Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 4. I am very glad that the Government have tabled Amendment 1, which is the burden of much of the intention behind my Amendment 4, although my amendments spell out some of the mental health descriptions, which, under the heading of mental health needs, are not always apparent.

Perhaps I may start with a plea to the Minister that in future, Bills be handled differently from the way in which this one has been. We got extremely short notice of Second Reading immediately after the Queen’s Speech and then, immediately before Grand Committee, we were bombarded with documents, papers and briefings. Those of us who have no research or clerical support, for example, have to spend a considerable amount of time perusing those in order to understand what is being said so that we can play our part in the purpose of this House, which is to revise and scrutinise legislation.

We complained about that in Grand Committee but, lo and behold, during the short return between the two recesses we again received a number of briefings and letters, and this past week has been absolutely mad. Ministers gave three government briefings last Wednesday. I am not complaining about that, but I ask Ministers to remember that others have diaries and that it is not always possible to change with the rapidity that is expected. Also, there has again been a deluge of government amendments, government briefings and government papers, which suggests to me two things: first, that the Bill was not properly thought through before it was introduced; and, secondly, bearing in mind what was said in Grand Committee, that no impact assessment of any of the measures was carried out—a complaint we have made several times before. An impact assessment does not just say that you either do it or not. It should consist of an analysis of the outcomes of doing it or not, so that those of us not coming at it from a party-political angle can make judgments based on the facts as they are given.

What has also disturbed me during the passage of the Bill is the number of practitioners, including organisations such as the Association of Directors of Social Services, and others working in children’s services, who have tabled amendments and made appeals because they do not feel that they have been consulted, or, if they have, that any of their advice or experience has been listened to. That is really not a healthy basis for important legislation about vulnerable children.

The other thing that has come through strongly—I am very glad that the Government have tabled Amendment 1, because it reinforces the point—is that unfortunately, since the demise of the Social Services Inspectorate, responsibility for children’s social care has passed to the Department for Education. Yet when you talk to the people working in the delivery of children’s services, you find that most of the problems they face are more to do with health, emotion, behaviour and well-being than education. Indeed, preparing children so that they are in a fit state to be educated—mentally as well as in every other way—occupies a great deal of their attention. I am worried that more emphasis is placed on the educational direction of social work and that there is not a more apparent cross-government approach, working with the health industry in particular.

Amendment 4 is designed to spell out in more detail the conditions that children in care and other vulnerable children present. It is based on a paper published by the British Psychological Society in 1915 called, Children and Young People with Neuro-Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System. Unfortunately, we have become used to using the phrase “learning disability”, which carries an understanding of a more serious lack of ability to comprehend than some of the conditions in the amendment. The reasons for this go back to the marvellous paper prepared by Baroness Warnock way back in the 1970s in which she spelled out conditions warranting special educational needs status and therefore special treatment. That list was by no means exhaustive but since her paper there has been a great deal more research, and there is now a great deal more understanding of the various conditions grouped together under the phrase “neurodisability”, such as ADHD, dyslexia, and autism. I am strongly of the belief that all of these conditions—which have now been listed by the British Psychological Society—should be better understood. You need only go and talk to the director of a children’s home to find that it is those conditions that give them greatest trouble.

I am very glad that since Grand Committee, there has been a meeting between officials in the Department for Education and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. In Grand Committee, I spelled out the need for the assessment of speech, language and communication difficulties on the grounds that inability to communicate is the scourge of the 21st century and means that too many of our children are unable to communicate with their teachers and therefore engage with education. There is now an assessment programme, carried out, I hope, for all children in this country before the age of two by health visitors who have been trained by speech and language therapists. The aim is to ensure that a plan can be made to introduce treatment that will enable that child to engage with education in five years’ time, when they start primary school.

Officials from the department have also spoken with the National Association of Virtual School Heads, which I must admit I had not heard of—I was slightly worried when I saw the word “virtual”, because I thought that either you are a school head or you are not. Apparently, however, the virtual school heads have a very valuable role in this area, as does the expert working group on mental health.

I am glad that the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists has been brought in. They are the best people to advise on looking after children and to advise the Government on how to ensure that children, and those working with them, have access to the communication services they so badly need, particularly children suffering from neurodisability orders. Therefore, I am seeking in this amendment the Minister’s undertaking that, in addition to the bald statement in Amendment 1 about improving access to mental and physical health treatment, he will agree to spell out the conditions that so dominate the lives of those responsible for delivering children’s services and ensure that local good practice—which I know his officials are aware of, because it has been listed to them by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists—is turned into national good practice, so that all children can take advantage of what has been done in some parts of the country.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 8 in my name and indicate my support for Amendments 4 and 5, also in this group. In addition, I warmly welcome Amendment 1, which the Government have tabled in response to discussions in Committee. The addition of mental health to the corporate parenting principles is an important step forward towards ensuring that mental and physical health are treated with equal importance by local authorities when they are making decisions about the services and support available to children in care. The Minister’s amendment, therefore, is an important signal of principle—but principles alone will not improve the outcomes for children in care.

My amendment is designed to ensure that we can achieve some practical improvements to the care that children receive. It introduces mechanisms that will ensure that the mental health needs of children entering care are properly assessed and that they have access to specialist support if this is needed. Basically, the amendment has two elements: first, a mental health assessment for children entering care, carried out by a qualified professional; and, secondly, a designated health professional in each local authority who has strategic oversight of the outcomes of the assessments and matches those with the services that are available for children in care to support their needs.

In short, this amendment seeks to establish a mechanism that will identify children’s needs early on, refer the children to the right services and ensure that services exist that children in care are able to access—and access easily. This joined-up approach is supported by the Alliance for Children in Care, a coalition of leading children’s charities, as well as the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

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Tabled by

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

8: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to promote physical and mental health and emotional well-being
(1) The Children Act 1989 is amended as follows.(2) In section 22 (general duty of local authority in relation to children looked after by them), after subsection (3C) insert—“(3D) The duty of a local authority under subsection (3)(a) to safeguard and promote the welfare of a looked after child includes a particular duty to promote the child’s physical and mental health and emotional well-being.(3E) A local authority must develop a local care pathway to ensure that the needs of looked after children, relevant children and former relevant children are addressed through the provision of—(a) a mental health assessment at the time the child enters care;(b) regular monitoring of the child’s on-going need for mental health support;(c) a mental health assessment at the time the child becomes a relevant child or former relevant child;(d) provision of the necessary support to meet the needs of the child, relevant child or former relevant child as identified by the assessment and monitoring conducted under paragraphs (a) and (b), for as long as is necessary until the former relevant child reaches the age of twenty-five.(3F) Each clinical commissioning group for an area, any part of which falls within the area of the local authority, must take steps to assist the local authority in the exercise of its functions under subsections (3D) and (3E).(3G) Each clinical commissioning group must appoint at least one registered medical practitioner and at least one registered nurse for the purpose of discharging the duty under subsection (3F).””

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

Will the Minister clarify that he will meet me before Third Reading to consider the issues I have raised?

[Lord Nash]

I should be delighted to clarify that and I will do so.

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[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 11, tabled in my name and those of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. To begin with, I must confess that I was not giving the Minister my full attention when he referred to this amendment earlier in speaking to Amendments 2 and 9. However, I think I heard encouraging words, so I will be speaking with an optimistic heart.

As I said in Committee about an identical amendment, including the word “relationships” would remedy an omission in the list of the areas of support that councils are required to include in their local offer. It stipulates that information and services to help young people develop and maintain healthy and supportive relationships should be available alongside the other five areas of health and wellbeing, education and training, employment, accommodation, and participation in society. I explained then how, when children and young people are taken into the care of the local authority, first and foremost these circumstances typically create a relationship problem. There are profound long-term effects of losing parental attachments and bonds with siblings and others in the extended family. Ministerial architects of the Bill had the best of intentions in this area but the wording acknowledges relationships only scantily and, as a consequence, ineffectively—as I hope to show here today. If the goal is to change the culture in local authorities so that relationships become of central importance, as the Government intend, legislation has to provide a stronger lead.

Clause 1 provides seven corporate parenting principles, including that children should have stability in their home lives and relationships. The local offer provided for in Clause 2 will, according to the note for Peers we received at the recent meeting with the Minister, be one of the main ways in which the corporate parenting principles are brought to life in relation to care leavers.

However, the draft local offer that was recently circulated to Peers was devoid of any reference to relationships, so how can this document claim to bring to life the corporate parenting principle about relationship stability? Yet this omission could have been anticipated, given that Clause 2, which guided the guidance, as it were, did not specify that information on relationships would form part of the service offering, hence this amendment.

The draft statutory guidance for applying corporate parenting principles for care and pathway planning does mention, on page 19, the need for looked-after children and care leavers to build resilience by forging strong relationships if they are to thrive. It goes on to say that this will mean local authorities having regard to the need to maintain, as far as possible, consistency in the home environment, relationships with carers and professionals and school placement. It then goes on to make important points about stability of housing tenure and provide good practice examples of financial and practical help.

However, there is nothing in either the guidance or the local offer about how to maintain stable relationships, and nothing about helping young people to form networks of supportive relationships beyond those with paid professionals and those formally designated as carers.

We withdrew this amendment earlier after reassurances from the Government that,

“the whole thrust of what we seek to achieve through the Bill is the reinforcement of the importance of relationships and helping children and young people to recover from their pre-care experiences to make a successful transition to independence. The importance of relationships is central to the corporate parenting principles … We will publish guidance for local authorities and I would fully expect it to say that they should include in their offers information about relationship education among the services available for care leavers. Our forthcoming care leavers strategy will set out our plans to ensure that care leavers are better supported to develop and sustain the social networks that support them in their transition to adulthood and beyond”.—[Official Report, 4/7/16; cols.114-115.]

So the Government understand that care leavers need not just continuity of care, but support networks and relationship education.

Support networks do not just spring up but typically need the encouragement and facilitation of adults. In Committee I mentioned family finding projects, such as those taking place in Orange County in California. Family finding is an intensive search method to find family members and other adults who would like to step in and care for children and young people in, or about to leave, foster care who lack permanent relationships. The goal is to locate long-term, caring, permanent connections and relationships for them and to establish a long-term emotional support network with family members and other adults. They may not be able to take the child into their home but still want to stay connected with them and to journey with them through life. In Orange County, 97% of the young people who took part increased family contact, and 89% have lifelong connections. Edinburgh City Council has already adopted this approach. Encouragingly, in Grand Committee the Government stated their interest in this approach for their care leavers strategy, which the Family Rights Group is now testing in a number of local authorities.

Yet however many family members and caring adults we try to cluster around young people, these connections will be insufficiently sticky if young people are pre-programmed to reject the relationships that are on offer because of past experiences, or have no understanding of what a good relationship looks like. This is where relationship education comes in. It can be delivered informally when a young person finds it very hard to maintain a relationship with a key figure in their life. They mention it, say, to their personal adviser, and that person purposefully helps them to navigate through difficulties or misunderstandings in exactly the same way that a loving parent would. I am sure this already happens but it needs to be an important part of every personal adviser’s job description and skill set. Alternatively, it can be more formally delivered through the work of services like Love for Life, which is part of TwentyTwenty, the award-winning mentoring organisation with which the Government have contracted to work in the recently announced Derby social mobility hub. The ethos running through this and many other third sector organisations is that the skills to build good relationships can be taught and caught.

I have met the Minister, Edward Timpson, and am in no doubt that he is alive to the importance of relationships, but the Bill simply does not yet reflect how quintessential they are, as stated by the Government. Instead of trying to get this in the Bill, I could be arguing for better recognition in the draft guidance, the draft local offer and the forthcoming care leavers strategy. However, it is not a question of either/or; it is both/and. It could sensibly be surmised that the Government overlooked the need to make explicit reference to relationships in their draft local offer, despite what they say about its importance to the corporate parenting principles, because it was not included in the legally binding list provided in Clause 2. This suggests that it would be to all too easy for local authorities to do the same, thereby undermining the opportunity presented by the local offer to drive much-needed cultural change in this area. I beg to move.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I support Amendment 11, to which my name is attached, as it was in Committee. To reiterate what I said then, and despite the very good debate we have already had today on Amendment 2, the Bill itself is currently almost devoid of references to relationships; indeed, you might almost say it is a bit of a relationship-free zone. That is ironic when what we are all trying to do here is improve the lot of the very vulnerable children and young people who most need love, warmth, emotional security and human empathy to help them on their journey through life, given their very troubled start. It is a statement of the blindingly obvious that good relationships are utterly indispensable to that end.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, who is such a passionate advocate in this field, has already referred to the need for a change in the culture of many local authorities so that they also make promoting relationships central to their work. I know that there are some very good examples of good practice here, but I want to talk very briefly about what cultural change requires and why it is important. It could be assumed that good-quality relationships, particularly the support of peers and adults who are not paid to take an interest, are somehow nice to have but out of the reach of many young people in, or coming into, the care system. If so, that assumption will shape a local authority’s response. It will focus almost exclusively on ensuring that a young person has the material, financial and practical support that they need in the absence of the family ties through which these things typically come. It will also put a greater load on the social worker and personal adviser role.