Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Farmer]

11: Clause 2, page 2, line 43, at end insert—
“( ) relationships.”

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 11, tabled in my name and those of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. To begin with, I must confess that I was not giving the Minister my full attention when he referred to this amendment earlier in speaking to Amendments 2 and 9. However, I think I heard encouraging words, so I will be speaking with an optimistic heart.

As I said in Committee about an identical amendment, including the word “relationships” would remedy an omission in the list of the areas of support that councils are required to include in their local offer. It stipulates that information and services to help young people develop and maintain healthy and supportive relationships should be available alongside the other five areas of health and wellbeing, education and training, employment, accommodation, and participation in society. I explained then how, when children and young people are taken into the care of the local authority, first and foremost these circumstances typically create a relationship problem. There are profound long-term effects of losing parental attachments and bonds with siblings and others in the extended family. Ministerial architects of the Bill had the best of intentions in this area but the wording acknowledges relationships only scantily and, as a consequence, ineffectively—as I hope to show here today. If the goal is to change the culture in local authorities so that relationships become of central importance, as the Government intend, legislation has to provide a stronger lead.

Clause 1 provides seven corporate parenting principles, including that children should have stability in their home lives and relationships. The local offer provided for in Clause 2 will, according to the note for Peers we received at the recent meeting with the Minister, be one of the main ways in which the corporate parenting principles are brought to life in relation to care leavers.

However, the draft local offer that was recently circulated to Peers was devoid of any reference to relationships, so how can this document claim to bring to life the corporate parenting principle about relationship stability? Yet this omission could have been anticipated, given that Clause 2, which guided the guidance, as it were, did not specify that information on relationships would form part of the service offering, hence this amendment.

The draft statutory guidance for applying corporate parenting principles for care and pathway planning does mention, on page 19, the need for looked-after children and care leavers to build resilience by forging strong relationships if they are to thrive. It goes on to say that this will mean local authorities having regard to the need to maintain, as far as possible, consistency in the home environment, relationships with carers and professionals and school placement. It then goes on to make important points about stability of housing tenure and provide good practice examples of financial and practical help.

However, there is nothing in either the guidance or the local offer about how to maintain stable relationships, and nothing about helping young people to form networks of supportive relationships beyond those with paid professionals and those formally designated as carers.

We withdrew this amendment earlier after reassurances from the Government that,

“the whole thrust of what we seek to achieve through the Bill is the reinforcement of the importance of relationships and helping children and young people to recover from their pre-care experiences to make a successful transition to independence. The importance of relationships is central to the corporate parenting principles … We will publish guidance for local authorities and I would fully expect it to say that they should include in their offers information about relationship education among the services available for care leavers. Our forthcoming care leavers strategy will set out our plans to ensure that care leavers are better supported to develop and sustain the social networks that support them in their transition to adulthood and beyond”.—[Official Report, 4/7/16; cols.114-115.]

So the Government understand that care leavers need not just continuity of care, but support networks and relationship education.

Support networks do not just spring up but typically need the encouragement and facilitation of adults. In Committee I mentioned family finding projects, such as those taking place in Orange County in California. Family finding is an intensive search method to find family members and other adults who would like to step in and care for children and young people in, or about to leave, foster care who lack permanent relationships. The goal is to locate long-term, caring, permanent connections and relationships for them and to establish a long-term emotional support network with family members and other adults. They may not be able to take the child into their home but still want to stay connected with them and to journey with them through life. In Orange County, 97% of the young people who took part increased family contact, and 89% have lifelong connections. Edinburgh City Council has already adopted this approach. Encouragingly, in Grand Committee the Government stated their interest in this approach for their care leavers strategy, which the Family Rights Group is now testing in a number of local authorities.

Yet however many family members and caring adults we try to cluster around young people, these connections will be insufficiently sticky if young people are pre-programmed to reject the relationships that are on offer because of past experiences, or have no understanding of what a good relationship looks like. This is where relationship education comes in. It can be delivered informally when a young person finds it very hard to maintain a relationship with a key figure in their life. They mention it, say, to their personal adviser, and that person purposefully helps them to navigate through difficulties or misunderstandings in exactly the same way that a loving parent would. I am sure this already happens but it needs to be an important part of every personal adviser’s job description and skill set. Alternatively, it can be more formally delivered through the work of services like Love for Life, which is part of TwentyTwenty, the award-winning mentoring organisation with which the Government have contracted to work in the recently announced Derby social mobility hub. The ethos running through this and many other third sector organisations is that the skills to build good relationships can be taught and caught.

I have met the Minister, Edward Timpson, and am in no doubt that he is alive to the importance of relationships, but the Bill simply does not yet reflect how quintessential they are, as stated by the Government. Instead of trying to get this in the Bill, I could be arguing for better recognition in the draft guidance, the draft local offer and the forthcoming care leavers strategy. However, it is not a question of either/or; it is both/and. It could sensibly be surmised that the Government overlooked the need to make explicit reference to relationships in their draft local offer, despite what they say about its importance to the corporate parenting principles, because it was not included in the legally binding list provided in Clause 2. This suggests that it would be to all too easy for local authorities to do the same, thereby undermining the opportunity presented by the local offer to drive much-needed cultural change in this area. I beg to move.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I support Amendment 11, to which my name is attached, as it was in Committee. To reiterate what I said then, and despite the very good debate we have already had today on Amendment 2, the Bill itself is currently almost devoid of references to relationships; indeed, you might almost say it is a bit of a relationship-free zone. That is ironic when what we are all trying to do here is improve the lot of the very vulnerable children and young people who most need love, warmth, emotional security and human empathy to help them on their journey through life, given their very troubled start. It is a statement of the blindingly obvious that good relationships are utterly indispensable to that end.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, who is such a passionate advocate in this field, has already referred to the need for a change in the culture of many local authorities so that they also make promoting relationships central to their work. I know that there are some very good examples of good practice here, but I want to talk very briefly about what cultural change requires and why it is important. It could be assumed that good-quality relationships, particularly the support of peers and adults who are not paid to take an interest, are somehow nice to have but out of the reach of many young people in, or coming into, the care system. If so, that assumption will shape a local authority’s response. It will focus almost exclusively on ensuring that a young person has the material, financial and practical support that they need in the absence of the family ties through which these things typically come. It will also put a greater load on the social worker and personal adviser role.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Farmer and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for the amendment. It seeks to add services relating to relationships to the services that local authorities may offer as part of their local offer. I understand the intention behind the amendment, and I agree that high-quality and consistently supportive relationships are critical to supporting care leavers into successful independent lives. I believe that the key to getting these relationships right is down to how the services are delivered, with individual professionals, volunteers and personal advisers building a strong and positive rapport with young people. I was very interested to hear what my noble friend Lord Farmer had to say about Orange County. It is an area I know well because in a past life I used to travel there regularly on business. I know that it is a very forward-thinking part of the world.

This is an important issue and I am certainly very sympathetic to the points that have been made. I am therefore very happy to take them away and consider further in detail whether an amendment to the Bill along these lines is the best way of securing further progress in this area. I hope that, in view of this, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness will feel reassured enough to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Farmer]

I thank the Minister for that encouraging response. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for their support. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 11 withdrawn.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I do not have a prepared speech. I came today to listen to the arguments, because this issue is difficult and finely balanced. I think that the Government have come a long way and listened extraordinarily carefully over the summer. I was able to come in during my holiday, to be seen and listened to by officials and to have my hopes and fears for social work heard. I think that a lot of that was taken on board.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord True. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Low, that this is a way to dismantle the whole legal system for children. Having been a director of social services who was involved in not one or two but three child abuse inquiries and who has experienced some of the most difficult areas of social work down the years, I am concerned—I have talked to colleagues about this—that we have such a mass of guidance and procedures to follow through the present legislation that, without some intervention, social workers and their managers will be overwhelmed. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, would agree with that. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that it is likely to be social work managers and not social workers who are looking for innovation, but let us hope that they will be informed by the social workers, who in turn will be informed by those whom they listen to and try to help—in this case, children.

I say to the Minister, for whom I have huge respect, that he has simply not won the hearts and minds of the vast number of people out there in the community. We have letters from mothers who are totally confused and seem to think that this has something to do with being able to cut across the whole of law so that their children may be taken away—I have sent the letters to the Minister so that he might see them. I do not think that it has anything to do with that, but it shows the breadth of confusion.

I have talked to people who want to innovate. I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children and have listened to directors of children’s services—good directors—who are in difficulty and who would like to make changes. There are difficulties. For example, if you are caught in the common assessment framework, you can spend your life assessing situations and never getting into the position of providing a service—and there are legal requirements about assessment. I give just that one example; as a practitioner, I could give a number of examples of cases where easing the regulation would make it much better in terms of providing and delivering services.

The question that I am still stuck with today in not knowing which way I would want to vote is whether the Government have done enough to reassure us that the structures are strong enough to ensure the safeguarding of children’s services, the development of social services and the long-term protection of children. The Government have not convinced most stakeholders in the community. Whether there is more that the Government could do to reach those hearts and minds, whether the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will press his amendment at this point and we will therefore find ourselves unable to move forward on innovation—which would be a pity, because there are things that need to be done and changes to be made—and whether this was the best way to do it or whether an inquiry into and review of guidance and the law would have been better I do not know. We are where we are. Many of us do not want to see the stifling of innovation; we just want to make sure that it is safe.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friends Lady Eaton and Lord True in supporting Clauses 29 to 31. My noble friends made many of the points that I thought were important to this debate, so I shall limit myself to the single issue of testing and reiterate the commendation of the Government for their reforming courage, not just in what they are seeking to achieve but in how they are seeking to achieve it.

Few can doubt that reform is needed in national social work practice. The number of children coming into care is soaring. My noble friend Lady Eaton has already mentioned how the complexity of their lives, especially when they are late entrants into the care system, cannot be adequately catered for in the current legislative framework.

Every sheet of Pugin wallpaper on the walls of this Palace could be replaced by policy reports brimming with ideas and care studies about social work and children’s services reform. Many of these ideas have been learned from good practice here and in other countries; they emerged not from a clear blue sky but from grass-roots practice. However, if they are ever to be implemented, they need the leeway referred to by my noble friend. On the subject of learning, modern government increasingly has to draw inspiration from the way corporations innovate but avoid going bust in a highly complex world—without, of course, handing over the core business of protecting the vulnerable to profit-making companies. I welcome the Government’s amendments to Clause 29 that bar local authorities from doing precisely that.

To explain what I mean with a recent example, the Institute for Government published Nicholas Timmins’s highly instructive report on the rollout of universal credit, at the heart of which was a change in approach from the traditional way of managing big projects. Previously, managers operated a “waterfall” approach, where government would legislate on a programme and set the rules, suppliers would then design in detail how these would operate, do some testing and then cascade a finished system out to the regions, either in phases or even on one day. One of the major drawbacks was that any errors, misjudgments or even rigidities factored in early or midway through the design process tended to be, as Timmins said, “baked in”, and end users could find that the project did not meet their needs because requirements were wrongly specified or simply not anticipated early on.

The opposite—which the private sector has increasingly adopted over the last 15 years or so—was known as the “agile” approach. Again to quote Timmins, this is,

“a mindset of humility around how little you should expect to understand about how real people use your service. So you optimise your whole approach by working with them and learning to iterate quickly based on learning in the real world”.

The mantra of test and learn that emerged from the adoption of an agile approach became a welcome hallmark of wider welfare reform, as well as of universal credit. It is a far more realistic and sensitive way to carry out reforms in areas such as welfare benefits and social care, which have such profound implications for people’s quality of life, well-being and even survival.

Obviously, there are many differences between the rollout of an IT-controlled benefits system and an iterative improvement in the responsiveness of children’s services, but the key similarities lie in the words “iterative” and “responsive”. We heard from my noble friend Lord True about the Royal Borough of Kingston and the London Borough of Richmond—Partners in Practice local authorities. They have said that the clauses will enable them to safely test new approaches that their front-line workers come up with and remove barriers to effective work. Leeds City Council is seeking to become an exemplar of a new and more sustainable safeguarding system where children do better, families are supported to do better and the state has to intervene less. One local authority after another is aspiring to become a learning organisation that can be instructed by and instruct others—all within an enabling framework of intense scrutiny from government and those charged to put children at the forefront of all they do.

We are all here with the aim of ensuring that children thrive. But, as anyone who has lived in a family with several children knows, parenting must be nimble if each unique child is to flourish. I suggest that we also need to be agile in how we approach these clauses. We should no longer fetter well-trained professionals but enable them to develop strategies for their patch within the protective envelope of the Bill.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly take up a couple of points made by the noble Lord, Lord True. He said—I may be slightly misquoting him—that we should allow professional social workers to take proper decisions. But is it not telling that, as we heard, only one in 10 social workers in a survey supports the Government’s proposals, and more than two-thirds of them believe that letting local authorities exempt themselves from children’s social care legislation will lead to more children being placed at risk?

The other point made by the noble Lord was that Parliament will be at the heart of the process, but that will only be in so far as we are allowed to debate the regulations. We all know that we have no power when it comes to regulations, and that if we try to use what powers we have we get lambasted for overstepping them. It is not fair to say that Parliament will be at the heart of this process, whereas it would be if there were proper, primary legislation.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Farmer Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, as noble Lords will be aware, Clause 2 requires local authorities to consult on and publish a local offer for care leavers. The local offer will set out the services provided by a local authority to assist its care leavers as they move into adulthood and independent living. It should include services relating to health and well-being, education and training, employment, accommodation, and participation in society. On Report, noble Lords expressed concern that services relating to relationships were not included in this list. I recognise this concern and agree that strong and supportive relationships are critical to supporting care leavers to lead successful independent lives. I committed to consider in detail whether an amendment to the Bill would be the best way of securing the necessary progress in this area and, on reflection, we believe that it would. I have therefore tabled this amendment to add services relating to relationships to Clause 2. If local authorities believe that particular services may assist care leavers in or in preparing for adulthood and independent living, they will now have to publish information about these services as part of their local offer, alongside information about services relating to the other five areas stipulated in the clause.

The remainder of the amendments in this group should not, I hope, detain the House for too long. They are a set of technical and consequential amendments relating to Part 1 of the Bill. Amendment 7 allows regulations relating to local reviews of serious cases of harm and abuse that would otherwise be made under the negative scrutiny procedure to be made under the affirmative procedure. This will allow the Government to bring forward regulations relating to both local and national reviews for the House’s scrutiny in a single instrument, ensuring greater coherence and making best use of the House’s time. The other amendments create a new schedule to the Bill, which comprises changes necessary to existing legislation as a consequence of the substantive changes we have debated on the Bill.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for bringing forward this welcome amendment—Amendment 2. It follows an amendment I tabled in Committee and on Report, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and my noble friend Lady Hodgson put their names. I am grateful to them for their enthusiastic support and for speaking so eloquently in the various debates. I tabled that amendment because it would remedy a serious omission in the list of the areas of support that local authorities are required to include in their local offer.

Recently, North Tyneside Council rallied staff across the authority to improve the employment outcomes of care leavers. Experience taught the council that it would need to be very intentional about ensuring that young people have at least one strong relationship with someone who genuinely and obviously thinks they matter. The council also knew that it would have to help them be part of a supportive network. This emphasis had to be explicitly stated if it was to become embedded in everyone’s practice.

There is a dynamic to this: it is not simply a case of providing young people with an adult who will keep in touch with them and to whom they can turn. Young people need to know how to maintain and grow relationships and how to work through conflict and avoid destructive feuds. Disruptions in attachment processes often lead to an understandable but ultimately vicious circle of an “I’ll reject them before they reject me” pattern of behaviour. Many long for independence far earlier than they can handle it because they do not want to be let down again. Furthermore, our individualistic culture seems to endorse the natural inclination to go it alone and avoid hurt. Not having relationships to draw on can also result in these young people being unbearably lonely, which can have severely negative effects on their health and well-being. It can undermine their education, their ability to maintain a tenancy or other accommodation and manage work, and their financial security. If they do not understand bills, they can easily get into arrears and debt, which can be quite terrifying. Such life skills often develop through a process of guided mastery—encouragement and guidance from someone who is genuinely concerned about them.

In summary, healthy and supportive relationships are fundamental to the other five areas included in the local offer. The Government’s amendment has the potential to tackle the haphazardness of current arrangements which mean that it is not automatic, and is probably highly unlikely, that young people will receive help and advice in the area of relationships.

Given the careful attention that the Minister and his team paid to this matter, I hope that this amendment is a portent of a more relational approach in many other areas of policy. Given the enthusiastic support from across the House that this amendment has received, I am sure that many other noble Lords would agree.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for his work and persistence in this area. I recall a 28 year-old woman with experience of the care system who recently married a lovely man, an accountant. She had had the most terrible start in life and never met her father until she was 16. She talked in public about her experience at university and the relationships she had with the women with whom she shared a house while at university, who visited her and comforted her when she often fell into depression and withdrew to her room and isolated herself. I commend the noble Lord for his perseverance on this matter. I am very grateful to the Minister for listening to him and bringing forward this amendment today.