so many noble Lords have referred to excellent examples of innovation by various local authorities, but of course just because some innovation is taking place without changes to legislation does not mean that others will be able to innovate without making such changes. Of the examples that we have been discussing with local authorities, all need exemptions from secondary and in some cases primary legislation. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, setting out what primary and secondary legislation blockages are in place before Report.
To answer the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, there are no limits to what can be requested; the Secretary of State is concerned about the impact on children, and if she thinks it is appropriate, it will proceed.
However, in view of noble Lords’ concerns and suspicions about our motivation, the best way forward—in addition to writing to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and sharing that letter with all Peers—is to have what I suggested. I hope that all noble Lords who are interested will come to a meeting with a number of local authorities and individuals where they can explain in detail why they need this power, and noble Lords who feel that they can achieve the same objective without using it can talk about that. We can have a detailed, granular discussion about specific examples, rather than a high-level discussion, which is always, in my view, rather dangerous. I commit to organising that, and I hope that all noble Lords will attend.
Lord Warner
“( ) Before making any exemptions or modifications under subsection (2), the Secretary of State must consider the published advice of an independent review panel established to consider whether any such exemptions or modifications are likely adversely to affect legislative safeguards or rights of children approved by Parliament.”
Lord Warner
I do not intend to move this amendment but I want to reinforce a point that has been made already. I look forward to seeing the Minister’s letter but it is not just a question of satisfying me and Members of this Committee. The letter had better be pretty convincing to many people outside, including the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, because the issue is not whether you can make some changes; as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, it is the proportionality of the scope of the amendment that is called into question.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Warner Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 90 tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Pinnock. In many cases it must be truly terrifying for a child who feels that their future is out of control. It surely is absolutely imperative that they be listened to and given the feeling that their wishes will be respected. Disregarding them will only add to their trauma and the feeling of insecurity they are going through. Surely, any solutions are likely to be less successful if they do not have buy-in from the child.
Lord Warner (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I support Amendments 89 and 90. I say to the Minister that in any legislation you cannot sprinkle too many references to taking account of children’s wishes and feelings. I encourage the Minister to be even more liberal than the measure proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I very much support the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I say that having been on the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, which was so ably chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. We heard a number of pieces of evidence in which concern was expressed about whether the balance between adoption and fostering was getting out of kilter. I have certainly been in the company of social workers—I will not say where or when, but reasonably recently—who have talked about the adoption “hawks” taking over the Department for Education. The prospects of older children who are fostered being adopted are extremely limited. Therefore, we should give stronger encouragement to long-term fostering arrangements and indicate in the Bill an equivalence between adoption and long-term fostering that is currently lacking. Sometimes we get carried away with what can be achieved with adoption, which I support. However, it is not right for everybody and where children have established a good fostering relationship with foster parents, we need to encourage that and not make foster parents feel like second-class citizens.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I support all these amendments and pick up what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has just said. I entirely agree with him about supporting long-term fostering as a very important alternative. However, we are living at a time when adoption is not doing very well. One has to recognise that as much support for adoption as possible should be given because, since the publication of the Adoption Post-Legislative Scrutiny report by the Select Committee to which the noble Lord referred, which I chaired, we have had fewer adoptions. We have to bear that in mind. However, I totally support the idea that long-term fostering is an extremely important alternative, particularly for the older child who wants to retain some links with the natural family, and for whom adoption is therefore inappropriate.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, and shall speak specifically to my Amendment 92. Grandparents play among the most important roles in a child life. The Children Act 2004 removed the right of grandparents to have access to their grandchildren. While this may be necessary in some cases, I believe that it was a retrograde step. In recent weeks, we saw the tragic case of Ellie Butler who, after five happy years with her grandparents, was returned to the care of her parents, with disastrous results. Her loving grandparents had been in the process of adopting Ellie legally. All was going well with the support of the local council, when the adoption was blocked by a social worker. As we all know, the decision to disregard the grandparents led to Ellie’s early death. We have already debated the need to listen to the views of the child and for communication with the child. It is essential that children’s wishes, including staying with supportive grandparents, while still having some access to their parents, are adhered to wherever possible. I am firmly of the opinion that now is the time to reinstate the importance of grandparents in a child’s life and would like to see this amendment in the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I support Amendments 91 and 92. I declare my interest as a grandparent several times over. On siblings, we now know a lot more about the importance of siblings to children taken into care than we did when the 1989 Act was passed. It is too often forgotten that siblings have often gone through the bad experiences that the children taken into care have experienced. There is a bond over some of the bad things which have happened to them which is important for their survivability in future. We too often underestimate the importance of siblings, and I therefore very strongly support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson.
I was seriously shocked by the Ellie Butler case. I thought it was the most appalling outcome for that child, and I will return to this issue on a later amendment. We have rather lost the plot on grandparents, who are a major resource for caring. We seem to forget that people can become grandparents very much younger than in previous eras; they can be grandparents in their late 40s and early 50s. In addition, grandparents are living longer and many of them are living fitter lives; they are quite capable of dealing with children. We are missing a trick in not recognising grandparents as a serious care resource. We should try to establish that very firmly in the Bill and recognise that we are in a very different position with grandparents from that which pertained several decades ago.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I think it is fair to say that this is the most contentious issue to have arisen in our consideration of the Bill so far. We will discuss Clause 15 next week. In passing, I have to say that I am not quite sure why this measure is being discussed at this point. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has stated his views on that, but I wondered why the Clerks did not direct it elsewhere. However, as I say, we will discuss Clause 15 next week. That clause will allow local authorities to opt out of providing some children’s social services. Many people fear that that could pave the way for the privatisation of those and—perhaps, later—other services, in ways outlined by noble Lords in this group of amendments.
The Bill refers to “different ways of working”, which I think most of us understand is code for exempting local authorities from requirements hitherto imposed by children’s social care legislation. Certainly, Labour holds strongly to the view that child protection and wider social care should not be run by an organisation seeking to make a profit. That is why we have joined with Lib Dem and Cross-Bench Peers, as well as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, demonstrating the breadth of support for that requirement to appear on the face of the Bill.
We do not object per se to outside organisations working with, or for, local authorities in delivering children’s social services functions, but do so where a company or organisation designed to make a profit, as opposed to a surplus, takes on such functions that would expose the local authority—and, by definition, the children under its care—to the danger that the company might for whatever reason fail, and fall into receivership. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of examples of such occurrences since local authorities began to outsource various services.
Equally, if profit were the motive, the company or organisation may conclude after a period of time that the margins were insufficient in delivering those services and other avenues offered better prospects, and as a result end the contract. In either case, the local authority, which would have handed over the role of providing those services, would be faced with having to find another partner to deliver them or to bring them back in-house. Meanwhile, the quality of services provided for social care or child protection would be, at best, jeopardised. That is not a situation that any of us would wish to see. It is, therefore, a situation that should be ruled out.
At Second Reading, the Minister relied on the fact that in 2014 the Government had introduced legislation that prevented profit-making where local authorities delegate child protection functions. However, there remains the possibility of profit-making companies setting up their own non-profit subsidiaries to take over the critical and sensitive function of deciding how best to protect vulnerable children There is a serious risk that the likes of Serco and G4S could create these subsidiaries as part of their wider businesses and, in that manner, these companies could indeed profit from the care of vulnerable children and their families, even if only indirectly.
There will be an obvious conflict of interest because some of these companies will also run children’s homes. That will make it difficult to know how funds might flow between the profit-making and non-profit-making arms. That is why the changes outlined in Clause 15 have caused such concern in the sector, and they could undermine public confidence in the services provided to children and young people. It cannot be stressed too much that effective child protection relies on public trust. The public need to be able to trust local child protection teams so that they feel sufficiently confident to report concerns they may have about a child and to have faith that if they raise a concern the service will act in the best interests of that child.
I invite the Minister to provide answers on two aspects of this crucial matter. First, the provisions of the 2014 legislation notwithstanding, can he guarantee that funds will not be transferred between profit and non-profit arms of a company where the latter is delivering services? Secondly, will the purpose and culture of companies or organisations bidding for the right to deliver child protection and social care services be taken into consideration when decisions are made about delivery partners? When an organisation’s primary aim and main business has nothing to do with children, would it be considered a suitable partner for a local authority?
Nothing can be more important than the safeguarding and protection of children, especially those who are at greatest risk or are the most vulnerable. Organisations prominent in the social care and child protection sectors have registered their anxiety over the exemption proposals in the Bill. At Second Reading, I asked the Minister whether the Government had made any assessment of the risk to children in allowing local authorities exemption from some key duties for keeping children safe. I hope he will now be in a position to let me have his response.
Lord Warner
Will the Minister clarify the position of social enterprise companies which often have to make a surplus or a profit, depending on where you come from? The Minister and I have been having a flourishing series of exchanges through Written Questions and Answers on what happens when Ofsted regards children’s services as inadequate. The outgoing Prime Minister seems to think that two strikes and you are out is a good idea. I have been asking the Minister for a lot of information about the cost of setting up these trusts, which are quite considerable, and what the Government’s policy on this is. The Government’s policy, most recently exemplified in relation to Birmingham, seems to be that where there are two inadequate reports from Ofsted the local authority could well be required to put its services into what is sometimes called a voluntary trust. On further, closer inspection, a voluntary trust can also be a social enterprise company, and social enterprise companies need to generate surpluses or profits in order to invest in continuing improvements in the services they are running. Since Ofsted has said that one-quarter of children’s social care services are inadequate, will the Minister clarify where this agenda is going? Does it mean that in five or six years’ time we will see a very large number of local authorities’ children’s social care services placed under contract with a number of bodies separate from the local authority, with the local authority still held accountable? Those separate entities, I understand from the Answers I have been receiving, could include all social care services, including child protection. Where are the Government taking this agenda? Have they thought through their position on surpluses or profits from the kinds of organisations that would be under contract with local authorities in which Ofsted determined that social services were inadequate?
Lord Nash
My Lords, I spoke to this issue at Second Reading. It is an important question to clarify, and I am very grateful to noble Lords for the chance to return to it so that I can be crystal clear. We are not seeking in this Bill to revisit the established position on profit-making. That is not our intention. There has, of course, been a mixed market in children’s social care for many years, and local authority children’s services regularly work with private and third sector organisations—for example in the provision of foster care and residential care. The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 allowed local authorities to take this relationship further by contracting with these partners for the full discharge of their functions relating to looked-after children and young people.
Noble Lords will remember debating regulations in 2014 to widen the range of functions that a local authority could delegate in this manner to cover other children’s social care functions, notably child protection. The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 (Relevant Care Functions) (England) Regulations 2014 explicitly ruled out profit-making from this wider set of functions. Nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of children, and we are committed to supporting professionals in finding new and more effective approaches to improving outcomes for the vulnerable young people in their care. In recent years that has involved promoting new models of delivery, but we have absolutely no intention of revisiting the position on profit-making settled by Parliament two years ago. I reassure noble Lords that any change to the 2014 regulations would need to be by the affirmative route.
As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, we will revisit the innovation clauses next week, but I will say again now that we have no intention of using Clause 15 to allow the existing position to be circumvented. In our conversations with local authorities, there has been no discussion of using Clause 15 to allow profit-making. This is not what we are seeking to do with that clause. I think noble Lords were reassured when we showed them the examples of innovations and they understood a bit more what this was all about. I hope that further examples will help clarify the position.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to the depressing situation in Birmingham. He slightly lost me on the concept of profit, because obviously organisations such as charities or local authorities are often trying to generate a surplus in order to reinvest. I do not think it is very helpful in this debate to wander into that, but I hope that when we give further examples of how the clause on innovation will be used, noble Lords will be reassured.
Lord Warner
Can I challenge the Minister on this? I would agree that there is a world of difference when it comes to a private company, which is perhaps going to make profits to distribute to its shareholders. That is one set of circumstances, but we then start to move down a series of alternatives. I cited the example of a social enterprise company, which is a body corporate and is entitled to make surpluses. They are not called profits, but it is taking income out of the local authority and building a surplus in an organisation which is not a public body. That must have some effect on the extent to which the resources devoted by the local authority to that social enterprise are available for services in any one given year. How big can those surpluses get before they have an impact on the volume of services that can be delivered? The Minister is trying to brush this away. I am not trying to score points, but the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has raised an important issue. You cannot just say that these are not distributed-profit companies—these companies can build up surpluses which could have an impact on the revenue that is available in any one financial year for the provision of services.
Lord Nash
I will reflect further on what the noble Lord has said. What we are trying to do in these situations is make sure that where services have been provided badly—in the case we are talking about, they clearly were—they are provided better by alternative suppliers. I will reflect further on the point he makes and come back to him on it, but in view of the reassurance I have given to noble Lords that we have no intention of revisiting our position on this, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, there are moments in Committee when we can listen to people with a lifetime of experience in law and the military, but we ignore at our peril someone with experience of adoption who speaks from the heart and makes such an emotional plea. Certainly our side thinks that this is an important issue.
It is not just an emotional issue, of course; it is also fulfils that awful phrase we use constantly—it would be value for money. This obviously makes sense. I had not appreciated how many low-income families adopt children. We should support them and thereby, we hope, increase the number of children who are adopted.
The last time I heard such an emotional plea was when my noble friend Lady Benjamin made a similar presentation and, I believe, stalked the Minister on a few occasions outside his office. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady King, could do the same, but I hope the Minister will take note of this issue.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I support this amendment. I will not offer flattery, as the Minister probably knows, but I take him back to the post-legislative scrutiny report of the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation. It is a shame that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is not in her place, but some of us met a lot of adoptive parents, some of whom were on quite low incomes. They made two points to us very strongly. One was the issue we have already discussed, about the levels of support for adoptive parents, but the second came from people who had been foster parents. They pointed out brutally—but in an amiable sort of way—that the financial disincentive in moving from being a foster parent to an adoptive parent was very high. This seemed to me and other members of that Select Committee pretty bizarre, given that the Government were at that point going hell for leather to promote adoption as the gold standard for permanence.
There is something not quite right here about what we might call the intragovernmental strategy—this applies not just in the Minister’s department—on how we align the financial incentives with the policy objectives. Therefore, the Minister should start to raise some of those issues not just within his own department but across Whitehall.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. The noble Baroness speaks so eloquently from her experience and makes a strong case. She takes me back to research that was discussed at the Thomas Coram Research Unit about eight years ago. That unit has carried out comparative research into residential care and foster care in France, Denmark and Germany. It is a long time ago but what stood out for me was that in those continental countries, many more teachers and social workers were recruited into foster care.
Professor Jackson, one of the leading academics on the educational attainment of looked-after children, has raised concerns that many foster carers have themselves had difficult experiences at school. That is another reason why we need to support them very well. The issue of professionalisation comes into this debate. Do we want professional foster carers? My recollection suggests that they are better paid on the continent. That may be why one can recruit from the middle classes there. There is an argument on the other side that we should not pay foster carers a lot of money, as they should be doing this out of love. I have sympathy with that argument as well. However, the very least we can do is to pay them child benefit. I hope that helps the noble Baroness’s argument. I look forward to the Minister’s response, which I am sure will be sympathetic. I hope that we will see some action.
Lord Warner
Lord Warner
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 103 and 104. Amendment 103 seeks clarification from the Minister on the powers of the new child safeguarding practice review panel to require information in relation to its functions. In Clause 14 a,
“person or body to whom a request … is made must comply with the request”,
without, apparently, any exemption.
The report of this House’s Constitution Committee published on 13 June pointed out that:
“This is a broad obligation … and could possibly include information of an incriminatory nature”.
As far as I can see, there is no explicit exemption for material that would ordinarily be the subject of either legal or medical privilege. I can see that a broad exemption of that kind could hamstring the panel in its difficult work. and I will say a bit more about that in relation to a particular case. However, I do not think that we should wait until a case of this kind arises and then find that we are not sure what the rules really are. That is why I support the Constitution Committee’s request for greater clarification.
To illustrate my concerns, let me cite a recent case that could be said to raise this issue if the new review panel were in existence. We have already mentioned today the recent case where Mrs Justice Hogg was criticised by a case review for her decision to take Ellie Butler away from her grandparents and return her to her parents where her father beat her to death 11 months later. My understanding—the Minister may be able to correct me if I have this wrong—is that the judiciary does not consider that the judge can be required to explain her actions to a review panel. In particular, this would make it difficult to consider the system implications of whether a judge should have been able to set aside the judgment of the local authority social workers who had been protecting Ellie and appoint new private social workers to make a different assessment of the protection she required, which sadly resulted in her being returned to her parents with catastrophic results.
This is a systems issue about how the judiciary works. I can see that that could involve incriminatory evidence. Let me reassure the Minister that I am not trying to discuss this case but I am using it to indicate that there may be confusion in the wording regarding the panel’s ability to request information when people may or may not conform for reasons of incrimination. I hope that the Minister can help us with this because we need greater clarity about whether there are any exemptions to a request for information by the panel and the nature of those exemptions.
Amendment 104 is an attempt to introduce time limits into the production of review panel reports. This panel will be considering serious systems matters which are referred to it. It is important that we complete these reviews quickly so that people can learn from mistakes. We do not want very long and drawn-out reviews that hold up learning. We need some kind of time limit here. I am not particularly wedded to the six-month time limit that I put in just to probe the issue, but it would be worth the department and the Minister considering the insertion of time limits for the work of these review panels. I beg to move.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I certainly do not wish to pursue Amendment 104 and I am grateful for what he said about giving friendly guidance on timetables. I am still a bit puzzled about the issue of exemption from a request for information. If he is saying that there are no exceptions although there is an expectation that the panel would use its good judgment, I am reasonably comfortable with that. However, I am still fretting a little about the position of the judiciary. I understand the constitutional arguments, but there are some important issues here where, particularly in the Ellie Butler case, if it had been a social worker who had behaved like that, they would have been publicly hanged, drawn and quartered. I would welcome a meeting with the Minister and some of the lawyers about this. I understand that this is a tricky issue, but in the light of that particular case, I would like to get to the root of where the judiciary is in the review process. I do not think that we can just leave it up in the air and say that it is just a constitutional matter.
I accept that this is probably not something for the Bill, but it is worth having a discussion about it. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Warner Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Warner
“( ) In discharging its responsibilities under subsection (1), the responsible local authority must—(a) ensure that all partner bodies responsible for health, housing, police, employment, education and training services are aware of the needs of children and young people for whom they are responsible; and(b) advise the individual children and young people concerned of the availability of services offered by partner bodies which meet their needs and assist them in securing such services.”
Lord Warner (Non-Afl)
My Lords, first, I want to put Amendment 29 in context. I see it as part of a package relating to Clause 1. In our previous debate on Clause 1, there was a large measure of agreement that the corporate parenting principles needed to be kept tightly drawn and manageable in length. There was also a sense, however, that some important aspects, such as mental health, needed to be specifically incorporated into those principles. We also discussed at some length the importance of requiring the co-operation of other key partners in supporting the corporate parent in living up to those principles. I am sure that on this latter issue we will come back with amendments on Report to place a clear duty on key partner agencies and services to co-operate with the responsible local authority corporate parent.
I wish to raise a point on this, on which the Minister left me, and possibly other Members of the Committee, rather confused. Let me seek clarification from the Minister on what he said about other agencies co-operating with local authorities on the delivery of services linked to the corporate parenting principles. At one point he suggested that this was covered in Clause 10. As I said then, it is not. Then there was some suggestion that what was meant was Section 10 of the Children Act 1989. With a great deal of help from the Library, to which I give thanks, I have checked: it is not there in the 1989 Act. Then I asked the Library to show me the current version of the 1989 Act, as amended subsequently. It is not in the amended version of Section 10. I am struggling to find it elsewhere in any of the legislation. My request to the Minister, therefore, is that he write to me and other Members of the Committee as soon as possible—certainly well before Report—citing the text of the legislation that requires other agencies, and which of those agencies, to co-operate with the responsible local authority in delivering corporate parenting principles. Without that legislative clarity, I am sure many of us will want to press an appropriate amendment on this issue on Report.
I now return to my Amendment 29, which is linked to this issue. Alongside the corporate parenting principles and the co-operation and involvement of other relevant agencies, a third important element is, I suggest, required to make it all work in practice for the young people concerned. That is an obligation to help those young people get the services they need, which is where Amendment 29 comes in.
The amendment does two things. First, it requires the local authority corporate parent to ensure that all the relevant services are aware of the needs of children and young people in care or leaving care. We know that many of these services, some of which were cited in our previous discussion, are not aware of the special needs of those in care or leaving care. History suggests that we should strengthen the obligation on local authorities to bring home to the other agencies the special needs of those for whom they are corporate parents. Because of the unfortunate timetabling of the Bill, I had little time to prepare the amendment. I know that some services have been omitted from it, but this can easily be rectified.
The second part of the amendment places an obligation on the corporate parent to make sure the children and young people for whom it is responsible know about the services available to help them make their way in the world. It also obliges the corporate parent to help these young people secure those services. I regard this second aspect as very important indeed. Public services can be very complex; they can be very siloed—as was said in our last discussion—and pretty inaccessible. Many of us, as experienced and knowledgeable adults, often struggle to penetrate public sector bureaucracies, so why should we expect these young people to do it without help? It is not good enough to await young people coming forward and asking for help, which they often do not even know about. I recognise that I may not have got the wording quite right and this amendment would need to be aligned with the other amendments to Clause 1 that I have mentioned. However, I hope the Minister will see merit in this amendment and will be willing to make an amendment of this kind to the Bill and possibly discuss it with some of us beforehand. I beg to move.
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.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, before I respond, I am sure noble Lords will be interested in the documents that my department has published today relating to children in the social care system. The first is a policy paper entitled, Putting Children First: Delivering Our Vision for Excellent Children’s Social Care. It sets out our programme of reform to children’s social care for the next four years. The second is an independent report on children’s residential care by Sir Martin Narey, the former chief executive of Barnardo’s, who is an independent social care adviser to the Department for Education. Sir Martin paints a positive vision for the future role of residential care and we are grateful for his report. I am sure noble Lords will be interested in both publications, which we have today emailed to all noble Lords who were present on the first day in Committee. They will be available in the Library of the House.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for this amendment. I fully appreciate the intention behind it. However, what he seeks to achieve is already encompassed within the corporate parenting principles and existing legislation, which I will explain.
The fourth corporate parenting principle is designed to ensure that the local authority, as a whole, acts as a corporate parent, and helps looked-after children and care leavers to gain access to the services and support they need, including those provided by other relevant partners—to avoid the silo mentality that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred to, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, to ensure that all those who can help are involved. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, about Section 10, I apologise for the confusion. I am sorry to have created so much homework for him. Perhaps in future he can send me a short note and I could save him some time. After all, that is what officials are for. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, we are talking about the Children Act 2004, and I will write to the noble Lord with the relevant section and an explanation.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, to make this section and duty more effective, for the first time we are bringing in the principle of corporate parenting. I am happy to discuss that with him further and, to take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to hold a meeting to clarify amendments and ensure, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, says, that we get a sensible Bill without imposing too many new duties that are not really necessary on local authorities.
Local authorities are already under a duty under Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 to make arrangements to promote co-operation between the local authority and each of its relevant partners, including health bodies, schools, local policing bodies, probation boards and youth offending teams, as well as the voluntary and community sector. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, I know she would always like to have more money, but this does not impose any more responsibilities on local authorities. The intention of the existing duty is to improve the well-being of children in the local area and the corporate parenting principles are matters that the local authority must consider under the existing legislation. They do not add further functions.
Therefore, it seems inconceivable that under the existing legal framework relevant local agencies would not be aware of the needs of looked-after children and care leavers in the area. If that is the case, the issue must be with how well the local authority is putting its existing responsibilities into practice rather than it being a problem with the law. Therefore, I see no need to add to the seven principles in the way the noble Lord suggests.
The approach used in the existing legislation is broadly similar to the way the duty to co-operate works in the Care Act 2014, which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to during the Committee’s first sitting. The local offer for care leavers will take us further than ever before in helping to ensure that the needs of care leavers are in the minds of services related to health, housing, education, police and employment. In developing their local offer, local authorities will need to talk to those services about what they intend to bring to the table based on what care leavers have told them they need.
For too long care leavers have told us that they do not always have the information they need about the services they need to access and about what they are entitled to. We expect the local offer to set out in one place the full range of relevant services, any additional facilities or entitlements that are on offer, and information about how to access them.
The care leaver covenant, which I have mentioned previously, provides a truly exciting opportunity to build the offer of services and support from a wide range of agencies and individuals. There is no reason why there should be a limit on this. We would like local communities to be as inventive as possible in finding ways of supporting and helping their children in care and care leavers.
I appreciate the very positive intentions behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Warner. However, I do not think it is necessary, given the requirements of the existing legislation and the enhanced focus on children in care and care leavers which the corporate parenting principles and the covenant will bring about. I therefore ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I listened very carefully to the Minister. Before responding, perhaps I may say that he offered to write to me. When I did not receive a letter, I went to the Library.
With this approach of simply asking local authorities to find different obligations in different bits of legislation, the Minister is undermining the strengths of Clause 1 and the corporate parenting principles. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham has given me some interesting information about the Children Act, so technology is giving us instant access to some of these bits of information. However, they do not cover some of the issues that were raised in the debate about the corporate parenting principles; they are narrower in scope where the partners are asked to intervene. We have been having a debate about the full range of services and agencies that need to co-operate with the local authority to enable the corporate parenting principles to be delivered to children. The Minister did not really deal with the issue in the second part of my amendment, which is about the local authority taking the initiative and showing children and young people what services are available.
I looked very carefully at Clause 1(1)(d). It is a pretty general proposition about helping young people, and it does not define who the “relevant partners”—the wording in the legislation—are. If the Minister wants to get the best out of this well-intended set of corporate parenting principles, we have to beef up the Bill in terms of the duty to co-operate placed on the full range of services, and we may need to specify them in the Bill with something along the lines of my Amendment 29. I will certainly come back to this, as I suspect will other Members, on Report. In the meantime—
The Earl of Listowel
Before the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, casting back to the Children Act 2004, one agency that was excluded was the Immigration Service. On the duty for all agencies to work together to secure the welfare of children, I am not sure that the Act was successful by excluding that service. In his letter to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, perhaps the Minister can make clear whether that is the case.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, the Bill as drafted places responsibility on the young person to request advice and support. No one in this Room or reading the Bill would be in any doubt that we are talking about vulnerable young people, so the question has to be asked: what support will be offered so that young people know about all their entitlements; and what systems will be in place to help a child make that request, remembering that many of these children will have literacy difficulties? It is one thing for a young person to turn down advice and support that they have been offered. There are two ways of looking at that if it happens. One is that that the individual does not lack a certain amount of confidence, which is a good thing. The other is that they may not have thought the thing through or may lack the requisite amount of common sense, turning away from what is clearly valuable and important information.
Confidence is a big issue for many children who are leaving—or young people who have recently left—care. That lack of confidence is simply because of their life experiences up to that point. They are moving into a world of their own, taking many important steps in a way not experienced by children fortunate enough to live within a family, who have that family as a safety net after they have left home, should things not go entirely to plan. A young person leaving care may not have been informed that they can ask for advice and support. Even if they have been informed and have had that support, it could depend on how that was done. The young person may not always grasp what is available to them.
The question must be asked: why take that risk? Why leave it up to the young person? Much better surely that the duty falls directly on the local authority, not the person himself or herself. We have to have a sense, as we debate issues like this, that we have a duty of care in terms of framing legislation that affords the maximum amount of support to young people. I think Amendments 52 and 53, to which I am speaking at the moment, do that. I mentioned earlier—as did the Minister—that his department has today published the policy paper entitled, Putting Children First: Our Vision for Children’s Social Care. If that means anything at all, I suggest the Minister should live up to it by accepting Amendments 52 and 53 and making sure that the onus is firmly on the local authority to be proactive rather than reactive.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I briefly support Amendments 52, 53 and 54. These have echoes of the debate we had on my Amendment 29, in which I argued—with support from other Members of the Committee—that the onus should be on the local authority to take the initiative in offering help. I ask the Minister to think about the circumstances in which many of us are placed as parents, where the Government are trying to get the principles of corporate parenting as close as they can to the responsibilities of parents looking after children who are not part of the responsibility of a local authority. We as parents—I can speak from personal experience—do not watch our children walking over a cliff and wait for them to request us to do something. If we see that they do not understand something or they are going to take some ill-advised action, we do not wait for them to ask us: we intervene. We try to intervene in a sensitive manner but we do try to intervene to give them the information they require to make better decisions. Why are the Government asking a group of people who, on their own acknowledgement, are vulnerable, who often find it difficult to interact with public bureaucracies, to make a well-informed request for help? Indeed, if they are capable of making that well-informed request for help, there is a large chance that they do not need it in the first place. What the Minster has set up looks like a gesture, but the “on request” totally minimises the effectiveness of that gesture. I ask the Minister to reconsider the Government’s position on this, in the light of the moderate way that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and others have argued for the amendments.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I add one sentence because I clearly heard the Minister say that there would be young people who would not need personal advisers or would not wish to have this sort of help. I understand that absolutely, but all the amendments are suggesting is that we move out “on request” so that the local authority has to take responsibility to ensure that information is given so that a refusal could be made. If we do not ensure that the young people have the knowledge of what is available, they can walk into difficulties.
Lord Warner
The Minister seems to be praying me in aid as somehow opposed to the amendment advocated by the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Watson. I am not; I was supporting what they are saying. I am sorry if I was not clear but I want to put it beyond peradventure to the Minister that I support their amendment to delete “on request”.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I feel that I could already write the Minister’s response by saying that of course these needs are already met in Clause 3(5)(a) or (b), as the subsection refers to meeting “his or her needs”. However, when, year after year, report after report notes that these needs are not dealt with, surely we reach the point where they need to be specified—hence I support the noble Baroness’s amendments. The needs of these young parents have so consistently not been adequately met that we now need to specify them so that they are.
I would also comment that, on occasions, young men may also find becoming a parent a positive turning point. There is a need to support young men who are looked after and become parents who recognise that they have now come to a point of responsibility and they would like to step up to it. They also need support. I invite the Minister’s comments on that.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I, too, support Amendments 61A and 71A in particular and draw the Minister’s attention to a Select Committee report produced by your Lordships’ House on post-legislative scrutiny of adoption legislation. Somewhere in the Department for Education archives, there will no doubt be copies of that report and the oral evidence given to the committee. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, was on it, and, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong.
Among those who gave oral evidence was a remarkable judge, Nicholas Crichton, from one of the London family courts. He was so fed up with a procession of the same young women coming before the family court and having their children taken away. The women would reappear 12, 15 or 18 months later and would continue through their 20s with the same judges in the same court taking away their children and putting them into care. He got so fed up with that that he found some charitable funding to produce some support for the young mothers to whom it was happening because he was trying to stop this escalator of producing more children to be taken into local authority care.
That judge was doing the job that we could argue is the responsibility of the local authority because the great majority of these young women had been in care. We had a bizarre situation where an energetic and innovative judge was trying to do the job of a local authority that was not able to provide these kinds of services to young women who had been in care and who had repeat pregnancies. I would ask the Minister to look at that before he rejects fully these amendments, because there is a lot to be said, in the public interest as well as the interests of these young women, for moving down this path.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for being unavoidably unable to come to the first day of Committee. I should like to add some comments in support of Amendments 61A and 71A. We should see these amendments as being very much about early intervention and prevention. The Bill, welcome though it is, is a little light on early intervention and prevention. The amendments point to situations from the point of view of the babies born to young people who have been in care. Unless there is specific early intervention with a great deal of support provided, we may not be preventing those babies at some point coming into care or being subject to serious difficulties.
I say that for two reasons. We know from the statistics that, generally, babies of young parents—right across the board, not just those who been in care—do not fare as well on any number of developmental indicators, despite the ability of some individual young parents to be outstanding. Those babies suffer a series of stresses from that situation that impair their development, in many instances irrevocably. The vulnerabilities suffered by a young parent who has been in care can only add further stress and difficulty to that situation. It is really important from the point of view of early intervention and prevention for children born to young people who have been in care that there is a specific focus that points the statutory services to make sure that they intervene early and prevent adverse consequences further down the line to another generation of children. I hope the Minister will take these amendments seriously.
Lord Warner
“( ) In making available personal advisers under this Act, the Secretary of State must make regulations to provide—(a) performance standards and training for personal advisers;(b) arrangements for vetting as to their suitability before taking up posts; and(c) a publicly available register of approved personal advisers.”
Lord Warner
My Lords, this is a probing amendment on an issue of great concern to me: safeguarding young people from predatory adults. Clause 3 is the first place in the Bill where I could find the term “personal advisers”, so I have grafted the amendment on to the clause to seek support in principle for the idea that personal adviser is the kind of job that could conceivably attract people with predatory intentions towards vulnerable young people.
Many of those young people over the age of 21 may themselves, despite their chronological age, be rather immature and vulnerable, so reaching the magic age of 21 does not necessarily produce a lack of vulnerability. That is why I drafted the amendment, which requires the Secretary of State to make regulations on three matters relating to personal advisers, irrespective of age. The Minister has to some extent tried to deal with that in his previous answers about a review and the rather mysterious deep dives that seem to be taking place in the Department for Education. However, I am not sure that we should miss this opportunity in legislation to put safeguards relating to personal advisers in the Bill: first, a provision for performance standards and training for personal advisers to be set out in regulations; secondly, arrangements for vetting them as to suitability before they take up posts; and, thirdly, a publicly available register of approved personal advisers. Those are the minimum safeguards that are required before we proceed with the introduction on a national basis of personal advisers, whatever reviews the DfE may be carrying out.
I shall say a few words about my personal experience, which causes me to feel so strongly about this amendment. First, some of the experiences I had as a director of social services brought home to me the vulnerability of young people with low self-esteem, a lack of love in their lives and bad experiences at the hands of adults. If a person in a position of trust abuses that trust, often after a period of grooming, many young care leavers are very vulnerable to damaging overtures. I have a few examples that I have had to deal with—and I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has had not dissimilar examples. A foster father sexually abused a teenage girl; a Catholic priest abused young people in an adoption agency; a care home manager was caught in a teenaged girl’s bed in his own care home, in the middle of the night; and care home staff practised so-called regression therapy by encouraging children to sit on their laps. These are just a few of the people who find themselves able to get near vulnerable young people. Incidentally, the care home manager caught in flagrante took me to an employment tribunal for wrongful dismissal. These are real-world examples of what corporate parents may have to deal with.
It was that experience that led to Virginia Bottomley, the then Health Secretary, appointing me to chair an inquiry in the early 1990s after a series of scandals into how we recruited, vetted and trained staff working in children’s homes. Our report, Choosing with Care, led to some strengthening of the safeguards against predatory adults. But with the passage of time, we are in danger of assuming that some of those problems have been dealt with. As the Jimmy Savile and other examples have shown, we have to be ever vigilant. If we introduce a new group of people with easy access to vulnerable young people, we need to do all we can to safeguard those young people. The predators will always be around, and we are failing young people if we do not do our utmost to put in place protective procedures.
That was brought home to me very graphically when, a couple of months ago, I saw a play by Phil Davies called “Firebird”, at the Trafalgar Studios—I am not doing a commercial because it is no longer running there. This shows how a predator, seemingly someone who works with young people, grooms a lonely, vulnerable, young person into prostitution. I am sure that the wording of my hastily produced amendment could be improved, but I hope that the Minister will accept in principle that, if we are going for a national system of personal advisers, we should put in the Bill some safeguards for young people against potentially predatory personal advisers.
Lord Nash
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for his amendment and the points that he, the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, made about the importance of safeguarding young people from predatory adults and the qualifications, training and management of personal advisers. These are of crucial and, in the case of safeguarding, paramount importance, and I will ensure that these points are covered in our review of personal advisers, to which I have already referred in some detail. This will inform what we say on Report, although I recognise the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, about flexibility and stability and will look at the worrying delays to which the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, referred in relation to vetting.
I hope that the noble Lord will accept that I do not want to prejudge the outcome of our review by accepting his amendment now, and I hope that he will therefore consent to withdraw it, but I assure him that I recognise the importance of the points he makes.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and everyone else who has spoken in this debate. I could really identify with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills. I recognise how complex this issue is, certainly do not want to go into bat for the particular wording of the amendment and I accept that the Minister needs to carry out a review.
However, given what we have learned about predatory adults and vulnerable people over a long period, I ask the Minister and his department to reflect whether we should signal the issue of vetting in some brief way in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, made the important point that there are two sides to this: the vulnerability of young person but also that of the personal adviser if they are isolated without adequate supervision. This is a difficult area and it is not easy to find solutions, but it behoves all public bodies and Governments, particularly with the Goddard inquiry going on, to recognise upfront that this is a real 21st-century issue which has to be wrestled with. Signalling in the Bill not the detail but a willingness to grapple with the issue is very important. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Warner Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I have Amendment 18 in this group, which adds wording about protecting safety and providing stability in home lives, relationships and education or work. It is very similar to the wording in proposed new subsection (1)(f) in Amendment 1, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe.
Coincidentally, I also submitted the same amendments as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to remove “have regard to the need” and the other amendments he referred to that follow from that—so of course I have added my name to those.
I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bichard—who would have been able to speak for himself if we had met on Monday as originally planned—that the whole point of setting out the corporate parenting principles explicitly is to make the responsibility explicit. That is most likely to be achieved if the drafting is as clear as possible. The inclusion of “have regard to” detracts from that clarity. It also changes the nature of the duty: it is no longer to encourage people to do something but to “have regard to” encouraging people to do something. How pathetically weak and feeble. I could have regard to something but decide to do nothing as a consequence of my regard. That will not do.
We need a set of corporate parenting principles that protect all those things that contribute to the health, well-being and future opportunity of children in care and those leaving care. That is why my Amendment 18 adds the principle of protecting their safety and providing stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work.
Children in care who are abused will be damaged for ever if we are not very careful. That is why we need to keep them safe. Children who are moved around from one foster placement to another and have no stability feel insecure and cannot keep up those relationships that help them to know who they are and their place in the world. The people they value and who value them are so important to their sense of self-worth and their attainment in life.
The Education Select Committee found that health services are turning away children in care who do not meet diagnostic thresholds. Access to services is prohibited when children do not have a permanent address. They experience moves in care, moves from one foster parent to another—or, even worse, moves out of their area. Problems include registering with a GP and poor communication between local authorities and clinical commissioning groups.
Designated health professionals report that they have not been asked to contribute to the strategic planning of services for these children, and some others felt that there were no robust routes for contributing to commissioning processes and decision-making.
Stability at home, school and in relationships is vital for these children and should be included in the principles. It is very important that the legislation is clear, so that those affected are in no doubt what their responsibilities are. The only people who benefit from confused or over-elaborate drafting are the lawyers. As drafted, Clause 1 is confused, and we must try to clarify it during the course of our deliberations.
Many noble Lords are seeking to add important additional principles, including my noble friends Lady Tyler of Enfield and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. Their amendments on mental health and poverty alleviation will come later, and I support them wholeheartedly. But the point I am making is that these amendments, and others, would be to no avail if the principles just had to be regarded and not strictly adhered to. So I say to the Government: if you really believe in these principles as drafted—and, I hope, as amended by several important additions from me and others—please accept that the words “have regard to the need” must go.
Lord Warner (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am probably one of only three people in this room who has actually been a corporate parent. Having worked in a local authority, I know that if you put wording in a Bill that says “have regard to”, the chief officer, who may want to do the right and proper thing by these children, will be put in a spot of bother. If a local authority and its lawyers see “have regard to”, they will have a conversation with the chief officer which will start: “Do you really have to do this, if the financial situation is tough and bad?”.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I support Amendments 3, 31A and 36, which, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, seek to extend corporate parenting principles to central government departments in recognition of the role that they play in the lives of looked-after children and care leavers. I am grateful to the Children’s Society for its briefing on this.
Like other noble Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to placing corporate parenting principles into law for the first time, and see this as an important step in making sure that children’s best interests—a key principle—life chances and future prospects are put at the core of decision-making processes. Statistics for looked-after children highlight a situation requiring leadership from central government to improve life chances through accepting their responsibility as corporate parent. The Prime Minister has emphasised this a lot recently. I think that we were going to have a life chances strategy announced tomorrow, but that has been rather derailed now. For instance, we know that at least 38% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 are not in education, employment or training. Research by the Centre for Social Justice showed that 59% of care leavers found coping with the mental health problems referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, very or quite difficult. The same survey by the Centre for Social Justice found that 57% of care leavers found managing money and avoiding debt difficult.
This cocktail of poor educational attainment mixed with mental health difficulties, low-paid work and difficulty with managing money should alarm us all. More importantly, it should compel us to do better for these young people by ensuring that all levels of government which make decisions about their lives should be required to consider their responsibilities as corporate parents.
Welcome steps were made in the 2013 cross-departmental Care Leavers Strategy, which for the first time brought together government departments to consider the impact of their policies on care leavers—so in a sense the principle has been established. Extending corporate parenting principles to central government is, I would suggest, the next logical step. I hope that the Minister will agree that there is no argument against this in principle. We might question the practical ways of doing it, but this is an opportunity which we must seize for central government to do its bit for care leavers by adopting the very corporate parenting principles that it is now rightly laying down for local government in recognition of the pivotal role that central government policies play in the everyday lives of care leavers.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I very much support the spirit of this group of amendments, but not necessarily the wording. I also very much agree with the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, about being very clear and crisp about the responsibilities and principles that we require the corporate parent—the local authority—to adhere to. That is absolutely right. I say to the Minister in a spirit of helpfulness that in other legislation such as the Care Act 2014 we have joined other agencies and given them a duty to co-operate with a primary agency with regard to that primary agency’s responsibility to discharge a set of obligations placed in legislation. We had many debates similar to this one as the then Care Bill went through Parliament. The Bill had to deal with the issue of the primary responsibility on the local authority in relation to adult social care, but, at the same time, required other people to help discharge those obligations.
Lord Nash
The noble Lord makes a good point: we should look at it and see what lessons can be learned, as Scotland is at least a year ahead of us on this.
To focus on England, we absolutely acknowledge that there is a role for central government—but it is a different role. Central government departments are not the corporate parents of the children taken into care or accommodated by local authorities. The role of government is to set the broader policy framework.
That is not to say that government departments across Whitehall do not recognise that looked-after children and care leavers need more support and assistance. That is why, if we take health services as an example, the NHS Constitution for England makes clear the responsibilities of clinical commissioning groups and NHS England to looked-after children and, by extension, care leavers. It is also why looked-after children are mentioned specifically in the mandate to NHS England.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, made a point about CAMHS not being willing to treat children not in a stable placement. Child and adolescent mental health services should treat children according to level of need, irrespective of the stability of their placements. The expert group set up to look at care pathways for looked-after children will specifically address this point, with a view to ensuring that access to treatment is according to clinical need and in line with existing statutory guidance.
There are other examples where central government in England has championed looked-after children and care leavers. That is why they now attract pupil premium at a rate of £1,900 per pupil—higher than for other eligible pupils. That is why they also get priority in school admission arrangements.
In 2013, the first cross-government Care Leaver Strategy was published. It recognised the need to work coherently across government to address the needs of care leavers in the round. As a result, a number of changes were made, including measures to better identify care leavers so that they got tailored support—for instance, through the introduction of a “marker” by Jobcentre Plus so that care leavers could be identified and offered additional help. This work continues. We are now working on a refreshed strategy, and have been working closely with seven other government departments in England. The development of the strategy, which will be published shortly, has the backing of the Social Justice Cabinet Committee.
Amendments 36 and 37 seek to require government departments to publish information about services that will help care leavers prepare for adulthood and independent living. As with Clause 1, Clause 2 is about local authority services. The local offer is a manifestation of what it means for each local authority to be a good corporate parent. I agree that central government has responsibilities to looked-after children and care leavers alongside local government. The work we have been doing with each government department at both ministerial level and involving senior officials meeting regularly to discuss what more can be done to support care leavers at the level of national policy represents a significant step forward in increasing the understanding of and commitment to care leavers across Whitehall. Guidance of course is incredibly useful and we shall be consulting fully on what the guidance on corporate parenting should include. But although—quite rightly—central government can and is setting the framework for good corporate parenting, the biggest impact on the lives of looked-after children and care leavers will be made at local level.
We have not extended the principles beyond local authorities in England because it is their duty to both looked-after children and care leavers—and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for her remarks in this regard. These principles will guide local authorities in how they should exercise their existing functions and duties in relation to these vulnerable children and young people. As I have said, through these high-level principles we want to embed a corporate parenting culture across the whole local authority.
I recognise that looked-after children and care leavers need more support and assistance from a variety of public bodies. They will need to be able to make best use of services provided by other bodies, including clinical commissioning groups, NHS England, schools, housing and sometimes youth offending teams. That is why the fourth principle sets out a requirement to have regard to the need to help looked-after children and care leavers gain access to and make best use of services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners.
Of course, one could seek to apply these principles to a whole range of other public bodies. However, I believe that in doing so we would risk creating an overly bureaucratic tick-box approach that would do little to improve the life chances of looked-after children and care leavers. Instead, we need to embed a cultural shift. As I have said, the duty to co-operate with the relevant parties is already on the statute book in Section 10 of the Children Act 2004, where there is a duty to co-operate to improve the well-being of children and care leavers.
I emphasise that though we do not believe that extending the principles in law to other bodies is the way forward, we recognise that there is more to do to raise the awareness of these young people. Indeed, the consultation which local authorities will undertake with their local practitioners on developing the local offer being introduced under Clause 2 will ensure that access to NHS services and housing is inevitably brought into the process without the need for further prescription. To reinforce this, the department will also set out in statutory guidance how the corporate parenting principles should be applied in practice. Partnership working and commitment to care leavers is at the heart of the sea change that is needed to transform their lives.
Last month the Prime Minister signalled the Government’s intention to create a care-leaver covenant. This will provide a means through which public, private and voluntary sector organisations will be able to demonstrate how they support these young people and improve their lives. I would expect partners such as police and health bodies to consider how they can contribute to supporting care leavers. I also hope that many organisations in the private and voluntary sectors will commit to supporting young people leaving care through the care-leaver covenant.
I hope that noble Lords are reassured and that the noble Lord can be persuaded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Warner
Can the Minister explain what part of Section 10 actually requires other agencies to co-operate? It looks to me as though Section 10 is all about combined authority functions, which is not the same as the point being made in this debate about other agencies. Can he also respond to the point that both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and I made about looking at the Care Act to see the way in which the coalition Government took account of the need to require agencies to co-operate with the primary responsibility given to local authorities to deliver the health and well-being of people covered by the Act? We are asking the Minister to consider that and I did not hear anything in his speech that suggested he would take away the proposition that he should look at requiring a duty from these other agencies to co-operate with the local authority as the corporate parent.
The Earl of Listowel
I think that the Minister was referring to Section 10 of the Children Act 1989, not to a clause in this Bill. I hope that that is helpful.
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—
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, the report In Care, Out of Trouble: How the life chances of children in care can be transformed by protecting them from unnecessary involvement in the criminal justice system, an independent review chaired by my noble friend Lord Laming and sponsored by the Prison Reform Trust, was published about a month ago. Can the Minister tell us how the report has been received and when it is likely that a response to the recommendations made in it will be forthcoming?
I too share the concerns about the status of young people in the immigration system as they leave care. I would like to emphasise the point that has been made on all sides, most recently by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that these young people need advice early on when they enter care about their immigration status so that they can make early applications in order that when they leave care, it has been sorted out. Often they do not get that support and everything is up in the air for them. This is such an important point.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I too support Amendments 14 and 28A, but I want to speak mainly in support of Amendment 9 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I do so from the background of having been the architect of youth offending teams and as a former chairman of the Youth Justice Board. One of the most depressing things about the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, is that we continue to find that the same number of children, if not more, who have been looked after and have left care are in the criminal justice system. My responsibilities as chairman of the Youth Justice Board related to the under-18s. If noble Lords go to Feltham, as I did recently, or look at young offender institutions for 18 to 21 year-olds, they will still see very disproportionately represented young people who have been in care. It is worth giving this special consideration, without distorting and overcomplicating Clause 1 too much; the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in Amendment 9.
These children are a special case. Many of us have tried to ensure that they get a better deal so that they do not go into the criminal justice system. Progress has been made among the under-18s in diverting them away from it, but there is still a long way to go. That is particularly the case among young people who have been in care and then are taken into custody. It is the case that when they leave custody, a depressing number of these young people quickly get on to the escalator of reoffending and they are back where they started. Many of the sentences are short. I should say that I am not advocating longer sentences for people in these circumstances, but they are usually not long enough to enable those running the custodial institution to change the behaviour of these young people and provide them with support. Typically, when they come out of custody, whether they are under 18 years of age or aged 18 to 21, for many there is no one in their lives to support them, they have accommodation problems and they do not have any employment. They then go back into the kind of environment which led them to get into the criminal justice system in the first place. Many of them offend outside the area where they were in care, so we have some problems about whether those local authorities always pick up the background of these children.
It is very difficult in today’s world for a youth offending team working with a young offender in one area to get the host local authority, if I might put it that way, to take responsibility for that young person who had been in their care. We have to look very seriously at Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. It gives focus to the importance of trying to do our best to stop these young people who have been in care, or who have left care, going through the revolving door of the criminal justice system—particularly those who end up in custody and then fail again when they leave custody.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, first, I very much support the amendments that wish to provide legal assistance to children who are in need. It is extremely important that they should have such help. I suggest for consideration setting up an advice centre because the problems that unaccompanied minors who come from abroad face include the intricate law in relation to immigration. If you go to a high street solicitor, it is difficult to get the kind of advice that you might wish for in that situation. It would be important to have a small team of specialists set up by the Government, or by anyone whom the Government could persuade to set it up, which would be available to provide that kind of help to children in that situation. That would be children who are in care or unaccompanied minors who come into our system otherwise than by the ordinary ways of care. It may be a good idea to bolster this type of amendment with a suggestion as to how it might be carried out efficiently and at reasonable cost.
My second point is in relation to Amendment 9. I understand the problem broadly in terms of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and other reports—for example, the chief officers’ consideration of it. To ask people to do this is a great aim, in a sense, but I feel that if we are to do this we should offer them some assistance on how they go about it. Is the main way of approaching it to try to prevent the children in care committing criminal offences, small or large, or is it saying that if the children commit small offences we should persuade the police to do nothing about it? In other words, we should not commit these people to the organisation that deals with complaints generally. As has been said, ordinary children may find themselves in a disciplinary situation in their own families which does not involve the police and it may be that something of that kind is required. I am not at all certain how this problem can be dealt with but I am very much aware of it, and of the point of view that it should be dealt with. I would like to give more help to the people who we are asking to deal with it in how they go about it.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I support Amendments 10, 16, 34 and 87 and the separate issue that is Amendment 33. I am not going to rehearse all the arguments about why looked-after children and children taken into care are a very special case in relation to access to mental health services, but they are. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, made the point about the inadequate assessment of the state of their mental health and the trauma they have suffered. It is pretty intolerable. Some of us who are veterans of the discussions on the Health and Social Care Act 2012 spent a very long time trying to persuade the Government to deal with parity of esteem between physical and mental health in that piece of legislation. Finally, the Government gave way and it is in there. It is part of the way the mandate has been changed for NHS England.
That is fine in terms of that piece of legislation but there needs to be some follow-through in this legislation as well. That is why Amendments 34 and 87 are so important because not only do they deliver parity of esteem in terms of physical and mental health, they lead to some practical ways of making that happen. We all know that access to CAMHS is extremely variable around the country. There is no equivalent access in different parts of the country. That is why we should start to really push the boat out on this issue in this legislation. I hope the Government will recognise the seriousness of the issue of proper mental health support in the Bill for these children who have very special needs. They have gone through particular sets of trauma in getting to the point where the state has had to intervene and bring them into the care system.
I wish Amendment 33 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, had been on the statute book when I was a director of social services. I would like to have been put in the position of having to address that issue. I became the Children’s Commissioner in Birmingham in 2014-15. There is a deeply depressing familiarity for me when talking to children in private meetings about their experiences in care. They would readily tell you how many social workers they had had, not just in their time in care but in the last 12 months. There is massive turnover for a group of people who have already lost a lot of confidence in the adult world. These are young people who have often had very bad experiences at the hands of adults. They have often had a transition of adults through their lives with no consistency.
The noble and learned Lord has raised an important issue and I wish we had had more time as I would have added my name to his amendment. The Government should take this amendment very seriously. It will of course be difficult always to get that right in the present circumstances, but at least it should be clear in law that that is what the corporate parents should be trying to do as soon as the child comes into the care of the local authority.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I visited my GP last week and she expressed her concerns about the number of care leavers coming to her surgery with mental health issues—anxiety, depression, self-harming, suicidal emotions and erratic behaviour. She said: “Floella, if only we could do something about this when the child is entering care. If only we could identify that they are suffering from mental problems it would save the NHS resources and save them suffering and long-term unhappiness.” That is what many Peers have said this evening, while charities such as the NSPCC have said it for a long time. I, like others, strongly believe that we need to adequately identify the issue and that children should receive assessment for their mental and emotional well-being by professionals with specialist training in the mental health of looked-after children. This is necessary because the children are suffering long-term. We spoke earlier about corporate parenting. I believe that the principles should include the responsibility to ensure that children are offered the support they need to recover from psychological harm caused prior to their entry to the care system. That should be paramount when we have to look after those children.
There must be provisions made to guarantee that the children in care will never be denied access to, or disadvantaged when trying to access, mental health services. They are finding that this is a problem. They must never be told that they cannot get professional help because they are not in a stable placement, or disadvantaged because they have moved out of an authority placement. We know that a high percentage of children in care end up in prison or are homeless, and that many suffer from mental problems while in prison. During my prison visits, I often speak to young people who say. “If only things had been different for me when I was a child”—a phrase repeated over and over again. Children who have been abused or neglected could face serious long-term mental problems throughout adulthood because of the lack of support, so it is essential that we are able to deal with difficulties early and offer the right support to children.
Children need that support but the NSPCC has found that there are not enough therapeutic services for those who have been abused or neglected. This has to stop. There is cause for concern because more and more children are reporting sexual abuse, which is occurring every hour of the day, and because we have almost 70,000 children living in care in England. This has to stop and we have to help these children. We must not let them down. That is why I am supporting and have put my name to Amendment 87.
Children and Social Work Bill [HL]
Lord Warner Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Warner (Non-Afl)
My Lords, this is an important Bill but, if I may say so, it is also something of a ragbag of a Bill, requiring careful and detailed scrutiny, given the concerns that have been expressed today.
Before turning to my concerns, I want to say a couple of words about my perspective. I was a director of social services in Kent in the 1980s and early 1990s, and was involved in implementing the landmark Children Act 1989. This was Conservative legislation, crafted with great care and consultation by the Department of Health—not an approach, I suggest, much in evidence with this Bill. More recently, I was the children’s social care commissioner for Birmingham City Council between March 2014 and May 2015, which gave me some interesting insights into the workings of the Department for Education.
We should be very clear about the context of the Bill. It is being considered by Parliament when the number of looked-after children is increasing unrelentingly. At the end of March 2015 it was over 69,000, compared with over 65,000 four years previously. The NSPCC has shown that the number of children at risk of abuse was 570,800 at the end of 2013-14—the highest number since these data started to be collected in 2010, although it is almost certainly higher now. The number of children in the child protection system has increased by 80% since 2002. However, local authority expenditure to cope with this inexorable rise in workload is going in the wrong direction. Planned expenditure on children for 2015-16 was less in cash terms than it was in the previous year, and there are serious workforce problems.
The latest government figures on the number of social workers to cope with this rising workload are depressing. There are 26,500 full-time equivalent children’s social workers in post, but nearly 5,000 of those are agency workers. The average turnover rate is 16% nationally but can be nearly 25% in some places, such as London. In scrutinising the Bill, we owe it to social workers to bear in mind that perspective. We have to consider whether any proposed changes are properly thought through and costed and ensure that they would not disrupt further a workforce and system under great pressure.
I turn to my major area of concern, which is Part 2, about which concerns have been expressed very succinctly by the Constitution Committee. This is part of a Bill which is framework in nature and gives very wide powers to the Secretary of State totally to reshape social worker regulation and professional development. Part 2 asks us to take a great deal on trust, especially when we remember the rash abolition in 2010 of the former system of social work regulation under the auspices of the General Social Care Council as part of the coalition Government’s bonfire of the quangos. The regulatory pieces then had to be rather hastily put together again in 2012, when regulation of social workers was passed to the Health and Care Professions Council, the HCPC. Now, the Government want to have another go with an ill-thought-through change, when, as far as one can see, the HCPC has done and is doing rather a good job.
The HCPC is currently conducting a public consultation on proposed amendments to the standards of proficiency for social workers in England. Consultations so far suggest that no major changes are required, and draft revised standards will be considered by the council in September. At that point, the council will start work on strengthening standards of education and training, including practice placements. We are entitled to have reasonable confidence in this body because the independent body that oversees the work of all health and care regulators—the Professional Standards Authority —says that the HCPC has consistently been among the best performing regulators within its statutory framework and against the standards of good regulation in annual performance reviews. It also has the lowest annual retention fee of all professional regulators.
It beggars belief that DfE Ministers now want to take wide powers to throw all the social work regulatory cards up in the air again, particularly when Department of Health Ministers have made no criticisms of the PSA or the HCPC. Moreover, as I understand it, Department of Health Ministers are discussing with interested parties a public consultation on new legislation in this area following a Law Commission report on the legislation covering all health and care professions, including social workers. This could well be followed by a draft Bill, which might be the subject of pre-legislative scrutiny by both Houses of Parliament.
What light can the Minister shed on how Part 2 fits into this wider piece of work going on in government? Why do DfE Ministers want to set up a totally new body for social workers, rather than build on the work of the existing regulator? What consultations have they had with Department of Health Ministers and officials and the professional bodies concerned? What are their dissatisfactions with the current regulators, and what estimate have they made of the costs of implementing Part 2, given that it cost about £18 million—and that was some time ago—to shut down the GSCC and transfer its functions to the HCPC?
Part 2 also has the rather puzzling feature that a DfE children’s Bill seems to give the Secretary of State for Education sweeping powers to amend the regulation of social workers who work with adults—currently, as I understand it, the responsibility of the Health Secretary, who is of course, as we have often debated in this Chamber, trying to integrate health and adult social care. Have I missed a machinery of government change somewhere along the way? I say frankly to the Minister that, as things stand, I will want a lot of convincing that Part 2 should stay in the Bill, and I will want to test opinion on that issue across the House when we get to Committee.
Part 2 is not my only concern. I do not have time to go into a great deal of detail but, like others, I am unclear how the provisions on corporate parenting in Clause 1 are a massive improvement on similar provisions in the Children Act 1989. I certainly do not think that, as others have said, they are drawn sufficiently widely to cover all the services that looked-after children need both when in care and when they leave care. We need to widen the scope of Clause 1 if it is to stay in the Bill.
Although I welcome the idea of personal advisers, I have a number of concerns. First and foremost is the whole issue of vetting and ensuring that they are fit persons, given the current concerns to protect vulnerable young people from predatory adults. We do not want to create a field day for groomers. Also, we must ensure that personal advisers have the training, skills and supervision to do a good job. We need to explore in Committee how we ensure proper training and vetting for personal advisers and the possibility of a register.
Finally, there is Clause 15, which a number of people have mentioned, with a new power to test different ways of working. I have been around in public services for a long time, and it is pretty unusual to try to legislate for innovation. However, if that is what the DfE wants to try, we need to ensure that, in doing so, it and the local authorities do not sweep away the range of children’s safeguards and rights that have built up over many years—indeed, over many decades. I would find it helpful if the Minister could set out in writing a description of the kinds of obstacles that are to be swept away and what rights would be eliminated as a consequence. In the absence of more convincing detail, I think we will want to explore in Committee some form of independent scrutiny of any proposals falling under this power before they are approved.
I assure the Minister that this is not an exhaustive list of my concerns, which I will want to pursue in Committee. Because of the way that the Government have organised business, I, and I suspect others, will be putting down tomorrow my first tranche of amendments.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I very much welcome all the contributions that were made to the Second Reading debate today. I am heartened that there is a great deal of consensus on our ambition to improve the lives of vulnerable children and those leaving care and on the improvements we hope to make to the quality of children’s services throughout the Bill. All the contributions to the debate have been, as always, very well informed and constructive, reflecting the considerable expertise and experience which exists across the House in relation to children and their journey through life. This expertise will be invaluable when we come to look at the clauses in the Bill in more detail in Committee.
I will not be able to cover all the points made by noble Lords but I will try to cover as many as possible. Starting with the general scrutiny of the Bill, a number of noble Lords raised their wish for the House to be given adequate time and information for the Bill to receive detailed scrutiny in the House. I share this wish. I very much welcome the expertise of the House, of which this debate is a great example. The Bill will receive the usual detailed scrutiny in Grand Committee. We have also already made arrangements for detailed briefing sessions and discussions on parts of the Bill, the first of which will take place tomorrow. I hope that noble Lords will take advantage of these meetings.
I am also happy, along with my ministerial colleagues and officials, to meet any noble Lords to discuss the Bill if they would find this useful. I am also happy to reiterate our commitment to publishing indicative draft regulations and policy statements before clauses containing delegated powers are debated in Committee, and I am glad that this has been welcomed by a number of noble Lords across the House, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, just now.
Turning to some comments by various noble Lords concerning the delegated powers in the Bill, as I said at the start of this debate, I do not want to get into a long discussion on secondary legislation now, but the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Ramsbotham, were both, I am advised, wrong about the number of delegated powers in sections of the Bill. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, as I said at the outset, and as mentioned by my noble friends Lady Shephard and Lord Lang, Clauses 20 to 40 actually contain only two new delegated powers and one extension of an existing power proposed. This is vastly different from the suggestion by the noble Lord that there were 29 delegations of power.
To explain this further and to assist the noble Lord in looking again at his assessment, he will wish to note that delegations of power appear in Clauses 20 and 39, with an extension of an existing power in Clause 40. Remaining clauses in this part explain the use of the new powers and the purposes to which they will be put, including safeguards such as requiring the Secretary of State to consult on regulations and lay the consultation report before Parliament. It is simply not correct to label each of these clauses a new delegated power.
Similarly, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the number of powers in Clauses 15 to 19 and counted five delegated powers in this section. There is, in fact, only one delegated power in Clause 15; the remaining four clauses flesh out that power, including inserting a sunset provision and requiring consultation. The Government are firmly of the view that delegated legislation is the most appropriate vehicle to set out the role and operations of the new regulator. We must be able to update the legal framework to reflect changing professional standards and improvements in working practices. This is also in line with recent advice from the Law Commission on regulatory reform, which emphasised the need for this type of flexibility in the exercise of a regulator’s functions. It is also in line with the approach adopted by the Labour Government in 1999. At the time the 1999 regime was put in place, the Labour Government were happy that was an appropriate use of a delegated power. Again, we will be publishing policy statements and draft regulations for this area before Committee and I am, of course, more than happy to meet noble—and noble and learned—Lords to discuss this part of the Bill if they would like to do so.
Turning to the substance of the Bill, first, I want to respond to the concerns raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Watson, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Wills and Lord Warner, the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Massey, Lady Meacher and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the innovation clauses: Clauses 15 to 19. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the spectre of for-profit. In 2014 we brought forward legislation preventing profit making, where local authorities delegate child-protection functions, and we have no intention of revisiting that position. Where a local authority delegates children’s social care functions, Ofsted will still inspect them as part of local authority inspection and hold the council to account for the quality of those services. All applications to the Secretary of State will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In addition to consultation by both the Secretary of State and the local authority, this will include Ofsted, the Children’s Commissioner and local authority partners.
It may be helpful if I touch on a few examples of where this power to innovate might be applied and where local authorities might apply for exemptions. The first concerns family and friends carers. It is recognised that a carer who is either a family member or a friend is typically the best option for a child, but too often it is hard to get such a carer approved to the same standard as a professional foster carer, particularly within the 16-week time limit. Exemption could allow local authorities to trial making placements for children that put the child at the centre of the decision, prioritising their needs and their attachment to family and friends, without unduly sacrificing the safeguards in place for the child.
Secondly, there is strong consensus in the sector that in low-risk cases the role of the independent reviewing officer brings no additional benefit. Exemptions will allow local authorities to trial redirecting IRO resource differently—for example, to more complex cases—while reducing the number of additional people a young person does not know at their review, which is a known concern, in more straightforward cases.
Thirdly, there is criticism that adoption and fostering panels which are only advisory add little value and can often delay the process of approving prospective carers. Exemption could allow local authorities to trial removing a potentially invasive and unnecessary requirement from one of the many layers of checking, leaving the agency decision-maker who currently makes the decision to exercise their professional judgment.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, praised Leeds for its good work. It is, indeed, one of our partners in looking at Clauses 15 to 19, and is itself hoping to make use of the power to innovate.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about the importance of care leavers receiving advice about leaving care well in advance of that event. The noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin, Lady Howe and Lady Bakewell, and others talked about the importance of advice for care leavers. Indeed, this was raised by a number of young people yesterday and is exactly the sort of advice that should be covered in the local offer. Two particularly impressive young people yesterday said that their local authority offered a passport to independence, setting out all the things that young care leavers need to know.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and others mentioned the importance of kinship care and foster care, which we, of course, recognise. In 2011, we published Family and Friends Care. Under this guidance local authorities must publish their approach to promoting and supporting the needs of children living with family and friends. The Government have also taken action through regulations to strengthen and encourage arrangements for long-term foster care. Our emphasis then, as in this Bill, is to promote stability in children’s lives.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Hughes, talked about money. The amount spent on child protection and social care has remained steady since 2010. This is not necessarily about the amount of money spent but also the way it is spent. The best provision is not necessarily the most expensive. We hope that the power to innovate will demonstrate that.
My noble friend Lady Shephard made very good points about individual responsibility and mentioned good practice in Trafford. Trafford is, sadly, the only local authority in the country whose services and support for care leavers have been rated as outstanding. Obviously, we would like many more local authorities to aspire to that level of success. She also mentioned Norwich for Jobs, of which I am aware. I am delighted to hear that it is now bringing that programme to NEETs.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about apprenticeships for care leavers. Employers receive full funding for the training costs associated with an apprenticeship. This has been extended to care leaver apprentices up to the age of 24. We will now go further and extend this to 25.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler, Lady Walmsley and Lady Howe, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, spoke about corporate parenting. The local authority has statutory responsibility for the care of looked-after children and care leavers, and therefore in law is the corporate parent. However, we recognise that other agencies will also have an interest in, and potentially an impact on, the lives of children in care and care leavers. That is why under our wider care-leaving strategy we are promoting a care leaver covenant which will encourage other agencies and organisations to adopt the principles and have regard to them in their planning and decision-taking. Importantly, the fourth principle also sets out a requirement on local authorities to work with local partners to ensure that young people can access their services.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, talked about the lack of success that often results from government departments joining up. I acknowledge that but this Bill is an example of good joint working between the DfE, the Department of Health and the Home Office in particular. The Social Justice Cabinet Committee has also had a number of discussions on and with care leavers to ensure that their needs are well understood across government.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Benjamin, the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Bichard, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott and others talked about the importance of personal advisers and whether it was sufficient to leave it to the child or young person themselves to request an adviser. This is an extremely good point which I would like to go away and reflect on. We had hoped that the local offer would make it absolutely clear to all care leavers that they have this expectation, but I would like to consider this further.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, talked about an overreaching look at things in legislation and whether we could look more widely. The legislation is, of course, only part of the solution: practice is absolutely key and a great deal of work is focused on this. Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Farmer, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, raised the matter of personal advisers. Minister Timpson has asked officials to conduct a review of the personal adviser role, to determine whether the functions should be amended to give more emphasis to the mentoring and befriending aspects of the role. He has asked for this review to be undertaken at pace, so that its findings are available to inform further thinking as the Bill proceeds through Parliament. It will cover areas such as consistency, relationships, quality and requirements.
My noble friend Lord Farmer, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes, Lady Massey and Lady Hodgson, talked about the importance of early intervention and early years. I could not agree with them more: they made some extremely good points. I would be delighted to set up a meeting between the noble Lords and Minister Gyimah, who is responsible for this area, to discuss this further. The noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Walmsley, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham talked about the circumstances where a national review might be called for. I would like to reflect on this more. Concerns were raised about the distress of good social workers whose cases are considered by this kind of panel. I assure noble Lords that the panel will in no way focus on individual blame, but only on issues which may lead to timely improvement at national level. I note the concerns of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Pinnock, that lessons learned from national reviews trickle down to the local level.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, raised questions about the dissemination of learning, concerns about the two-tier system and the criteria for national reviews. The dissemination of findings from reviews is critical. That is the role of the proposed What Works centre for children’s social care. The centre will build a robust evidence base and share learning on what does and does not work. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, made an extremely important point about the importance of social skills. She might be interested in a report just out from Harvard, a copy of which I can provide her with. It states that all new jobs in America created over the past 10 years have gone to people with the essential social and life skills, and predicts that this is likely to continue in future. She also asked about our definition of coasting schools. This will be laid before Parliament in the autumn, after this year’s exam results are published. On life skills, in our recent White Paper we have placed greater importance on building character and resilience in every child. We will also significantly expand the National Citizen Service and expect schools to give every pupil the chance to take part.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asked about records access. The Children Act 1989 statutory guidance sets out the requirements which local authorities must follow in relation to care records. It states what records should include and that they should be kept for 75 years. That Act requires local authorities to give access to records to people authorised by the Secretary of State and guardians appointed by the court. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, talked about the removal of a duty under the Children Act 1989 to publish information. I do not believe that there is such a removal. It is simply that an existing duty to publish certain information relating to care leavers has been incorporated into the local offer provisions. I am happy to give her more clarification on that if she would like it.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the report by the noble Lord, Lord Laming. We welcome this report on an important topic. We are clear that no child living in a children’s home should be criminalised for behaviour that would not concern the police if it happened in a family home. The Government have asked Sir Martin Narey to review residential care and he will make recommendations on criminalisation. We have also asked Charlie Taylor to conduct a review of the youth justice system. He will report back in the summer with recommendations on how to improve the treatment of young people in care.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Massey, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, my noble friend Lady Hodgson and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Benjamin and Lady Howe, talked about mental health. Children’s mental health is obviously extremely important, particularly in relation to children in care, and the Government take the issue very seriously. Last year we published Future in Mind, setting out our vision for transforming children’s mental health services, including local transformation plans setting out the mental health services in place to meet the needs of looked-after children. We are backing this with £1.4 billion over five years and we have agreed that an expert group on the mental health of looked-after children will look into the issue of specialist assessment.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned the UNCRC report in relation to the Bill. We recognise the importance of the committee’s work and the Bill formed part of the evidence that we prepared for it. We are now looking closely at the report. He also mentioned life chances. He is right to say that the Bill supports the life chances agenda and to emphasise the need to make sure that the two dovetail. On unaccompanied minors—a point also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey—DfE officials are working and will continue to work closely with the Home Office. We recognise that unaccompanied minors have wide-ranging needs and we are working closely with the local government sector to ensure that they receive appropriate support that reflects their needs and experiences, and which do not place disproportionate pressure on the services of any individual local authority.
There was also a question about children going missing from education and about their exploitation. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, particularly raised the issue of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We take the issue of missing and absent children extremely seriously. That is why last year we placed a duty on councils to offer an interview to children who return from going missing within 72 hours and, for the first time ever, have collected national data on all children who go missing from care, not just those missing for 24 hours. We have strengthened care planning and children’s homes regulations, including requiring all homes to ensure that they have clear policies on preventing children going missing, and responding when children do go missing, in line with local police protocols on missing persons.
The plight of unaccompanied asylum-seekers is of course different from that of children who have been taken into care as a result of their domestic situation. Many are aged 16 or 17 and, as several Members have noted, have experienced long and difficult journeys to reach the UK. Some have witnessed terrible events. Their needs can of course vary hugely from individual to individual. Such children also tend to be concentrated in a few locations around the country, which can put additional pressure on those local authorities’ services. Kent, for example, now faces a shortage of places for its own children who need to be taken into care. The Government are working closely with the local government sector and individual local authorities to ensure that the needs of these children can be met by a much wider group of local authorities. That exercise is under way and the Government are providing additional funding to support those placements, and to ensure that appropriate support can be provided.
A point was made about extending the visits of virtual school heads to FE colleges—I think it was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. If a child is looked after, the virtual school head champions their education regardless of the education setting.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, talked about the HCPC and our plans to take responsibility for social workers away from it. This is not a criticism of the work of the council, as I said earlier, but it regulates 16 professions and we believe that social work requires a different model of regulation—one that is specific to this unique and challenging profession and puts it on a par with other high-status professions. We will work closely with the HCPC to ensure that we maintain what works well under the current regulatory framework. This is a joint approach by DfE and the Department of Health for children and adult social services.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay and the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, talked about a college of social work. Indeed, until recently the Government supported an attempt to establish such a college with £8.2 million. Unfortunately, the college struggled to attract the members it needed and, in any case, this is no substitute for independent, professional standards and regulations. Public protection will remain a central objective of the new regulator. As for the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, about costs, we do not anticipate any immediate changes to the registration fees paid by social workers.
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, talked about whistleblowing. Although Public Interest Disclosure Act protections cover only directly employed foster carers, there are already wider requirements for fostering services to have complaints procedures and whistleblowing policies in place. Standard 21.11 of the fostering services national minimum standards is clear:
“Current and prospective foster carers”,
must be able to,
“make a complaint about any aspect of the service which affects them directly”.
It is also clear that records must be kept of,
“representations and complaints, how they are dealt with, the outcome and any action taken”.
A number of noble Lords asked why we are creating new offences. There is in fact little here that is new: the current legislation already provides the power to create offences in secondary legislation to support the regulation of social workers. The provisions we have made in this Bill are in fact considerably narrower in scope than those that exist in the primary legislation at present. They will enable the creation of a small number of offences that, as now, we judge essential to protect the integrity of the regulatory process.
My noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, asked about confidential information requested by a panel under Clauses 11 and 14. The Bill does not prevent those asked for information from asserting legal or medical privilege. The panel would need to consider any such assertion against the need for the information, and it is also important to note the care that the panel would take with such information in its consideration with regard to publication. The Bill does not include a power for the panel to compel the provision of information, although public bodies may be required to do so as a result of judicial review. We are currently considering whether additional powers of enforcement would be appropriate and will bring forward a suitable amendment if that is deemed necessary.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, talked about the assessment of the SEND local offer. The noble Baroness rightly noted the parallels between the care leaver offer and the SEND local offer introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014. It is still early days, of course, but we are optimistic about its impact. I do not have any data with me, but the anecdotal feedback I have received is very positive.
My noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy asked whether the categories of ceased to be looked after and previously looked after were the same. I can assure him that they are the same. He also raised some points about designated teachers, what works and other matters which I will reflect on and on which I will respond to him. I am grateful for his encouragement to be bold on the question of the power to innovate.
In conclusion, I agree entirely with the excellent comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, about the difficulties facing social workers in their vital jobs. We are determined to do everything we can to make the lives of social workers less difficult and to raise both the level of support for them and their status.
Lord Warner
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister in his flow, but he has had a good run at it. Could he say a little more about how the Government are going to answer the very specific question that a number of us raised about Part 2? Could he ensure that we have a joint briefing with Department of Health Ministers so we understand what the Government are doing in this area? As of now, the Minister is asking us to have a clause stand part debate on each of Clauses 20 to 40 so that we can get to the bottom of what the Government’s thinking is in this area.
Children and Families Bill
Lord Warner Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with these amendments, particularly Amendments 7 and 8 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and especially the need for greater support for children returning home from care. As other noble Lords have said, the new proposals that the Government recently put out are very welcome and are certainly a good step in the right direction. I commend them for making these proposals. However, as we have already heard, almost half of children who return home re-enter care, and a third have gone in and out of care twice or more. It is a vicious circle and the impact on the child can be devastating.
Since we are now on Report, I restate an interest as chair of CAFCASS. We have already heard that much of the problem is that the very problems of the parents that have resulted in the children going into care in the first place generally remain unresolved. Unless there is more help and support available to the family, particularly to the parents, to help them deal with those problems—be they to do with substance misuse, domestic violence, mental health or alcohol abuse—the chance of the child coming home successfully to the parent and having the sort of loving and stable household and help that they need is slim indeed. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on what more can be done to address this issue.
Lord Warner (Lab)
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 9, which puts contact between siblings in the Bill. I apologise to the House that I was unable to take part in this Bill’s proceedings in Committee because I was engaged on the Care Bill. However, I was on the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation and I echo the points made by the chairman of that committee, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.
On the basis of my six years as a director of social services, I have a general point about why the Minister should concede on Amendment 9. While I was director, the Children Act 1989 was passed. That was a classic example of Parliament saying in a Bill that decisions about children should be taken on the basis of the best interests of the child. In the overwhelming majority of cases where siblings are separated, the best interests of the child are to maintain that contact. Sibling contact is often a private child’s world, which is not always well observed by adults, whether they are social workers or other adults involved in that child’s life. Maintaining that contact is overwhelmingly important to children. My noble friend has shown that the option of putting it in guidance and relying on best practice has had a good run for its money and it has not worked. We should return to some of the ideas in the Children Act 1989 and put in the Bill the obligation to help maintain contacts between siblings when they are separated. These contacts are in the best interests of the children and very important to them. It costs very little to put that in the Bill.
Baroness Hamwee
I support Amendments 9 and 10. When the noble and learned Baroness was talking, I remembered that when she was meeting children—she shared with the House some of their moving comments—I was in the next room meeting the carers, mostly social workers. When we talked about contact generally, not just with siblings, several of them said that the problem lay in adopters not wanting to know, preferring to see their children as part of the new family and wanting to leave the past behind. Therefore I take very seriously the point that she and other noble Lords have made about the importance of having this in the legislation. Guidance has not been enough and I do not see that it will be enough.
In support of Amendment 10, in Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Young, gave such an important explanation of the need to know one’s identity that, without wanting to embarrass her, I feel it should be framed. It said a lot about the specific issue about which I was concerned, about descendants of adopted people and, as she has just mentioned, the need of older adults to know about their heritage and background. What she has said seems in line with adoption practice and with Amendment 1, which we have agreed. It is an important way to move practice forward though statute.