Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I very much welcome this debate and the time and focus that this Government are devoting to the outcomes for children who are looked after and to the social work profession. However, I must declare an interest. My sister is a senior practising social worker and, prior to becoming a Member for Parliament, I worked for Supported Fostering Services in a contact supervisor capacity. I am also still connected with that charity as I remain an independent visitor for one of our looked-after children.

I consider myself to be extremely lucky. I was brought up in a safe and loving environment and was given the necessary tools to go out into the big wide world and make my own way. In 2007, via my sister, I got involved for the first time with Supported Fostering Services. That was the first time I had the privilege to meet and work with some of our looked-after children, their families, carers and social workers, and to see at first hand the challenges that our young people and the social work profession face. There has been an increase in children becoming looked after, and some of that has been attributed to the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, representing 6% of the looked-after population. I have also seen at a local level the increase in the number of children in care.

In that environment, it is right that this Government, and society, are putting the outcomes of our young people at the top of the agenda. It is also right that there is a focus on the decisions made about the futures of those young people. In my limited involvement over the past nine years, I have seen some fantastic outcomes for our young people, but far too many disappointing ones—some due to decisions made about their futures and to a lack of understanding of the child and of the use of timely interventions that are best for that child.

One young person who has been in care for over 10 years since the age of four has had to go through unbelievable experiences, which even an adult would struggle to cope with—being split from siblings, attending therapy, a failed adoption, time in a therapeutic centre, and number of foster placements and social workers. That young person has amazing strength of character and a resilience that we could only hope to have. Luckily, an amazing placement has now been found and that person will succeed, but it will be in spite of some of the interventions and not solely because of them.

If a young person is ready for adoption by a family that is the perfect match, no one would disagree that adoption for the child should be a major consideration for social services and the courts. Achieving the best outcomes for that young person should be the duty and focus of social services and the courts. Unfortunately, I have seen decisions on adoptions being delayed by too much focus being placed on challenges by the birth parents and on their needs, even after several reports from professionals have recommended a decision. Allowing judgments to be challenged over long periods does not put the interests of the child first.

A social worker once told me that she did not like adoptions and that they made her feel nervous. I asked her why, and she said that the stakes were too high. At the time, I did not know quite what she meant and I thought it rather an odd thing for a social worker to say. However, having subsequently seen the damage that a failed adoption can cause, I finally understand. Relationships with children are like all relationships. We as adults do not like everybody we come into contact with, and it is the same for children. We ask a lot of children and adopters when, after an introduction period of perhaps only two weeks, we put those strangers together and hope that it works out okay. I know that the process is far more complicated than that, but fundamentally we hope that a good relationship will be built after only a short honeymoon period and that the adopters and children will be given the support they need to make it a success.

I have seen children being given the best chance of a great life when their adoption has worked, but once an adoption order has gone through, the support from the agencies stops. The stakes are high with adoption. It should be regarded as the perfect solution, but its success will always be dependent on the individual child, and the use of special guardianships and placements should not be undermined by a focus on adoption.

I welcome the fact that support for care leavers features heavily in the Bill, through the local offer and the extension of personal advisers. This is a major step forward in supporting this vulnerable group of young people as they make the difficult transition from coming out of care to going it alone. Some of our young people have had upbringings and experiences that we would struggle to comprehend. The care system tries to wrap them in a safety blanket, so a child in care can be far less prepared to go it alone without a support network of trusted people giving guidance, or to make decisions for themselves after most decisions have been made for them up to that point.

It is a long outdated view that once a young person reaches 18 or even their early 20s, they do not need any help. I very much welcome the extension of personal advisers to work with our young people to ensure they get access to the services they need, to give them the support they deserve in order for them to succeed, and to put them on the pathway to achieving their full potential. That is great, and I very much welcome it, but will the Minster tell us how this will work in practice? Will personal advisers always be social workers? How will plans for young people leaving care be monitored and evaluated to ensure that this is not just a box-ticking exercise by local authorities, that it provides meaningful help, support and advice to our vulnerable young people and that the personal advisers get to know the young person and truly understand their needs?

The local offer will be extremely important to young people, but we know that due to local authorities’ budget burdens the availability of that support will very much depend on a council’s priorities unless there is a statutory obligation to deliver the services. Investment in our most vulnerable young people at this crucial time in their lives can only bring rewards, and I would like to see high-quality offers from local authorities for our young people.

A high proportion of formerly looked-after children are not in education, employment or training. We also know that leaving care and going it alone can present barriers to prevent a young person from moving forward with their life in a positive way, even though they might think of this time as being exciting and full of hope. However, some of those young people will never have to manage their finances while in care and are therefore much more vulnerable to getting into debt and not being able to manage without the safety net that a family or carer can provide. We must ensure that young people are given all the tools they need to succeed. They deserve to be treated differently in terms of accommodation provision and access to funds so that they are able to move forward and get the best chance to succeed. My constituency contains a young offenders institution and a secure training centre and, sadly, too many of the young people in such institutions were once looked-after children. That is a direct outcome of not only what they experienced growing up, but a lack of support and access to the services they needed as they moved towards adulthood.

My final point relates to social workers. Policemen, doctors, nurses and firemen are public servants, and many sectors of our society stand up to defend them and will hear no criticism. However, social workers are often criticised, blamed and singled out when something goes wrong. They put up with a negative dialogue about their profession, including stereotypes and being dismissed as interfering do-gooders. However, our social workers should be held in the highest esteem as professionals who make decisions, intervene to protect children and families from harm, work with families to help them stay together and have an impact on outcomes—day in, day out. They see some of the most terrible situations on a daily basis, including where children are being neglected or physically and mentally abused, and they work with children who have severe, complex disabilities. Social workers do not go into social work for the money; they do it because they want to protect children—often a thankless task.

I remember when my sister was working in a duty team and would struggle to sleep at night as she worried about what was happening within some families after she went home. She feared what she would be presented with when she got into work in the morning. That is not unusual. It is the daily life of a front-line social worker. I welcome the creation of Social Work England, even though the profession has some concerns about the change. Social work is so important and it is right to have a regulator focused on raising standards, good practice and strengthening formal training pathways. However, I spoke to several social workers before today’s debate and, owing to the level of their caseloads, some were not even aware of the Bill.

Social workers carry out a mentally and emotionally demanding job, and I feel that one element has been missed. There is a high burnout rate among front-line social workers and individual social worker caseloads are far too high in some parts of the country, causing some to feel unsafe in their work. For example, a social worker working 40 hours a week with a caseload of 20 would have only two hours a week per case. The casework could involve a mixture of children in need, court cases or child protection, all requiring a different amount of attention in any one week. Some cases require a significant amount of time and yet we expect social workers to know the children and the family and be able to make safe decisions. Such circumstances do not give our professionals the opportunity for thinking space or allow them to carry out the preventive work that many want to do. The nature of their work means that every child and family is different, and social workers innovate every day within the current framework in sometimes challenging circumstances.

In conclusion, everyone in the House should champion outcomes for children, who will go on to become the parents, workers and leaders of the future. It is unacceptable in this century for some of our young people’s future to be predictable based on their past or where they have come from. State intervention must work, and I hope that this Government will continue to push for better outcomes for vulnerable looked-after children.

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Allen]

Absolutely, and not least because of the refugee crisis. This is good housekeeping. It is good for us to have transparent data so that we can understand the capacity of our local authorities and our care system, which has to help children who are already in the UK care system.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that local authorities are already reviewing capacity on a week-by-week basis? That is evident in the number of referrals coming out of London to look after our own British children. Does she accept that local authorities do this every day of the week?

[Heidi Allen]

I do, absolutely. For me, this debate is born out of the fact that some local authorities have stepped forward and said they are struggling incredibly, while others have stepped forward and said they do have capacity. Somewhere, we are not joining those two conversations together. I know there is further capacity out there for the betterment of the children in care in the UK and the refugee children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. He and I have both raised the need to ensure that once children are here they do not fall prey to the same trafficking gangs, which will sometimes go to children’s homes to seek them out. We know that, as a result of the Dubs scheme so far—in the mere six months for which it has been running—many children and teenagers are now safe with foster carers or in children’s homes. They are now back in school—somewhere they had often not been for years because of the exploitation, trafficking and abuse they have suffered.

We also know that, as we speak, there are in Greece more than 2,000 unaccompanied child refugees or those seeking asylum, only half of whom have places in children’s homes or foster care because the Greek system is overstretched. The Dubs scheme simply allows all countries to do their bit. It allows Britain to do its bit in a very small, modest way, given the scale of the refugee crisis. I pay tribute to the work done by Britain and the British Government on other aspects of the refugee crisis, but the Dubs scheme is an important part of Britain being able to do its bits to help those who are most vulnerable of all—children.

Ministers have said they will continue to consult, but only as part of the national transfer scheme and, as I understand it, only for those children who have already arrived in the country. That is important, but it is not a substitute for also consulting on children who could come here under the Dubs scheme. It is not an either/or.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

In an immigration debate last year, I asked the right hon. Lady about the capacity of local authorities to come forward to help councils such as Kent to look after the significant numbers of unaccompanied asylum seekers that the council has had to look after over this period. Will she clarify that the point she is making is that there is a will to support children coming from Europe, but an unwillingness to support councils like Kent?

[Yvette Cooper]

No, I am saying the opposite—that we have to do both. Kent does need support from all over the country; so, too, do Hillingdon and Croydon. Some councils have done most to take the strain and to provide support. There has to be a national transfer scheme; I have supported it, when the Government have proposed it, every step of the way, and it needs to do more.

It is interesting that when the Select Committee took evidence, the Local Government Association told us that if there was further funding, councils throughout the country would be able to meet that 0.07% target set by the Government, and that that would allow councils to provide around 4,000 additional places. That is more than enough to take far more of the children who are currently being supported in Kent to other places across the country and to do our bit to help a small number of additional child refugees from Europe to prevent trafficking. The reason why the Government should focus on those coming from Europe as well as those who have arrived on their own is that if we provide help only to those who make the dangerous and illegal journey on lorries and trucks and often with traffickers and not to those who take the safe legal route, all we do is drive more people into the arms of the traffickers and on to the dangerous routes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelly Tolhurst]

It is a pleasure to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton); with his expertise and knowledge in this area, he has been a great source of information and guidance to me.

I was elected two years ago, and I have had great involvement with some of the most vulnerable children in the country, and particularly in my area. When I was a local councillor, I saw some of the decisions taken around the cabinet table on looked-after children; my sister is a social worker; and I continue to be an independent visitor for a looked-after child. I am extremely proud that this Conservative Government have brought forward a Bill that seeks to improve outcomes for our looked-after children and children in need. I pay tribute to the Ministers; it is because of their dedication to improving outcomes for our looked-after children that the Bill is being championed.

I welcome the Minister’s comments on sibling contact, including when the children are not looked after, although I have not once met a social worker or foster carer who has denied a young person in care an opportunity for contact with their siblings. I have seen some of the damage done by contact with parents. Parents have legislative rights to contact with their children, and I have seen really damaging outcomes from forcing newly looked-after children to have such contact, which they do not always want; I hope that that is always taken into account and that the best interests of children are always to the fore when decisions are taken.

On Second Reading, I welcomed the introduction of the local offer in the Bill, and I continue to do so today. I also supported the amendment that was brought forward. The local offer should always be about more than just financial support, and it should be more than a box-ticking exercise. In my experience, young people need guidance and support during their transition from being looked after to going it alone. From what I have seen, local authorities, due to budget burdens, will only ever deliver what they are statutorily obliged to deliver. Therefore, as we evaluate the implementation of the Bill, I would like to see greater prescription of the services we would like local authorities to provide for care leavers, which will hopefully take into account accommodation, training and finance.

Investment in our young people will always pay off. From my experience, people leaving care sometimes lack the necessary experiences and training, because they have often been wrapped in a safety blanket—more so than people’s biological children—so it is important that we do enough for young people in care to make sure that they are prepared. In some of the cases I have seen, that has not always taken place, and I hope we now have an opportunity to further the local offer.

I want to mention new clause 14 briefly. On Second Reading, one Opposition Back Bencher made a speech; I was pleased the Chamber was a lot fuller earlier, when we spoke about refugees, than it was on Second Reading. However, I would have liked to have seen a real championing of the need to find foster carers and social workers to look after the children we are already struggling to place in some parts of the country. We are not selling the fact that becoming a foster carer is an amazing thing to do. We also need an acceptance that when somebody becomes a foster carer, there is a mountain of assessment and training to go through before they are, quite rightly, qualified to look after young people. It is exactly the same in relation to unaccompanied young minors, and it is right that we have the same high standards for them. I therefore welcome what the Minister said about reporting to Parliament, but the way we look after refugees and our looked-after children must be on a par.

We have seen increased referrals, especially to independent fostering agencies. Speaking from my own experience, we often see large numbers of referrals in Kent of young people from London, and we have also seen that with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We hear that many local authorities around the country have capacity, and I hope they will continue to support counties such as Kent. I hope they will take part in the national transfer scheme and help Kent, as well as Croydon and other London boroughs.

Let me turn to the clauses that were removed from the Bill today. In some parts of the country, as I have outlined, there is great demand for intervention and support for looked-after children and children in need. We have seen growing demand for intervention for young people, especially those with complex needs. The strain on local authorities in terms of providing high-quality support and placements is still there. There is great variation in the quality of service and practice throughout the country, as my hon. Friend outlined, and outcomes for our young people remain poor.

I welcome the fact that the Government have the desire to get behind innovation in the children’s social care system and to drive and encourage the reviewing and sharing of best practice. I am sure this is not the end and that the Government will continue to look at ways in which they can improve things, because the Minister is extremely passionate about doing what he can for young people in our care. I would like to see vast improvement across the country in the delivery of children’s social care. This should not be—I am glad it will not be—the preserve of local authorities that may have been judged to be good; it must happen in other parts of the country where innovation is much needed.

I look forward to the Minister making further proposals on meaningful reform, after consultation with frontline professionals and care deliverers. For example, I would like IROs—independent reviewing officers—to become truly independent of local authorities, enabling them to make decisions and face challenges on the outcomes for our looked-after children without the demands of budgetary pressures. We still need to tackle social workers’ caseloads because there is such a vast difference in the number of cases that social workers will have in different local authority areas. Local authorities are struggling to keep up with demand, and when there is higher demand, caseloads are greater. We need to protect our workforce and enable them to carry out their role knowing that they are safe when doing so, with the personal capacity to deliver good-quality services to the young people they are charged with looking after.

There is a high burn-out rate for professionals dealing with child protection cases, and many social workers are leaving frontline social work due to the stresses involved. Local authorities are relying heavily on agency workers, and this impacts on the continuity of some of the decision making that takes place subsequently. In turn, there is lots of churn in the system. I have seen examples where looked-after children may have 10 to 12 different social workers over a very short period, and that is just not right. We need to be bold. I hope that the Government come forward with further recommendations and further work in this area, and I am confident that that will happen.

My final point is about social worker regulation. Social workers, in my opinion, have never had the credit that they deserve. They are sometimes the forgotten public servants. They are vilified when something goes wrong, but we never hear about all the good work they are doing day in, day out in protecting families. Social Work England is a positive way forward. Social workers need a stand-alone body to make sure that they are held in the high regard that they deserve. I would like the Secretary of State and Ministers to work with the professional bodies to make sure that the qualifications and continual professional development is right and is acceptable for these workers. It is true that we see variations in the standard and quality of the delivery of social worker practice among individual social workers. I have had some first-hand experience of that.

Although there is some concern from the profession about these changes, I really do believe that they rightly put social workers in the position that they deserve. I hope that the Government will continue to work with them to make sure that they, as a profession, can continue to carry out their job knowing that the Government—this Conservative Government—are fully behind them and all that they are doing for young people in this country.