Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, it may be helpful for me to make a few remarks on the debate so far. It is very interesting that 10 years ago, if we were debating this matter, we would all have focused on education. The debate here is much more to do with the mental health of these young people; that is an important step forward.

Education has been mentioned. About five or six years ago, about 2% of young people from care were getting to university; more recently, we arrived at 8% and I think that we are down to 7% now. Some local authorities get 15% or more to university, so noble Lords should not despair. We have invested a lot in those young people; we have made progress and we need to make more. In particular, I hope that it may be comforting to your Lordships, and in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, to hear of the experience of a care leaver who left care with no education or qualifications, who began his education at Feltham young offender institution and recently received his doctorate. Indeed, he is a researcher into young people in care and care leavers. He conducted a survey six months or so ago and found that, among 25 year-old care leavers whom he surveyed, about 30% had gone on to higher education. That exemplifies why this Bill, particularly the first clause, is so important. Those young people have had early challenges to their development, and they are often going to be late developers, so it is the duty of local authorities and the corporate parent to keep in touch with them and keep on offering them help, saying that they are there to help with accommodation, education, training and employment. When they are good and ready and have had a chance to digest and assimilate the difficulties that they have faced, they will very often do well. But you have to keep on offering that hand to them.

I warmly welcome the new duties to provide support for personal advisers to all young people up to the age of 25, but the new duty is distinct from the duty for those under 21. Those over 21 have to request it. Local authorities need to write to these young people and send them cards at Christmas and birthdays saying, “We have not heard from you for a long time, but we are still here for you and we still want to give you a personal adviser and a pathway plan”. I am sure that we will discuss that further.

I was very pleased to hear what the Minister said about his first experience of care leavers and the report from Harriet Sergeant, which I dimly remember. I shall look at it again. I am pleased that he has such knowledge in this area, and I was very gratified to hear what he said about a serious review and shake-up of personal advisers in ensuring that they will be effective individuals to make a difference to those young people.

It is important to bear in mind the pressures on local authorities. I am slightly concerned that one might just say that the system is broken and we need to turn everything upside down to mend it. It has been said across the House that it should be borne in mind that, since the death of baby Peter several years ago, local authority departments have been inundated with calls for the assessment of children and the number of children in care has risen and risen. There has been a growing burden on social workers. On top of that, the cuts we have been discussing and austerity—I am not making a particular political comment on them—have reduced the services that would have kept children and families out of care. There has been a huge increase in the workload, which produces the high turnover of social workers. Over an even longer period, the central area of social work has been lost to a large degree. Many experienced social workers have left over time. Therefore, the Government are exactly right in focusing on recruiting, retaining and developing new social workers. I was very encouraged by what Isabelle Trowler, the chief social worker, said about developing the workforce. We need some patience to see those people going in to rebuild social work departments. We should not be too impatient. We should not be turning the whole thing upside down.

A number of care leavers are very concerned to see that there is a right to recovery from trauma somewhere within the Bill, perhaps in the local offer. In the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, there is a universal requirement that children are given a right to recover from trauma or torture. We should look at this in the Bill.

It is important that we intervene more effectively early on. We have to become a more child-friendly and family-friendly country. We all admire the success of Leeds children’s services. How did it turn its services around? It adopted UNICEF principles and recognised that it had to make itself a child-friendly city that was friendly to the children of the rich and the poor, the Muslim, the immigrant, the Christian, the black and the white, the child of the person in prison and the child in the criminal justice system. It made this its obsession and, as a by-product, it reduced the number of children coming into care and could then focus on giving that smaller group the very best service it could offer. I think this is exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said was the case in the Isle of Wight. It reduced the number of young people coming into care so that it could concentrate on improving the service for them.

Finally, I support my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham in his request for a deferral, if possible, of the Grand Committee stage. This is a very important Bill. The more preparation we can have, the better.

Continuing on the question of early intervention, we have more than 100,000 homeless children in England alone. I am currently in contact with a mother whom I have known for five years. She is in temporary accommodation with her 14 year-old daughter and one year-old granddaughter, living in one room with two beds, no refrigerator and no microwave. She is beside herself with worry about her situation and her future.

I am very grateful to Action for Children for its helpful briefing on early intervention to pre-empt the need for children to be taken into care, which has been an important theme of today’s discussion. To the end of making us a more child-friendly country, will the Minister take to his colleagues the suggestion that the Children’s Commissioner should regularly attend Cabinet and sub-Cabinet committees with some of her children and young people so that all Ministers are thoroughly aware of the impact of their departments on the welfare of children and their families? It is good to hear that recently Edward Timpson, the Minister of State, and the Minister met such a group. I think there have been occasions when the Cabinet has met such children, but it is those who do not understand these issues so well who need to hear the voices of children, and that needs to include everyone, even those at the very top.

I wish to be brief, but I hope I can welcome the many positive aspects of the Bill and of the work the Minister and his colleagues have been doing for children and young people in care and care leavers. In the Bill, I particularly welcome new rights for care leavers to personal advisers, the clarification of local authority corporate parenting responsibilities, the extension of virtual school heads, the attention to the continual professional development of social workers and other matters. Outwith the Bill, I commend successive Children’s Ministers on the steps they have taken to listen to the voices of children in care and leaving care. It has been most encouraging to hear the Prime Minister speak of his commitment to improving the lives of young people in care and of his wish to make improving the life chances of all young people the goal of his final years in office.

More students than ever are training to become social workers. I commend the Government on achieving this. My experience of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Nash—I hope he does not mind me saying this—has been that he wishes to engage with the concerns of your Lordships and to be as constructive as possible within the constraints of the Bill and finances. I am grateful to him for his constructive engagement thus far.

I shall speak briefly of three areas of concern. They are funding, the role of the Secretary of State and the mental health of the young people affected by the Bill. With regard to funding, I hope we can ensure that no additional financial burdens are placed on local authorities by the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, has just referred to this. If the proposals for extending the rights of care leavers to personal advisers are as effective as we hope, I am not sure that the £8 million set aside will be sufficient. No budget has been set aside for the establishment of a new regulator for social work that I am aware of. In any case, perhaps that money might be better used on personal advisers and “staying put”, although I am amenable to taking a different view on that.

With regard to the Secretary of State, concerns have been raised by the Constitutional Committee. I am concerned that huge power is given to the Secretary of State with regard to social work development. I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said about the challenge that social workers have to give to the state and it is better to have it at arm’s length. I regret that I share the strong concerns of many in the field about Clause 15 and the relaxation of children’s rights for the purpose of innovation. Leeds achieved its success without the relaxation of such rights. Rights such as the right to an independent advocate were hard fought for in this House, and have proved invaluable for children in care and care leavers. We need a much clearer explanation of why Clause 15 is necessary before accepting it as part of the Bill.

With regard to mental health, there will be ample opportunities to discuss this further. I was very pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, go into such detail on that matter. I welcome the intentions of much of the Bill. We need much more detail. I am concerned about the additional powers of the Secretary of State and the relaxation of protections for children. I look forward to the Minister’s response and to working with him and your Lordships on this important Bill.