Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, before I say a word on Amendment 32, it is extremely interesting how, as on the first day in Committee, fascinating bits of information from people’s background and knowledge of the whole of this area comes out, all of which is enormously valuable to those who are responsible for these Bills and this Bill in particular.

I support Amendment 32 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, because it states that the,

“guidance given by the Secretary of State must stipulate … the need to screen children … the need for those who work with … children … to receive training in awareness of speech, language and communication needs”,

and refers to,

“the need for appropriate support to be provided for those children and young people with speech, language and communication needs”.

Above all, I stress that there is a need to update regularly all those people who are in this position and working with these children in need. Although I agree that all children need attention and need us to be aware of how they are developing and of what particular skills that will be essential in their future lives they are lacking, nevertheless, it is those who are in this very important position who need to be updated and know exactly what is happening in this area. I am very much in support of everything that has been said on this group and I look forward to what the Minister will say.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and start by addressing Amendments 30 and 32. Comprehensive legislation in this area is already in place and the local offer and support of personal advisers will strengthen existing arrangements. Under Section 22 of the Children and Families Act 2014, local authorities must identify all the children or young people in their area who have special educational needs or a disability. If needs are identified, a series of legal obligations will result in the local authority securing the necessary special educational provision. The statutory SEND code of practice sets out the detailed requirements on local authorities in relation to identifying and meeting special educational needs, including speech, language and communication. In addition, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that we expect details of services to meet speech, language and education needs—including how they can be accessed—to be included in the local offer, which every local authority is required to publish in consultation with children, parents and young people.

The department also funds a consortium of more than 40 voluntary and community sector organisations to support practitioners working in the field of speech, language and communication. The department recently extended the contract, awarding a total of £650,000 in 2016-17 to extend and strengthen the evidence base around SLCN, increase awareness of speech, language and communication needs, and build capacity in the sector so that it can indeed provide the support that all noble Lords feel is so important. Virtual school heads, working with designated teachers and special educational needs co-ordinators, should also identify the support that looked-after children need in speech, language and communication. I know that under further groups of amendments today we will discuss in more detail the role of virtual school heads.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask a quick question about SEN thresholds. I understand that recent legislation has raised the threshold for an SEN statement, the idea being that schools will have better capacity to meet the lower-level issues. I had a fairly low-level speech impediment and I am not sure that I would have qualified for a statement. I should like to be told whether that threshold has been raised and whether we are getting evidence that schools are able to meet the lower levels which are no longer being statemented. Perhaps the Minister would write to me or we could just have a conversation about it afterwards.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I will do that.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, as I am to all those who have taken part in the debate on this group. I must admit that I am always nervous when I hear the phrase “comprehensive legislation is in place” because it reminds me that we are serving under what has been called the “management complex”. It may be all very well for people in Whitehall to lay things down and think that it is comprehensive, but a word that came up over and over again at Second Reading, as it is doing during Committee, is “consistency”. It is not a matter of laying stuff down; it is a matter of seeing that it is delivered consistently everywhere.

What worries me about much of this—about Section 22 and SEN and so on—is that it is all very well as seen from here but it will not be good enough unless it is reflected on the ground. I have taken note of what the Minister has said and I will come back on Report with some examples of inconsistency—that is, where it is not happening on the ground. It is very important that officials realise that rather than merely issue the instructions.

I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, mentioned relationships. In young offender institutions where speech, language and communication therapists were introduced, the first thing that was noticed was an improvement in relationships. With that improvement, the whole atmosphere and the way that things were conducted in the institution improved. Somebody described it by saying that they were communicating with each other using the mouth rather than the fist. That was a pretty good basic description.

Had my noble friend Lord Northbourne been here, he would yet again express the concern he expressed to me that we hear an awful lot about corporate parenting but there is nothing about parenting skills themselves in this Bill. Those are hugely important, and at the basis of all the social work we are talking about. I am surprised that there is no mention of that in the Bill. I very much hope that may be rectified in government amendments that will install in the Bill some of the things the Government have assured us are in place. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a persuasive debate. We have already had the evidence that my noble friend Lady Armstrong described from the social justice commission, which is all too depressingly clear on the plight of care leavers who become young carers. My noble friend Lady Massey referred to the Family Rights Group, which produced an excellent briefing detailing some of the challenges that young parents covered by these amendments have to face. I was particularly struck by the evidence that young parents often feel judged by their youth and background rather than their parenting abilities, and particularly that, where support has been provided to them, it has often been done in their capacity as young people leaving care and has rather ignored their roles as parents. This will be a very telling point when we come to the Minister’s arguments.

The amendments seem comprehensive. Amendment 61A would insert into the assessment of the needs of a former relevant child a reference to young parents, while Amendment 71A expands helpfully on the definition of young parents. Amendment 98AA would insert into the Bill a requirement for pathway plans to be provided for,

“looked after children and care leavers who are young parents”,

and Amendment 98AB would amend the Care Leavers (England) Regulations 2010 to incorporate support for young parents, so my noble friend has tabled a comprehensive package of amendments.

Rather like the right reverend prelate, the Minister may say that young parents are implicitly covered in the Bill. However, to come back to the point raised in the evidence we received from the Family Rights Group, is not one of the problems here that in these legislative terms care leavers are thought of as care leavers rather than as young parents? It seems that although the Minister may say that the provisions can be seen to apply to young parents, the fact is that sometimes there is a need to be explicit. There is sometimes an advantage in putting a specific requirement into the Bill. The point I put to the Ministers is that the case has been made today for such an explicit provision, and I am sure that we will need to return to this.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. Although I see the intention behind these amendments and the important issues that noble Lords have raised, we are not persuaded that they require prescription in primary legislation. I am reminded of the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, earlier today and in our previous session that we should not overburden the Bill with matters best addressed by other means, particularly guidance.

As we have discussed at length, local authorities will appoint a personal adviser to those care leavers who want one, up to their 25th birthday. This brings with it the responsibility for the corporate parent to assess a young person’s needs and to prepare a pathway plan. This means that a wider group of care leavers will have their needs identified and responded to for a longer period, including those needs linked to parenthood.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her careful and thoughtful response, but I have a couple of questions for her. With regard to health visitors, I acknowledge the immense investment that the Government have made in the regeneration of the profession. However, is she aware that until recently central government has been funding health visitors and many more have successfully been recruited, but that has recently moved to local government responsibility. There has been concern that some local authorities may choose not to fund the service or to fund it less. One issue is how frequently health visitors can visit. I should like an assurance from the Minister that so far the news of that transition to local government funding is that health visiting services are continuing as they have before. She can write to me but I would appreciate reassurance on that point. There might be room for improved guidance in this area. There is clearly a struggle in prioritising how health visitor services should be used in this climate and how many visits can be made to families. I would appreciate an assurance that the guidance is explicit that a young care leaver should have at least four visits—I think the standard may be three or two at the moment. Something like that might be helpful.

Although I welcome the family nurse partnership model and the benefits that it brings through having a professional team around the family and not just the health visitor on her own, I believe that that is a fairly short intervention. Perhaps the Minister can let me know how long it lasts. Given the issues of continuity of care for this group of young people, I would appreciate more information about the duration of the family nurse partnership model and what provision is made to ensure a smooth transition to other services. Reassurance on that matter would be welcome.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am happy to write to the noble Earl with more detail and will circulate the letter to other Peers who have been here today.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. She talked about the intent of the amendments being covered in guidance. I will withdraw the amendment at this stage but, in doing so, I would like to be confident that the Minister will ensure that the House is able to consider the guidance before Third Reading.

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[Lord Storey]

I shall speak to Amendment 86. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has been a worthy champion of PSHE ever since I joined the House of Lords. I thought that the battle was over when in reply to her question the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, said that yes, she thought that it was important that all schools taught PSHE. I raised my hand in the air thinking, “Great, we’ve got that”.

I was interested in the comment of the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy. There is always this debate about whether we have to slim down the curriculum. It is said, “We don’t want to have statutory PSHE; we want schools—academies—to have freedoms”. Yes, I can subscribe to some of that but children are more important than them just having freedoms for curriculum development. There are really important things that need to be taught to all children and we have just heard a catalogue of them. It is hugely important that children have sex and relationship education and that they have financial education, and so on and so forth. I was fascinated by the noble Lord’s comments about the sort of work that he does in his schools. I pay tribute to that, but it should be for all schools.

I am not sure whether saying, “Let’s get the PSHE model right before we make it statutory” is the right approach. It should be the other way round. We should be saying that we will make it statutory for all schools—including free schools as well, incidentally, which I notice that the amendment does not mention—and then we make the resources, drive and determination to make that happen. That is probably one of the most important things that we can do for all children, but particularly for vulnerable and looked-after children.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, Amendments 77 to 79 and 86 concern educational support for formerly looked-after children. The trauma and experiences of children who have suffered from abuse and neglect can have a long-term impact on outcomes and life chances, even once they have left care through a permanence order. The Bill seeks to ensure that everything possible is done to help these children and young people overcome the difficulties that they have faced and to realise their ambitions.

Our intention is to place a duty on local authorities to extend the duties of virtual school heads to support looked-after children who have left care under an adoption, special guardianship or child arrangement order. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that we will consider his Amendment 77. We will be talking to government lawyers about whether the current drafting fully captures special guardianship or child arrangement orders. We think that it does for adopted children but if it does not and the current drafting of the Bill does not achieve that aim, we will consider a government amendment to Clause 4. I thank him for raising that issue.

While I understand the point made by my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy in his Amendment 78, I am not convinced that it is necessary to place a duty on local authorities to consider the impact of what they will do on other groups of children. Local authorities will need to ensure that they do not spend disproportionate time supporting one child or group of children at the expense of others. Virtual school heads must do this now as some looked-after children will require more intensive support than others. I reassure my noble friend that the new duties in the Bill are deliberately light-touch—just providing information and advice—to allow virtual school heads to effectively prioritise their workload.

The role of the virtual school head for formerly looked-after children will be different from their current role. They will not have to monitor each child’s progress as they do for children in care for instance, as the child’s parents and carers will do this. We are confident that with the other specific duties on local authorities to support looked-after children, previously looked-after children will not be disproportionately supported at the expense of others.

On Amendment 79, again I do not think it appropriate to specify in primary legislation that local authorities must ensure virtual school heads have the resources to do the job. Clearly, we will expect all local authorities to do this and we will, via Ofsted inspections, check the quality of the service provided by virtual school heads. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that a virtual school head will not be an add-on to other duties. Their sole focus will be vulnerable children. Many virtual school heads already respond to requests for advice and information from parents and schools in respect of children who have left care through, for example, adoption. Clause 4 seeks to ensure that all authorities offer this service. However, I have asked officials to ensure that resources for virtual school heads are covered in the statutory guidance we will issue to clarify their role.

Finally, Amendment 86 covers personal, social, health and economic education for formerly looked-after children. We agree that all young people should leave school prepared for life in modern Britain. The Minister and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that high-quality PSHE has a vital role to play in giving young people a better understanding of society and supporting them to make informed choices and to stay safe. The majority of schools and teachers already recognise the importance of good-quality PSHE education.

However, as I am afraid the noble Baroness has heard me say before, we believe it is not the availability but the quality of PSHE teaching that is the most pressing issue, as my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy highlighted. I say again: we will continue to keep the status of PSHE under review but in the short term we will prioritise working with experts to identify further action we can take to ensure that all pupils receive high-quality, age-appropriate PSHE and sex and relationships education. I am sure that the noble Baroness will continue to push us on this matter and that we will have many further discussions. I hope, on that basis, that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I am sorry to prolong the sitting. I am very reassured by what my noble friend said about looked-after children not suffering as a consequence but my specific question was about children with special educational needs and disabilities. I wonder whether she could write to me to provide that reassurance that local authorities’ duty of care to them is dealt with in other legislation so that there is that balance.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am very happy to write to my noble friend on that.