Children’s Homes

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and to participate in this debate, Mrs Gillan. I also commend the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing this debate on an important topic. It has been interesting to listen to the contributions so far. A number of important points have been made.

So far—I am sure this will continue—there has been clear agreement that it is vital to ensure that care is provided in the most effective and appropriate way for all of our looked-after children. I appreciate that this debate has an English perspective, and I will focus to some extent on what I have heard today and on what differences there are between how things work here and how they work in Scotland. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) said, it is useful that we can all listen to one another, because it is vital that lessons are learned and that best practice is shared in all corners of the United Kingdom, and more widely, on such an important issue. Of course there are no easy answers, but we must appreciate that much can be done.

This topic should concern everyone. The hon. Members who have spoken, including the hon. Member for Stockport, have noted the vulnerability of many of the children who find themselves being looked after. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran pointed out, all those children are particularly vulnerable. They all deserve our care and concern, and we have a collective responsibility, particularly in this place, to be as aware as possible of the issues facing them in order to facilitate the best possible outcomes and safeguards, as the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) said, for these most vulnerable children.

Local authorities have a responsibility to provide support to our looked-after children and vulnerable young people. We know that a young person might be looked after for a number of reasons, including neglect, abuse, complex disability requiring specialist care or involvement in the youth justice system. Those are all challenging situations for young people and merit our support. I was heartened to hear my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran and the hon. Member for Rochdale refer to the positive intentions and hard work of many who work in and with the sector. It is vital.

Looked-after children have often had to deal with myriad challenges in their lives, so we should take seriously our obligation to minimise those challenges rather than add to them. Where possible, for instance, avenues other than children’s home accommodation might be more suitable to the needs of the children concerned. For instance, as we have heard, kinship care might be possible. Kinship care is not always fully understood and can be far more challenging than many people realise. For that reason, the SNP Scottish Government have provided additional support to kinship carers and were the first to introduce kinship care payments to ensure that children looked after by relatives, which I acknowledge is not always possible, are entitled, as they should be, to the same support as those placed with foster care families.

As my hon. Friend said, I am enthusiastic about the £10.1 million in support that the SNP Government provided to councils last year to increase kinship care allowances. Importantly, we have also extended support to eligible children on the edge of care, who are subject to what will be known from this month as a kinship care order. Because vulnerable children come in all varieties, we must consider their needs as a whole in deciding how best to deal with them.

As we have heard from a number of speakers, the circumstances leading to a child or young person being looked after or taken into the home of a relative can be heartbreaking, confusing and complex for the family as well as the child. If we can encourage a family relationship that provides some stability and support, we must do so, but like moving into care, such situations are significant and involve huge upheaval, and we need proper frameworks in place. The additional investment in Scotland recognises that we need to make practical provision for people who have had to struggle more than they should, in order to provide the stability that such children need and that some of the most vulnerable people in our society deserve.

Anne Swartz, chair of the Scottish Kinship Care Alliance, has applauded that way forward and rightly commended kinship carers’ tireless efforts to raise the bar. I applaud them as well as her for their efforts. It is important that such work continues. I look forward to hearing more about the work between the Scottish Kinship Care Alliance and the Scottish Government on that issue.

However, kinship care often might not be possible. Due to the variety of situations involved, some children might have to be looked after in children’s homes, and additional considerations need to be taken into account there. The hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) rightly pointed out that in some cases, the experience of children looked after in children’s homes can be very positive, and I agree. It is absolutely true, and we must not lose sight of it, but we must also acknowledge and work on the genuine issues and decide the best way forward.

Any action that we can take to minimise additional complication in the lives of children in such situations and maximise stability and support is vital, especially if we do so at the earliest stage possible, as it can have a profound impact on children’s lives. On the basis that a significant number of children in Scotland and the UK are affected by this debate, we must consider the matter as a whole and where the issues might be, so that we can move forward.

In England, the number of children being looked after is rising, which is not what any of us want. In the year ending 31 March 2015, nearly 70,000 children were looked after by local authorities in England, and the absolute number of looked-after children has increased by 6% since 2011. That number has increased steadily over the past seven years, and is now higher than at any point since 1985.

[Ann Coffey]

I am always anxious to learn from Scotland’s experience, because I am a Scot, but I have been waiting to hear the hon. Lady share experiences of accommodating children in children’s homes in Scotland. What observations does she have about the children being placed in those homes, and how far those children’s homes are from their home authority? What are the Scottish Government overcoming, and how do they work with the private sector? That is the focus of the debate.

[Kirsten Oswald]

I will come to some of the points raised by the hon. Lady, particularly the issue of distance, which I know is a concern of hers.

Most looked-after children in England are between 10 and 15 years old. More boys than girls are looked after, and the gender distribution seems relatively unchanging. Although the majority of the looked-after population is white, children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds appear to be over-represented in the looked-after population. Those figures are concerning. Those are our children, and we must be conscious of the impact on their lives.

As the hon. Member for Stockport and my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said, things in Scotland might be different—useful progress has been made in recent years—but we must all consider what needs to be done and can be done at any time, because there is always progress to be made. I am pleased that under the Scottish Government, the number of children in the care system has dropped for the third consecutive year. It means that there is a possibility that we are taking action earlier in children’s lives to address some concerns before they escalate.

Between August 2014 and July 2015, the number of looked-after children in Scotland decreased by 1%, and the number of children on the child protection register decreased by 4%. We recently introduced a successful programme to help find permanent homes for vulnerable youngsters, and the Centre for Excellence for Looked-After Children in Scotland will receive around £580,000 a year to support improvements in helping looked-after children find a permanent home, because we have seen the positive outcomes of doing so.

The permanence and care excellence programme aims to find permanent homes for children in care. It has been piloted by Aberdeen city and Renfrewshire councils, and importantly, it brings together multi-agency staff teams to build capacity so that we can continue to improve service and outcomes, which the hon. Member for Stockport was rightly concerned about, for some of our most vulnerable young people. I think we agree that it is vital that, wherever possible, children should be able to achieve a permanent home, including through family rehabilitation where appropriate, at the earliest opportunity.

Of course, there are still children and young people who spend too long being looked after or on the child protection register. Sometimes it is appropriate to consider children’s homes and how we might provide better support, and sometimes we must acknowledge that that support needs to extend beyond what it might have been traditionally. I echo my hon. Friend’s sentiments about the positive impact of extending the right to stay in foster, kinship or residential care settings up to the age of 21, and supporting care leavers up to the age of 26 to help them move to independent living. When children cannot live at home, we owe it to them to help them find a stable, loving environment where possible and move forward in their lives as they get older.

[Patricia Gibson]

Perhaps one of the defining differences between England and Scotland is that in Scotland there has been far greater emphasis in the past five to 10 years than ever before on supporting families, using kinship care where appropriate or foster care, and moving away from children’s homes wherever another solution can be found.

[Kirsten Oswald]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I agree with her. The hon. Member for Rochdale also emphasised that it is very important that the whole range of options for each child is fully considered. I acknowledge the great eloquence of the hon. Member for Stockport on the topic of authority placements. I sympathise with her concerns about the potential for increased difficulties for some children who may find themselves in such situations. I think she is correct that children accommodated far from home may be particularly vulnerable. I am concerned about some of the pull factors that may lead them into potentially damaging and dangerous situations. She made the point very well—she was passionate about this—that there is the potential for a significant impact on these children.

However, I acknowledge the point made by the hon. Member for Rochdale that on occasion there may be sound reasons for distant placements. The Education Committee was very thoughtful in its assessment of the situation, and I look forward to hearing more when the report that was referred to earlier comes out.

In contrast with England, I think there has been some progress in Scotland in recent years, which it is useful to look at. The number of children in the care system has dropped for the third consecutive year. However, in our aspirations, I think we are all of one mind here. I hope that our shared desire to see the best possible outcomes for all of our children can lead to further progress and lead us to listen carefully to one another. We must always remember that children who need to be looked after, in care or in the situations we have discussed today, face challenges that we, their peers, and wider society often struggle to understand. We need to make sure that our systems are in place to give them the best help possible at the earliest possible stage to lay the trust and foundation for a successful and happy life.