Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in his amendment and particularly his plea that we should have some meeting to clarify the various amendments that have been tabled. In the next group, I shall refer to some of these amendments and it strikes me again that this is something that ought to be tied up between the Bill team and those of us who are taking part because otherwise we are in danger of having a thoroughly ill-constituted Bill to send forward to the other place.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support the noble Lord’s amendment. He said that other bodies might be involved and I would draw particular attention to the position of the justice system in this context. Some of the young people involved will already have been involved in the justice system or may subsequently go into the justice system and, of course, have to emerge from it. It is important that there should be adequate liaison between the local authority and its services and those who have responsibility in the justice system, whether that is a custodial institution or another service. When the noble Lord returns to this—perhaps at a later stage—he might want to consider including that in the ambit of his amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, proposes in this amendment. Before I make the next remarks, I draw Members’ attention to my interests in the register as a member of Kirklees Council. My concern with the amendment, and others we will discuss in the course of this Committee, is the number of proposals that add to the responsibilities of local authorities. As anybody who is associated with local government will be aware, additional responsibilities nearly always require additional spending. I just wanted to draw the attention of Members of this Committee to what is happening to the budget for children’s services in Kirklees Council, which is no doubt repeated across local government. Kirklees Council is a large metropolitan borough serving 420,000 residents, which puts the figures I shall now cite in context. The budget that the council intends to spend on children’s services, which excludes what it spends on schools, was £71.6 million for last year and is £70 million for this year. For next year, the proposed budget is £53.4 million. Despite every effort by members of the council and officers in Kirklees—we have done all we can to protect spending on children’s services—the reduction over the next couple of years will be £18.2 million. As Members of the Committee will quickly calculate, that is a reduction of 25%. Within that reduction, there is a reduction of 10%—more than £3 million—in services specifically for looked-after children.

Will the Minister take into account the dire consequences of the Bill adding to local authorities’ responsibilities? Of course, it is not that local authorities have no wish to have better services for care leavers and looked-after children, but there is a big reduction in the amount that can be spent on them. Consequently, any additional responsibilities will be very difficult to fund.