Children’s Social Care

Lord Wood of Anfield Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I make no comment about the Treasury, but the noble Lord is right to bring us back to the most important element of these reforms: how we can ensure that we not only listen to children’s voices—he is absolutely right that they should be at the heart of our work—but do everything we can, cross-party and with local government, the voluntary and charitable sector and elements of the private sector that are providing a good service, to reform our system so that it puts children and their welfare at the heart of what is happening.

I am not quite sure what the noble Lord means by “children’s departments”. All local authorities have directors of children’s services and those who are responsible for ensuring that children get the services they need appropriately. We also have excellent social workers across the country who deserve credit, alongside those who support them, for their work in protecting and safeguarding our children and, as he rightly says, listening to them so that their voices can be at the heart of the reforms we are making.

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a question about a category of children who are perhaps the most vulnerable within the category of extremely vulnerable children: those who are subject to deprivation of liberty order. The Children’s Commissioner recently highlighted that the number of people for whom there has been an application for deprivation of liberty has doubled in the last three years, and the conditions in which some of these children are placed are really appalling: roughly 50% are in unregulated or illegal placements. I very much applaud the idea of integration, a comprehensive approach and clamping down on profiteering, but what is the plan for taking urgent action for the most vulnerable children in these appalling circumstances while the longer-term plan is assembled?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: there has been an unacceptable increase in the number of children subject to deprivation of liberty orders. That is because there is not the often very specialised and regulated provision that is appropriate for them. That is why they need the order to place them in what is essentially unregulated provision. Going back to the urgent action that we need to take to increase the number of placements, I come back to the point I made about the £90 million additional investment. Part of its work will be to find new forms of secure accommodation that can safely, and with high quality, care for the sort of children my noble friend rightly brings our attention to.