Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, has just said and pay tribute to the work of the Labour Government—their huge investment of funds to improve the education of looked-after children; the change in the law; the introduction of designated teachers; and the reform of the school admissions process, which is so important for these young people.

There has been concern about the success in higher education achieved by young people leaving care. It is also very important to bear in mind that many of these young people mature late. As I have mentioned in the Chamber, Dr Mark Kerr, a care leaver himself, who has done research in this area, found that upwards of a quarter of 25 year-olds in the group he looked at had gone on to higher education. I hope these statistics will provide a means of monitoring how many mature students have been through care, so that we can get a more accurate idea of how successful our efforts are. It has been somewhat demoralising to think that all the effort we have put into the education of looked-after children has not been reflected in higher education attainment, although there has been a significant increase from a very low base. Regarding how we might make best use of our resources, it may be helpful to know how many 25 year-olds who have been in care go on to higher education, for instance.

The noble Baroness referred to the Frank Buttle Trust, which has done such important work in this area, and the Who Cares? Trust. One issue the Frank Buttle Trust has identified is that, where there is someone to champion care leavers at university, one needs to plan carefully for that person’s succession. One can have a very good person in place but when they move on, everything can fall back. Therefore, I hope that can be kept in mind in any guidance arising from this work. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, for tabling these two amendments and look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. When I was chancellor of a former polytechnic, which became a very successful university, we had a worrying number of undergraduates who left at the end of the first year, or sometimes the second year. We did not know whether or not they had been in care. There was a very good support service at the university which could have been used to help them if they had been identified as needing extra help. These two amendments are very helpful.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we support all these amendments. In speaking to Amendments 88A and 88B, I simply echo the remarks of my noble friend Lady Hughes of Stretford. This would be a very important addition to the Bill. As regards the other amendments, we welcome the commitment to ensure that academies and maintained schools are held to the same standards of educational achievement for relevant children, and the requirement to consult upon, and publish, a local care offer for care leavers. This would allow best practice to be shared throughout the sector and ensure full accountability and informed choices for children and young people.

The post of designated lead for looked-after children already exists in all schools, so the extension to previously looked-after children is welcome, but in reality these duties in a school are often overlaid on top of existing responsibilities. For instance, the duty regarding looked-after children is often added to the SEN co-ordinator’s role or to that of a senior manager. Therefore, the implications could be significant in terms of time allocation for the member of staff concerned.

We also believe that academy trusts should be required to designate a lead person, and that somebody at a senior level should be involved, such as an executive member within the trust. An individual member of staff may be the designated staff member, but he or she should report to someone at executive level to ensure that the executive member assumes ultimate responsibility for the interests of looked-after and previously looked-after children, and that the designated staff member is allocated the requisite time and resources to do his or her job properly.

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[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.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 89, 90 and 90A which seek to amend Clause 8. Before I do so it may be helpful if I take a moment to set out the intention behind Clause 8. It seeks to improve decision-making about child placements and to improve the information that is put before courts in care proceedings. It is about making sure that children’s long term-needs are at the forefront of decision-makers’ minds when significant decisions are made about where the child should live. Under current legislation, when deciding whether to make a care order, courts must consider the local authority’s long-term plan for the upbringing of a child. Clause 8 asks courts, when doing this, to consider the individual needs of the child now and, crucially, in the future, particularly in the light of any abuse or neglect they have experienced, and to consider how well the proposed care placement will meet those needs. The intention is to ensure that children receive placements which will meet their needs throughout their childhood.

I turn to Amendment 89, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Every child deserves a loving and stable family. For those children who cannot live with their birth parents, it is vital that we find them permanent new homes as quickly as possible. Often, the best place will be with kinship carers or foster carers, and that is why we remain committed to improving those routes to permanence. The Government are pro adoption because it is a strong, permanent option for many children which provides them with the support and care they need throughout their lives. However, we also support other forms of permanence. Indeed, the Bill includes measures to improve educational support for children who leave care through a special guardianship order or child arrangements order, and the clause we are discussing will improve decision-making for all permanent options, which I think we would all agree is a good thing.

I recognise the intention behind the amendment, which is to ensure that all placement orders are given equal consideration. However, the amendment would duplicate wording that is already set out elsewhere, in the Children Act 1989. Section 22C of the 1989 Act and accompanying statutory guidance sets out clearly how looked-after children are to be accommodated by local authorities. This includes placements with family members, foster placements and placements in children’s homes. We have no evidence that local authorities and courts are not clear about what placement options they need to consider during care proceedings, so the amendment would add nothing to the current legislation.

Amendment 90, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, proposes additional wording for Clause 8 to ensure that courts take into account the wishes and feelings of the child when deciding whether to make a care order. I am sure that no one questions the need for the child’s voice to be heard by the court charged with making important decisions about them. It is absolutely crucial that a child’s wishes and feelings should play a significant role in any decision-making about their upbringing. However, I want to reassure the noble Baroness and others that this principle is already captured in existing legislation.

On the point raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, Section 22F of the 1989 Act states that in making any decision in relation to the child, the local authority should give due consideration to the child’s wishes and feelings, having regard to that child’s age and understanding.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I apologise to the Minister, but that is in Part 3 of the Bill, which deals with the accommodation of children who are not children in care. The point about the amendment is that this provision should be included where the parent is also the local authority. The local authority has parental responsibility under Part 4, which it does not have under Part 3, when it is looking at the care plan. Authorities do not look back at Part 3 when dealing with Part 4. I suggest to the Minister that he is not being entirely legally accurate about this.

[Lord Nash]

In view of that suggestion, I will not attempt even to get to that ball, let alone try to hit it back over the net. I will have the appropriate conversations and write to the noble and learned Baroness. We will certainly get our minds clear on this point.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady King, for Amendment 90A, which seeks to place a specific duty on local authorities and NHS mental health services to support the needs identified in children’s care plans. Where children are in the care of a local authority, as the corporate parent it is under a specific duty to both assess and meet all their support needs. The Department for Education and the Department of Health have issued joint statutory guidance on the planning, commissioning and delivery of health services for looked-after children. It aims to ensure that these children have access to any physical or mental healthcare they may need. Statutory guidance is issued by law so both local authorities and health authorities must follow it unless there is a good reason not to do so.

We are also working with the Department of Health and NHS England to develop a mental health care pathway for looked-after and formerly looked-after children. The expert working group on the mental health of looked-after and adopted children will look at the needs of parents and what interventions can be applied to improve outcomes for the whole family. This would include adopted children. All clinical commissioning groups have had to set out how they will implement the CAMHS review, Future in Mind, and improve support for adoptive children. Given the reassurances and the undertaking to discuss some of the points further, and given that the intentions behind these amendments are already largely captured in legislation, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will withdraw his amendment and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady King, will not press theirs.

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[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I support Amendment 91, to which my name is attached. In doing so, as in the previous group I want once again to draw on my experience as the chair of CAFCASS. From our work at CAFCASS, we have found that children in care who have regular contact with their siblings tend to do better in terms of outcomes. It is absolutely the case that relationships with siblings are often the most enduring that those children have. Indeed, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Warner, they can be as important to children as the relationship with their parents, particularly if they have supported each other through difficult times.

The reason why I most wanted to add my name to the amendment was that I attended a meeting last October of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Looked After Children and Care Leavers. Indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was there as well. It was a very moving meeting; we heard from a large number of children in care and who had recently left care about their experiences, in particular about the barriers that they had encountered in terms of having sibling contact. Perhaps I may mention some examples. A young person said that he had asked for contact with his siblings, but the local social services said no, because the siblings were in the care of a different local authority. That young person had not seen his siblings for 10 years. Another young person told us that he was the oldest of 13 siblings and had been allowed to see only two of them. He said that his adoptive parents were actively preventing him from seeing his brothers and sisters. We heard about other barriers, such as the issue not being high on the agenda for the local authority; we heard of young people who could not even get together the travel costs to see their siblings. We heard about a lot of things like that—but we also heard, more encouragingly, about some good practice, including young people being able to use Skype to make contact, and memory boxes for their siblings being put together.

I came away from that meeting feeling profoundly shocked and moved by those issues. It would seem so easy to do something about them, so why were we not? Along with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in November last year I signed a letter to Edward Timpson, the Minister responsible, setting out what had happened at the meeting and asking him what could be done to make it the norm for sibling contact to happen.

This Bill provides the ideal opportunity to add a provision like that set out in Amendment 91, which would make it much easier for young people like the ones I met to maintain sibling contact. I think that the impact on the rest of their lives could be really profound.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I would like to support what the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, has just said. The Select Committee responsible for the post-adoption legislative inquiry came to the conclusion that I and one or two other Peers who served on the committee ought to meet children. We met a group of around a dozen adopted children to ask about their experiences. We then thought that it would only be fair to meet children who are in care, and again we spoke to about a dozen of those children. Everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, has just said we experienced, and it was very moving. I was the only Peer actually to talk to those children and their enablers. They told me frankly how they felt, and nearly everything they talked about was in relation to their brothers and sisters. One young person who was just about to leave care had been the father figure to three or four younger children. They were taken away and all divided up between different families. He said, “I was responsible for them. No one will even tell me how they are getting on. I think of them every night”. It was really terrible. The idea that siblings are taken into account should not be part of the actual law of the land seems utterly wrong.

We know that local authorities are in difficulties, and I am not suggesting that every sibling, perhaps particularly the eldest of 13, should be able to see every one of their brothers and sisters once a week; that would be silly. The use of Skype, Facebook and so on provides an opportunity to be in touch but, unless it is a requirement, it is extremely easy to overlook. That is why it needs to be in primary legislation.

I am a grandmother, six times over I am glad to say, but I am also a not-particularly effective president of the Grandparents’ Association and, on its behalf, I would like to say how important grandparents are—and the stories I have heard of how grandparents are taken for granted. If they are able to look after the children, that is great, but when they come in asking to take over the care of children, who basically they have been looking after for years and years, they are utterly disregarded. In the best of local authorities and, I have to say, the best of CAFCASS, they are taken into account, but many times they are not. It is about time that also was on the face of primary legislation. I should add, of course, that not every grandparent is a good one—one has to recognise this. The fact they are on primary legislation does not mean the local authority has to deal with thoroughly obstructive, unhelpful grandparents, who are trying to destroy whatever the situation is. Speaking now as a former judge, I had that sort of grandparent too, so one has to be realistic. But the majority of grandparents love their grandchildren and work incredibly hard for them, and they really should be recognised.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I also support very strongly the amendments tabled by my noble friends and other noble Baronesses and noble Lords in this group. I will speak briefly but very particularly in relation to the points about siblings and grandparents. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have spoken very movingly about the importance to children of contact with their siblings. The new and rising role of grandparents also means that we have to look at that in terms of policy, as well.

I want to reflect on something that I find quite depressing. Most people in this room now were also participants when we debated the Children and Families Bill, not too long ago. We had extensive debates then about the importance of contact with siblings and the importance of considering kinship care before alternatives were gone towards too quickly, yet it seems to be the default position of the Department for Education not to recognise this in primary legislation. When he replies, I hope the Minister will speak to that, because I thought we had convinced him and his officials then, when we debated that Bill—but here we are again, with other legislation presented to us, that completely disregards siblings and other important family members. As the evidence my noble friend cited from the Family Rights Group and others shows, there is still very poor practice. Unless we put these issues in legislation to demonstrate their importance when the decisions about individual children and families are being made, we will still keep going around in circles. We will come back with another Bill and they will still not be there, and we will still have children separated from their brothers and sisters. Now is the time really to put this right.