Children and Families Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 245 in particular. In doing so, I hope that the Committee will allow me to reflect on the comparisons between the commissioner and my own former position as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons.

Unlike the other inspectors of public sector organisations, the Chief Inspector of Prisons deliberately does not come from that service, in order to ensure complete objectivity and independence. The Chief Inspector of Constabulary is a policeman; the Chief Inspector of Probation has been a probation person, and so on. What was also interesting was that I was a Crown servant, not a civil servant, which gave me another degree of independence. I would like to see the Children’s Commissioner given exactly the same status in order to emphasise that point. It does not in any way lessen your responsibilities and it certainly does not lessen your access.

It is also important to realise that, again in parallel with the Chief Inspector of Prisons, you are the quality assurer. You are there to assure the quality of the delivery of children’s rights in this particular case. Quality assurance carries with it a certain amount of responsibility but it also carries a requirement to have sufficient resources to be able to do that. I have to say that, after talking to the Children’s Commissioner and looking at her responsibilities, I do not think that she is adequately resourced to be able to carry out effectively the role of quality assurer of children’s rights.

I have just come from taking part in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, where we are talking about injunctions for children aged 10 and upwards, in addition to the anti-social behaviour orders for children aged 10 and upwards, and the importance of ensuring that there is no postcode lottery in that and that they are overseen fairly and consistently by local government around the country. Who is going to do that? It seems to me that the one person who is, and will have the responsibility to do so, is the Children’s Commissioner. I do not see why it could not be added to his or her responsibilities. Having seen some of the excellent reports that have come out recently from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner—in particular the one about the effects of acquired brain injury and neurodevelopment, which I think is a model; not to mention the very effective report on the work of mother and baby units in women’s prisons—I think it is very important that someone should look in greater detail than I think the Dunford report did at some of the peripherals that come with the responsibility for quality assurance.

I welcome the other amendments in this group, which seek to do that, but I am just a little nervous about the Children’s Commissioner having to report to too many separate committees in the other place. Yes, of course, human rights are involved but in dealing with children we are dealing not just with education but with health, justice and the Department for Work and Pensions because of various payments; we are also dealing with the Department for Communities and Local Government. It worries me that we should be specifying two particular committees out of many. I do not think we want to complicate the chain of reporting for the quality assurer on children’s rights. We ought to tease this out in this Committee, and possibly make recommendations about the clear chain that we see through to the Minister, to whom the commissioner will be reporting.

I am slightly concerned about the suggestion that the reporting annually to Parliament should not go through a Minister. The reason for that is that when the prisons inspectorate was set up there was a requirement for the Home Secretary to publish a reply to every list of recommendations made by the chief inspector. For the Children’s Commissioner to be properly effective, the Minister must reply so that one can see what is going to be done to maintain the momentum of improvements and observations that the commissioner makes.

[The Countess of Mar]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in his contention. We have a Minister for Children, and the Children’s Commissioner should report to that Minister.