Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Pinnock

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

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nash, his ministerial colleagues and officials because we had the opportunity for a series of meetings between Committee and Report which have culminated in the amendments the noble Lord has brought before your Lordships’ House tonight. I am grateful to him and his colleagues.

Clearly we now have an independent regulator, overseen by the Professional Standards Authority, and we are happy with that outcome. For the social work profession, the improvement agenda and the regulatory agenda this is a sensible way forward.

I have couple of points to mention to the Minister to which he may wish to respond in writing. First, on the issue of the transition, there is a question of whether the cases now being held by the existing regulator will remain with that regulator or will transfer to the new regulator when it has been set up. My advice to the Government would be to leave those cases with the existing regulator so that the new regulator can start with a clean sheet. The Government will need to consider this and I would be happy for the Minister to write to me in due course.

Secondly, the PSA feels that the powers have perhaps been too widely drawn. I understand the Government are looking at this issue. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that. Thirdly, can he confirm that the consultation on the establishment of the regulator will be extensive?

On fees, I understand from the note that we have seen that, in essence, the setting-up costs will be met by the Minister’s department, which will also meet the additional costs of the new regulator, and that the commitment is to the next Parliament. If he could confirm that, I would be extremely grateful.

Overall, I am happy with the outcome.

[Baroness Pinnock]

My Lords, on behalf of the Members here I thank the Minister for the significant changes that have been made to social work regulation. They have gone a great deal of the way towards satisfying the concerns that were raised at both Second Reading and in Committee. It is good that the Minister has listened carefully and has responded in a positive way. I thank him for that.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Pinnock

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, many noble Lords have already spoken about many of the issues surrounding these proposals, and I want to focus on the key one of independence, to which all speakers so far have referred. I thought it would be worth while reading the policy statement issued in June about regulating social workers. It was quite revealing because it demonstrated that there was uncertainty at the heart of government about which road to take—whether the regulator should be independent or closer to government. Paragraph 48 says:

“In considering what form the new regulator should take we have considered whether a new fully independent regulator should be established”,

and the next paragraph goes on to discuss the pros and cons. One argument against it is:

“The establishment of a wholly independent body would inevitably take significant time as leadership and infrastructure are built from scratch and would, we think, be more expensive than the alternatives”.

The decision about the independence of the regulation of a profession as important as social work, which from time to time has the duty of challenging the state, should be based on more than simply time and expense.

The statement, in further paragraphs about the body’s establishment, continues:

“Government is proposing to establish an executive agency”,

which it says will be distinct. Further, it says that:

“Government recognises that professional regulation for many other professionals is organised on a more independent footing”,

and therefore propose that it,

“should be kept under review”.

To me, that says loud and clear that the Government are undecided. On the one hand, they know that it ought to be independent; but on the other, they want to bring it closer to government. The danger is that we will end up with social work being seen as politicised according to the colour of the Government who are in control. That is a very dangerous path to take. I urge the Government to look through the arguments that were made in their own policy statement and to come down on the side of independence rather than cost and expense.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the briefing that we received from Ministers last week on the questions we are debating. I was also impressed with the vision set out by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and his ministerial colleagues about the need to achieve a high level of social work, with a heavy emphasis on improving practice. So there is no disagreement with us on the aims that the Government have set out. I applaud them, as they are absolutely right to focus on the quality of social work practice. Our concern is the form that these aims take in the Bill. Not only will it not do the job but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley have suggested, it will detract from the real effort that needs to be put into encouraging, supporting and helping social workers to improve what they do.

Noble Baronesses have already raised the Education Select Committee report. What is striking is its reference to a vacancy rate of “17% of the workforce”, while the Government’s own figures,

“conceded that there were retention concerns, with the average career in social work lasting less than eight years, compared to 16 for a nurse and 25 for a doctor”.

This is not the time to be messing around with regulation when it is working in a perfectly satisfactory way at the moment.

There are five concerns about the way that the Bill has been drafted. First, we still do not understand why, within two years, there has been a complete reversal of government policy. Why has there been that reversal? I have yet to hear one proper explanation for why that has happened. Secondly, why was there no proper consultation or discussion with anyone in the field about the changes? Thirdly, why is regulation being confused with improvement? The fourth issue, which is ultimately the most important, is why the Government are setting themselves up as the regulator of a profession, while the fifth is parliamentary. It is about the use of regulations in this Bill, rather than the proper use of primary legislation.

On the reversal of policy, the Care Standards Act 2000 established the General Social Care Council while, in parallel, a College of Social Work was established. I think that none of us would say that those organisations always covered themselves with glory, but, towards the end of its life, it was quite clear that, under its last leadership, the General Social Care Council was pulling its act together. There is no doubt about that at all. I opposed the transfer of social work regulation from that body to the HCPC for the very reasons that the Government now use to justify the change in policy. Paragraph 38 of the policy statement says:

“The system that the HCPC operates is designed to maintain appropriate minimum standards of public safety and initial education, rather than raising standards”.

Of course—that is what the HCPC exists to do. The Government were told that when we debated it. They ignored it and went ahead with this proposal. So why this sudden reversal of policy?

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Pinnock

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock]

My Lords, we have had a very interesting and informative debate on this subject. I do not wish to add anything because everything I might say has already largely been said. All I would say is that this is focused on the principle that I and others raised at Second Reading and earlier today: the fundamental importance of early intervention and prevention if we are to break the cycle of children going into care and the consequent implications for the rest of their lives, and for the costs on local authorities and the state. Everything we know points to the fact that a focus on funding for early intervention and prevention does more than address the issues once children and young people are in the care system. I very much welcome this informative debate and thoroughly support the amendments.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a persuasive debate. We have already had the evidence that my noble friend Lady Armstrong described from the social justice commission, which is all too depressingly clear on the plight of care leavers who become young carers. My noble friend Lady Massey referred to the Family Rights Group, which produced an excellent briefing detailing some of the challenges that young parents covered by these amendments have to face. I was particularly struck by the evidence that young parents often feel judged by their youth and background rather than their parenting abilities, and particularly that, where support has been provided to them, it has often been done in their capacity as young people leaving care and has rather ignored their roles as parents. This will be a very telling point when we come to the Minister’s arguments.

The amendments seem comprehensive. Amendment 61A would insert into the assessment of the needs of a former relevant child a reference to young parents, while Amendment 71A expands helpfully on the definition of young parents. Amendment 98AA would insert into the Bill a requirement for pathway plans to be provided for,

“looked after children and care leavers who are young parents”,

and Amendment 98AB would amend the Care Leavers (England) Regulations 2010 to incorporate support for young parents, so my noble friend has tabled a comprehensive package of amendments.

Rather like the right reverend prelate, the Minister may say that young parents are implicitly covered in the Bill. However, to come back to the point raised in the evidence we received from the Family Rights Group, is not one of the problems here that in these legislative terms care leavers are thought of as care leavers rather than as young parents? It seems that although the Minister may say that the provisions can be seen to apply to young parents, the fact is that sometimes there is a need to be explicit. There is sometimes an advantage in putting a specific requirement into the Bill. The point I put to the Ministers is that the case has been made today for such an explicit provision, and I am sure that we will need to return to this.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Pinnock

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock]

My Lords, I am a relative newcomer to your Lordships’ House, and just one of the features of the legislative process that has amazed me is that substantial changes can be made without there being any publicly stated budgetary provision. Therefore, here we are again today, legislating for an increase in the number of academy conversions without any stated provision for funding the changes.

Every school that seeks or is forced to become an academy is given a grant of £25,000, so if 1,000 schools are converted into academies, as the Minister stated in Committee, the Government will need to set aside £25 million. I accept that this is small change in the Government’s big budgetary process; nevertheless, £25 million can go a long way in other sectors of the education service.

This is just the upfront, visible funding. A report by the National Audit Office in November 2012, Managing the Expansion of the Academies Programme, stated that the additional cost of the academy programme to the Department for Education was £1 billion. The programme had by this stage involved just over 1,000 schools. Although there have been reductions in the costs of conversions since then, as reported by the NAO, there are undeniably costs in addition to the upfront £25,000 per school grant.

In response to the amendment tabled in Committee, the Minister said:

“I will be delighted to comment more on the DfE’s total settlement on Report”.—[Official Report, 17/11/15; col. GC 51.]

I look forward to hearing the specific details from the Minister. If no budget is identified, I, for one, will have to conclude that the funding is being top-sliced from other areas of the schools budget. If so, I will be very disappointed, because schools’ budgets are already being squeezed and further cuts would put some of them in considerable financial difficulty.

Therefore, the amendment is tabled with a purpose, which is to try to discover how much the Bill is going to cost the education sector and where the money is coming from. If, as I hope, the Minister is able to clarify all those points, I will indeed be very satisfied.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am sure that we will all be interested to hear from the noble Lord the answers to the noble Baroness’s questions, particularly his response to her suggestion that the money for the implementation of the education parts of the Bill will be top-sliced, presumably from money that would have gone through local authorities to maintained schools. I would be very interested to know the answer to that.

I am going to tempt fate by asking the Minister the same question again, referring to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said about the education budget in the Autumn Statement and his announcement that all schools in the secondary sector will become academies. He said:

“We will make local authorities running schools a thing of the past, which will help us save around £600 million on the education services grant”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/15; col. 1370.]

I would like to know how on earth that £600 million is going to be saved. Does he think that the £600 million used by local authorities is simply a waste of money? All those central services provided by local authorities are to be destroyed but presumably most maintained schools think they are pretty helpful. I assume that, when they all become academies, the schools will be given some element of the budget to make up for the services they would have received from local authorities.

Understanding education finances these days is a conundrum but I certainly hope that the Minister will clarify what exactly his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer meant by what he said last week. Perhaps the answer to the noble Baroness’s question is that the finances are going to come directly from the money that would have gone to local authorities, which may be what she meant by top-slicing.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness Pinnock

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

First, I apologise to the Committee for not being able to attend the Second Reading of the Bill because of diary clashes.

My noble friends Lord Storey, Lady Sharp of Guildford and I have tabled this amendment to improve the local and democratic accountability of schools in a local community for a number of reasons. The first reason is that school funding accounts for around 50% of local authority spending for councils that have responsibility for education. The second reason is that, by their very nature, schools reflect the communities they serve and parents expect there to be a local process of oversight and a local means of expressing any concerns. The third reason is that there have been a number of high-profile failures of financial governance in the academy sector. For example, there have been allegations relating to fraud in a number of schools in Bradford and County Durham. The Education Funding Agency has issued financial notices to improve to several academy chains, including the Academies Enterprise Trust in 2014. The fourth reason for tabling this amendment is that multi-academy trusts currently seem to be the favoured way forward, but they are accountable for their strategic and financial performance only to the Education Funding Agency and the Secretary of State. The fifth reason is that governance models in multi-academy trusts ensure that the sponsor or sponsoring body controls the trust. I am sure the Minister will have seen the publication by the New Schools Network.

Multi-academy trusts are governed by a trust body and by so-called directors of the trust who take the strategic and financial decisions for the schools under their control. On the whole, multi-academy trusts set up local governing bodies to do the day-to-day running and there is no parental or staff involvement until this lower level of governance. The document recommends that there should be one member of staff and two parents on those bodies and that they should not have any oversight of the financial controls of the trust and therefore of the school in which they serve. The crucial thing in this model is that decisions on school budgets are in the hands of the directors of the trust and that the trust members are self-appointed and accountable for their actions only via agreements signed with the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency.

In this model there is no accountability to the local community and to parents. This amendment seeks to address those serious concerns. There is currently a vacuum of democratic accountability regarding the attainment and achievement of schools and, even more importantly, for the attainment and achievement of the children in those schools. Those matters are no longer within the remit of the local authority. As a serving local councillor I can say that when parents approach me with concerns about their children’s academy school’s ability to achieve realistic opportunities for them, it is difficult to address those concerns other than by going through the very processes that created them in the first place—that is, the school’s governing body or trust.

In this amendment we propose to put matters right. In 2006 the Government established local authority health scrutiny committees. The government guidance for those committees, which is on the GOV.UK website, is very clear about their purpose. I think that the purposes for which health scrutiny committees were established could serve in establishing parallel scrutiny committees for schools within the local authority area. The government guidance for local authority health scrutiny committees, available on the GOV.UK website, states:

“The primary aim of health scrutiny is to act as a lever to improve the health of local people, ensuring their needs are considered as an integral part of the commissioning, delivery and development of health services … Health scrutiny is a fundamental way by which democratically elected local councillors are able to voice the views of their constituents, and hold relevant NHS bodies and relevant health service providers to account”.

It seems to me that by substituting “schools and education” within that guidance we have a prime way of letting local communities call to account all schools, particularly academies because there is a big vacuum in accountability for local academies. In the nearly 10 years since the committees were introduced they have been extraordinarily effective in bringing together local democratically elected representatives, health commissioners and CCGs, representatives of the acute trusts in the district and the public health people to scrutinise health issues. Together they have been able to resolve some of the difficult challenges of providing health services in the community. I would attest that this same model could work really well for local education.

The guidance goes on very helpfully to demonstrate how scrutiny committees can add value by bringing together partners providing, in this case, health services. I suggest that it could also be done for education in a district. It says:

“A greater emphasis on involving patients”,

and for education that could be parents,

“and the public from an early stage in proposals to improve services”.

Engaging people has got to be a positive. It continues:

“The work of health and wellbeing boards”,

in this case we could bring in the education scrutiny committee,

“bringing together representatives of the whole … system”.

This will therefore add value to the decisions made. It will provide an opportunity for a public, open, transparent and democratic hearing of a local community’s concerns about local schools.

One key to success in a school is harnessing the support of the local community that it serves. Anyone who has ever been involved in education, as I have, knows that good schools are supported very well by their local community. One indicator that a school is beginning to fail is when the local community starts taking support away from it.

The risk with the multi-academy trust model is that schools will become more remote from the communities they serve. I suggest that a successful multi-academy trust would welcome the opportunity of a public platform where it could demonstrate transparency in its decision-making and respond to questions about its performance from local people. With that in mind, I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to this proposal. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I am not sure whether her suggestion is exactly right but the principles that she raises are very important. They concern local democratic accountability and they also concern what she described as flaws in the governance structure of academies, particularly multi-academies. I share her view on both points.

The noble Baroness suggested that we look at the health model and I think that she is right. One thing that puzzles me about academy trusts is that they do not seem to allow for a direct relationship between the governance and the parents, except in the circumstances that she has described. I suggest that we look at NHS foundation trusts, which after all were developed at around the same time.

I know that the education department is very isolated in Whitehall and this is yet another example of that, but the ownership of an NHS foundation trust is rooted in patients, staff and members of the public, because they become members without paying any cost and it is the members who elect the governing council. The governing council, in turn, appoints the non-executives and the chairman to the board and approves the appointment of the chief executive. The board of directors is a statutory body. It is the board that you sue and harangue if things go wrong, but it is accountable locally through a very well-ordered structure and it carries with it a much better sense of accountability. There is a clear line of responsibility with a proper board of directors. There is no problem about its legal responsibilities and it is accountable. When I chaired a foundation trust, the fact that I had to appear before the governors’ council every month or so to explain the trust’s problems and what we were doing about them was a very good discipline. It was not a very easy discipline—I confess that I did not enjoy doing it—but it was an immeasurably strengthening exercise, and I think that the noble Baroness is trying to get at that in part of her amendment.

The noble Baroness also raises the whole question of the local authority’s role in the education policy that the Government are developing. I refer back to a point raised by my noble friend Lord Knight during our first day in Committee. He basically said that if the Government want all schools to be academies, why do they not just say so and bring in legislation? Why do we have to have this rather obscure, backwards way of academising all schools? That is basically dishonest. I hope that the Minister might just praise a maintained school—he has four hours in which to do so but I have yet to hear him ever praise a maintained school. Clearly, he has an ideological problem with maintained schools. That is why we remain suspicious of the Bill and some of the motivations behind it.