Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

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

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who has covered the ground with his usual thoroughness and eloquence. These clauses, which we do not think should stand part of the Bill, stem from the Government’s mission to shrink—or in this case substantially dismantle —the institutions of the state on a grand scale. The two areas which led the way in the state’s assumption of the role of social protection in the 20th century were pensions, followed closely by social services for children provided by local authorities.

It was the brutal murder, in 1944, of 13 year-old Dennis O’Neill by his foster parents, and the consequent outcry, which persuaded society that it needed to be more proactive in protecting the welfare of children and led to a duty being placed on local authorities in the Children Act 1948 to protect children and, in appropriate circumstances, take them into their care. The public inquiry into his death found that the foster family had been selected without adequate inquiry being made as to their suitability and that there had been a serious lack of supervision by the local authority. It found that the local authority had failed to act on warnings it had received and that there had been poor record-keeping, a failure to work with other agencies, a lack of adequate resources and so on. These same failings have characterised subsequent inquiries, such as those concerning Maria Colwell, Jasmine Beckford, Peter Connelly—baby P—Victoria Climbié and a host more. The failures to which these inquiries have drawn attention are routine things, but they are vital. It is important to note that they are just the sorts of things that councils could be exempted from having to do by Clause 29 of the Bill.

All the reports into the scandals attending the cases I have mentioned, down to the latest one by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, point to poor communication between agencies as a significant contributory factor, but that is just what the local authority duty exists to promote. In all the cases I have been referring to the default is that of the local authority, but surely that is a reason for more prescription and regulation, not less. Clause 29 does not just permit the Secretary of State to exempt councils from overprescriptive and bureaucratic regulation. For example, it would permit her to exempt a council from having a duty to safeguard and protect children in need, under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989; to undertake an investigation where the authority suspects a child in its area is suffering significant harm, under Section 47 of the 1989 Act; to accommodate a child in its area who is lost or abandoned, under Section 20 of the 1989 Act; and to provide essential welfare support for a disabled child, under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970.

What is the need for these provisions if the object is to enable local authorities to test different ways of working with a view to achieving better outcomes under children’s social care legislation or achieving the same outcomes more efficiently? It is perfectly possible to test different ways of working, as earlier speakers have noted, within the existing legislative framework. If it is sought to test out different ways of fulfilling a duty, it makes no sense to get rid of the duty. The only circumstances in which it would make sense would be if it were intended to give the duty to someone else—in other words, privatisation, or dismantling of the state, as I said. That is what this is all about.

In the last six years, the Government have substantially emasculated local authorities by cutting at least 40% of their funding, so that they are increasingly able to do little more than what they are statutorily obliged to do. Now, it is evidently proposed to complete the process by getting rid of the statutory obligations themselves. I do not think that we should go any further down this track.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I, too, rise to speak to this group of amendments, and in particular to Amendment 57, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and those who have just spoken.

We on this side totally support the principle of innovation, and I think all other speakers have agreed that that is a positive thing to do. However, there is a need to retain the hard-won safeguards for very vulnerable children that are currently enshrined in primary legislation. In Grand Committee I said that this led to a dilemma: innovation, which may well improve the lot of these vulnerable children, or retaining the safeguards. I asked the Minister for assurances on that process, and about what was off-limits. His response was that there were “no limits” to what could be required from this innovation procedure. That is the very heart of my concern. Despite the additional safeguards which the Minister has attached to the Bill, there is at its heart an opportunity to throw away hard-won safeguards for the sake of the so-called principle of innovation, which may or may not help these vulnerable children.

I am pleased to see that through Amendment 54, the Minister inserts a new paragraph to prevent profit-making from children’s services. That is welcome and I support it, but other explicit safeguards he has added go no way towards giving us the assurances we have all sought throughout the Bill’s passage. Nor has it reassured the children’s charities which have written to many noble Lords with their concerns. I will quote from part of their briefing, because it sums up the nature of the concerns we are all expressing:

“Clause 29 seeks to introduce a wide ranging power. It leaves all children’s social care legislation, regulation and guidance open to exemption or modification. This will include safeguarding legislation, support for vulnerable children, and oversight and monitoring of children at risk and in care. Children’s entitlement to support or protection should not be removed without rigorous evidence and oversight … We welcome the Government’s decision to bring forward amendments to improve safeguards to the ‘power to test new ways of working’. Despite this progress, oversight and review mechanisms are not yet sufficiently robust”.

That perfectly sums up what many of us have been saying. We are not convinced that what the Government have brought forward will provide reassurance that children, including the most vulnerable children in our society, will not be put at risk by Clause 29.

For those reasons, I, too, and other Members on this Bench, will support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, if he seeks the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I regret that I was unable to attend Grand Committee because of certain personal problems and trying to do my day job, in which I declare an interest, of running a local social services authority. It is an innovative authority, achieving for children, which was established by the London Borough of Richmond, in common with the then Liberal Democrat Royal Borough of Kingston, as a community interest company to enable high-quality social work to be done locally and to help others. I recall that when it was proposed everyone said it was a dangerous experiment and should not be tried and that it would lead to all kinds of dangers. However, we have found that care in Kingston has been transformed and our senior social workers have been able successfully to give advice to other authorities such as Sunderland, Wandsworth and others. We should not fear innovation.

As many have recognised, the background to this proposal is, as the Munro report said, that there is a risk of too much rigidity, overregulation and stifling the good for the always important sake of protecting the vulnerable. However, having listened to the debate, I find that some remarks were astonishingly apocalyptic. It is nonsense for the noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite—or indeed, with all due respect, for the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston—to talk about privatisation in the context of a debate in which the Government have tabled amendments to say that profit will be ruled out. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, may know of private sector operators who are keen to operate on a loss-making basis, but I have yet to meet one. The talk of privatisation is reckless. It spreads disturbance where it need not be spread and is not germane to the point before us.

Everyone, from every Bench, including the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has said that they like innovation. The noble Lord likes to see change and things being done differently in the Army. The tenor of the debate has been, “We would like innovation but we cannot allow it because it is too risky”. If the Army had operated on those principles it would still be advancing in close order, line abreast, in red coats.

What is before us is not wholescale radical change but a limited power for social workers to innovate, to try to do a better job for the people they want to serve. It is disappointing. I have spoken often in this House, with Members on other Benches, and I feel that professionals in local authorities are not trusted enough. It is a constant theme of the speeches I make in your Lordships’ House. Sometimes I feel like a lone voice on the Benches behind the Government, I have to say. But here is a small, limited proposal that asks us in Parliament to trust local authorities and the advice of professionals who wish to innovate.

Many of the speeches have been made as if the amendments put forward by my noble friend on the Front Bench had never been tabled. Here is a man who I have heard rightly praised, on every piece of legislation we have had concerning children, for his capacity to listen and make changes with deep sensitivity to the concerns and interests of children. He has come forward with proposals answering your Lordships’ concerns, many of which have been expressed legitimately, and it is proposed that they be rejected out of hand. I see the noble Lord, Lord Low, rising. I will of course hear what he says.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

What is there to prevent local authorities and social workers innovating under the present legislative framework?

[Lord True]

My Lords, certain things can be done differently, but this proposition will allow a range of proposals to be put forward, some of which have been mentioned already by my noble friend Lady Eaton. No doubt others will be suggested. The point is that we must allow professional social workers to make propositions.

On what is here before us the cry is, “No consultation”. This process requires local consultation and evidence on how better outcomes will come about from the experiment that might be allowed. It requires proof of local capability and quality, assessment of the potential risks to children, monitoring, evaluation and an evidence base before it even gets to the panel that is proposed to consider whether we might have an experiment. Then the panel will consider the experiment, then your Lordships will have the right to vote on whether that experiment should take place. The idea that Parliament would be taken out of the matter is nonsense. Parliament is at the heart of the matter in the legislation put forward.

This is one of those days where, carried by the deep love and affection this House has for the vulnerable and disadvantaged, which I share—it is why it is my passion to be in local government—your Lordships risk throwing a very small baby out with some bathwater that does not exist. We have a Catch-22 situation before us: the legislation potentially enables high-performing local authorities, taking ideas put forward by professional social workers, to try limited experiments in a safe, controlled environment. If your Lordships say that prior experiment is too dangerous and throw it out, the only alternative, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has said, is to have wholesale legislation without any prior experiment: let us test it and see when it has got through Parliament. That might be rather more dangerous.

I hope that on reflection the House, while in no way resiling from the deep concerns expressed, will listen to my noble friend on the Front Bench. I hope that they will read what is in the amendments and not reject them, as doing so would excise the capacity for limited innovation by good social workers from the practice of care in this land.