Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome some aspects of the Bill, in particular the proposed corporate parenting principles towards looked-after children and the focus upon improved support for care leavers. The neglect of these young people has indeed been an utter tragedy for far too long. However, I have serious concerns about other aspects of the Bill. I am grateful for the briefing from the Ministers, from the National Children’s Bureau and others on a number of these issues.

I am deeply worried about the possible implications of the proposals in Clauses 11 to 13 for the establishment of a national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to review child safeguarding cases. My understanding from the Minister is that the panel will require cases to be referred to it in the event of a child’s death or serious injury. In the same meeting, the Minister emphasised that social workers should not work in a risk-averse environment. I completely agree with that sentiment. I ask him to consider the position of a highly competent social worker who has the terrible misfortune to have in their case load a devious and dangerous parent who kills or injures a child. Can the Minister imagine the utter misery that that social worker will experience as the national panel chews through that case over months and months? Any social worker—any of us in our lives—will occasionally neglect a little aspect or fail to do something. That is inevitable, however good and professional we are at our work. If any little aspect has been missed, that social worker will have sleepless nights for months. That is what we are talking about here.

In the event of a tragedy, the management will of course need to ensure that the social worker acted reasonably and professionally. However, the only interest of a national panel, in my view, should be the adequacy of staffing levels, resources and national training programmes, the appropriateness of national guidelines and so forth—in other words, lessons that can be learned across the country, not an individual person’s activity, which is of course a serious matter for the management and that authority. We need to find a way of excluding any national panel involvement from the consideration of the individual social worker’s competence. If we fail to do that, I cannot imagine anyone taking on the job of family social worker. I have been a social worker and I know what it is like on that front line. Okay, that was decades ago, but, believe me, it is tough.

Like other Peers, I am also very concerned that the Government appear to be turning their back on prevention. As has already been mentioned, the closure of some 800 Sure Start centres in the past few years has removed one of the best ways of identifying families in a non-threatening environment, supporting parents who need help and rectifying problems. The Bill does nothing to reverse this very dangerous trend. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out the Government’s strategy for preventing the need for children to be taken into care in the first place. It is wonderful to look after care leavers, but if we have twice as many children coming into care because of the destruction of prevention, what are we really achieving here? Why are the Sure Start centres closing, and what will take their place?

I fear that Clause 15 may also be a cost-cutting measure, thus risking even more children being taken into care in the long run. It would enable the Secretary of State to exempt a local authority from a requirement under the children’s social care legislation or to modify the way in which such legislation is imposed on that authority. The carrot which the Government are providing is the prospect for the local authority to explore new ways of working. I hope the Government will ensure that the local authority will have to show that the new ways of working provide at least as good a service to families as the requirements being lifted. If not, hard-pressed local authorities can be expected to reduce the quality of services under the provisions of Clause 15.

I would be grateful if the Minister, in summing up the debate, could explain to the House why there is a need to weaken the entitlements of children and families in order to facilitate service innovation. Will the Government also publish the results of their consultations under Clause 15 and any objections raised? Finally, will the Government produce an assessment of the impact of any changes on children and families affected by an exemption? It will be very important to include service users among those who local authorities must consult under Clause 17 before making an application for an exemption for requirements under the children’s social care legislation. I would also hope to see stronger powers for Parliament to monitor the regulations made under Clause 15.

Although I welcome the principles set out in Clause 1, can the Minister explain why these principles are limited to local authorities? Is it not important for them to apply also to health commissioners? As other noble Lords have said, we know that looked-after children are more likely than their peers to have poor physical, mental and emotional health. For example, looked-after children in England are four times more likely than the average child to have an emotional or mental health problem. There is already evidence that targeted support for looked-after children is being decommissioned due to financial pressures. Can the Minister comment on this very real concern, raised in particular by the National Children’s Bureau?

A major issue for care leavers is financial insecurity. We have had many debates in this House about the cuts to benefits, and I know I am one of many Peers who have been very concerned about the impact on vulnerable people of the depth and speed of those cuts. I understand perfectly that there is a need to review the levels of benefits, but vulnerable people have been badly hit. Tragically, care leavers are among the vulnerable people affected. They are three times more likely to have had a benefit sanction compared with the general working population, and in many cases the sanctions have been unjustified. I understand that care leavers are more likely to have a sanction lifted if the sanction is challenged, but they are less likely to challenge a sanction, because they have less support. Can we ensure that the corporate parenting principles translate into, among other things, support for care leavers who reasonably challenge a benefits sanction?

The impact of debt on care leavers is likely to be so serious that I believe we will want to discuss the reasonableness of exempting care leavers from financial sanctions up to the age of 25 across the country. It may be that direct deductions of rent from care leavers’ benefits could be an alternative to the imposition of a sanction, which is something many of us in this House have argued for with respect to benefit claimants anyway. I welcome the cross-departmental care leavers’ strategy, bringing together the DCLG, the Home Office and the DWP, but full advantage has not yet been taken of this cross-departmental structure to avoid a direct clash between the aspirations of the Bill and the DWP benefit cuts.

Many more concerns have been expressed by various expert organisations in the field. I am sure other noble Lords will cover those, so I will not. I look forward very much to our debates in Committee and very strongly endorse the points made by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham about deferring the Committee stage so we can do the job properly.