Munro Report

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The first priority—this is the most desirable outcome for any family who find themselves on the child protection radar of a children’s services department, and who become a social worker’s focus of attention—is keeping that family together. We should ensure that where possible, the child can be kept with that family. The phrase “fostering a family”, which has been used before, means ensuring that parents have the parenting skills and that it is safe for the child to stay with them. Only when leaving a child with a family is deemed unsafe should we consider taking them into care. Of course, the work done in the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions—the projects that deal with families with multiple problems—aims to ensure that parents have the tools and the confidence to parent properly. In too many families in this country, there is a serious problem with the standard of parenting. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) made that point very clearly in the report that he produced for the Department for Education.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tim Loughton]

As the hon. Gentleman is new, I shall give way one last time.

[Bill Esterson]

I apologise for being late—I was on the Finance (No. 3) Bill Committee, which has just finished.

The Minister’s last point—on whether a family should be kept together and at what stage a child is taken into care—gets to the nub of child protection issues. I hope he agrees that the threshold for making, and the timing of, such decisions bears constant review and analysis.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman is right. An understandable result of what happened with baby P is that social workers have become more risk averse. If it is a marginal decision, they might take the child into care just in case, whereas if they have the time, space and appropriate tools and applications to deal with that family, it might be possible to keep it together rather than break it up.

I have set out Professor Munro’s recommendations for reform. Rightly, they address every aspect of the system. Rightly, they place the child at the centre. And rightly, they have as a basic principle the importance of placing trust in skilled professionals at the front line. It is of course the case that there are vulnerable children outside the immediate child protection system, and we need to improve radically how they are supported and make sure that they have a voice.

One of the main groups of such vulnerable children, for which I have responsibility, is of course children in care. With more than 64,000 children in care at the moment, we need to improve all aspects of their lives, including placement stability, education, health and the transition to adulthood, which are all priorities for Government and the wider sector. If we get Munro’s proposals right, there will be benefits for all those involved in children’s social care, not just those at the acute end of child protection.

From 1 April, we introduced a new statutory framework for looked-after children, which is far more streamlined, coherent and clear about the “must dos” for local authorities. In particular, we have brought together the care planning regulations and guidance into one volume, which should ultimately help councils put together better care plans. Less is often more. We have also strengthened the role of independent reviewing officers so they can challenge poor care plans, and make sure children’s voices are at the heart of all reviews. We have given clear steers in the revised fostering guidance about how local authorities should support foster carers and children better. The revised transition guidance makes it clear that young people should leave care only when they are ready and have a strong support package in place.

I have also written to every local authority about foster carers being encouraged to treat foster children in their care no differently from their own children. In March, I launched the foster carers’ charter, which sets out clear principles for the support that should be available, what foster carers can expect and what foster children can expect of their carers.

I also launched earlier this year the Tell Tim website so that carers and, in particular, children and young people in care can let me—as the Minister responsible—know directly what they think is working well, what improvements they think need to be made or what is going wrong. I have also set up reference groups so that I can hear from foster children, care leavers, adopted children and children living in residential homes. Just this week, I met my regular group of young people who have left the care system, who recount their often moving and relevant experiences of what is going wrong in the system. We could all learn a lot if we spent more time with the children who are still being failed because, through no fault of their own, they have become part of the care system.

As hon. Members will be aware, some children and young people—including young runaways—become victims of sexual exploitation. The report published by Barnardo’s in January, “Puppet on a String”, highlighted the scale and severity of this horrific abuse. I pay tribute to Barnardo’s work and expertise in this area and I especially congratulate Anne Marie Carrie for hitting the ground running in her first few months at the helm of Barnardo’s.

The Government are determined to do everything possible to stamp out this abuse and safeguard vulnerable children and young people. Recent events brought to light in the midlands through Operation Retriever and the other ongoing police investigations underline the extent of this insidious abuse. As the lead Minister in this area, I have been urgently considering, with my colleagues at the Home Office, Barnardo’s and other national and local partners, what further action should be taken. The Government are now committed to working with partners to develop over the summer an action plan to safeguard children and young people from sexual exploitation. This will build on existing guidance and our developing understanding of this dreadful abuse, including through local agencies’ work around the country. It will include work on effective prevention strategies, identifying those at risk of sexual exploitation, supporting victims, and taking robust action against perpetrators.

Another area where excessive central prescription has had unintended consequences, leading to risk aversion rather than risk management, is in vetting and barring. The Government believe that children will be better protected if we move away from unnecessary and top-down bureaucracy towards more responsible decision making at a local level. It is vital to balance the need to protect the vulnerable against the need to respect individuals’ freedoms, and not to create a system that imposes unnecessary burdens on individuals or organisations. That is why the Government undertook a review of the barring and criminal records regimes in order to scale them back to common-sense levels. We need to get away from a system that has unintentionally driven a further wedge between children growing up and well-meaning adults who come forward genuinely to offer their time to volunteer and to work with young people. They have been deterred from doing so by all the regulation.

I spoke earlier about the action we were taking to improve the lives and prospects of children in care. For many of those children, adoption will be the most appropriate outcome, which is why in February I issued new guidance with a call to arms to local authorities to re-energise their efforts on adoption and improve front-line practice. This refreshed and improved statutory guidance will be an important element in the Government’s programme of reform aimed at supporting adoption agencies in removing barriers to adoption, reducing delay and continually improving their adoption services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I add my welcome for the work of Professor Munro and the recommendations in her report. The huge challenge for Ministers is how to put them into practice. I welcome the Minister’s announcement of the group that will be set up, and the expertise of the people who will be on it. I ask him to consider including a member of the Opposition in that group—other than a Labour councillor. He knows what I mean by that.

I want to speak about my concerns about the speed of intervention and the impact of neglect that does not hit the headlines through serious case reviews. I should mention one of my interests in the matter—I am an adoptive parent. When I trained as an adoptive parent, we were presented with evidence that over an extended period, neglect is often, although not always, far more damaging to a child or young person than physical or sexual abuse. That is why it is so important to consider neglect.

I will quote the comments of a senior NHS professional, who writes:

“Child protection’s preventative role in protecting vulnerable children/young people from neglectful behaviours is hindered and hampered by a lack of clarity and legislative support to recognise the impact of neglect on a child or young person until it reaches a threshold for ‘significant harm’. This results in an inability to respond in a timely manner until it is too late to prevent harm from occurring.

Practitioner tools and chronologies to identify and recognise these neglectful behaviours do not provide the requisite evidence base to support care proceedings or child in need packages that put the child in focus.”

She continues:

“Legislation needs to provide clarity of definition and recognise the impact of neglectful behaviours. The practitioners need to be provided with definitions which are not retrospective; in other words the legal system needs to recognise neglectful behaviours as significant before ‘significant harm’ has been caused to a child or young person, by which time it is too late.”

The Minister spoke about the importance of trying to keep families together and used the phrase “fostering families”. It is important that that is given every chance, but I am aware—this is the point made by that health professional—that in far too many cases, the balance is skewed too far in that direction. It can take too long, and evidence of potential neglect is ignored. Early recognition, and action on it, is essential. The evidence that I have seen, of which other Members will be well aware, shows that the long-term damage of extended neglect is incredibly bad for people psychologically and for their mental health long into adulthood.

To come back to the comments that one or two hon. Members have made, those in foster care are not universally treated as one of the family, because there are too many barriers. Too many rules prevent foster carers from getting close to children for that to happen meaningfully in reality.

I welcome the Minister’s comments on learning from care leavers—that needs to continue. On the issue of neglect, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) said that striking the right balance between protecting the vulnerable child and the rights of the individual is incredibly important. From the experience of constituents who have spoken to me, far too often the rights of the individual parent are given greater prominence than the needs and rights of the child.

Because I am an adoptive parent, I shall speak briefly in the time I have left about adoption. I welcome the comments in the report on reducing the delay in getting children through to adoption, but there are serious blockages in finding families. Measures for finding good families in adoption and fostering are very important, as is providing long-term support. There is a lack of support for foster carers and a lack of long-term support for adopters. I hope that the Minister will take that point on board.

The delays in the courts cause great concern to professionals and families. The courts are still far too slow. I am aware of a case in which some children from a large family were adopted and some went into long-term foster care. One child ended up back with the mother because the court refused to look at the evidence from social services, which had originally issued the order for the family to go into care. The system is quite unworkable, because the neglect remained after the child returned.

I welcome the report. This is a long-term project, and I hope that Members on both sides of the House come together to support it.