Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Earl of Listowel

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

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the noble Baroness’s amendment, to which I added my name. I am very grateful to her for bringing this back and to the Minister for the good work that the Government are doing in this area.

I work with a number of people who have experienced care. In particular, I work with Dr Mark Kerr. He did not begin his education until he entered a young offender institution. He now has two degrees and recently obtained his doctorate. He is a great champion and academic working on the needs of young people in care and care leavers, and he always emphasises that mental health has been grossly underestimated in terms of meeting needs. If more young people are to be as successful as he is after coming out of care, we need to do far better at meeting their mental health needs. I am grateful for the work of the Minister and his colleagues in this area, but I think we need to support the noble Baroness if we are to make the difference necessary.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, added my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment, and I echo what she said about the many organisations which have supported it. Many times during the Bill’s passage, mention has been made of the postcode lottery regarding the performance of local authorities around the country. If this assessment procedure is adopted, who will perform the quality assurance of the delivery of the assessment around the country? It cannot be the expert advisory board, which has a completely different purpose.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Earl of Listowel

Monday 11th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, before speaking to my amendment in this group I make clear that I support those noble Lords who call for the clause to be removed from the Bill. This is not the time to erode the rights of vulnerable children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we are facing a period of austerity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has just removed his target to pay down the deficit by 2020 but we should certainly not think that that is the end of austerity; we can expect it to extend for many years to come. Unfortunately, that means that local authorities will continue to have severe downward pressure on their budgets, so I share the noble Baroness’s concern that whatever the good intentions of this clause, it might result in cutbacks on protections for children in order to save money.

The purpose of my Amendment 131A is, where a local authority has been exempted, to enable a child, his advocate or a professional to ask for the exemption to be released for that child. For instance, if the responsibility for putting in place an independent reviewing officer was removed, a child could, if he decided to do so, call for an IRO to be instated. The Minister referred to the role of IROs at Second Reading.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to research by the National Children’s Bureau. It has found that the area in which the IRO service has been seen to make the biggest difference is in ensuring timely reviews of the care plan. Nationally, the survey found that that was where IROs were perceived to have made the greatest difference, with 91% of IRO managers, 82% of IROs and 72% of directors of children’s services strongly agreeing that, since 2011, IROs have contributed to the timeliness of reviews. Another area in which IROs are seen to have had an impact is in ensuring that the care planning process remains firmly focused on the child and that the child’s wishes and feelings are taken into account. Nationally, the survey found that 90% of IRO managers, 72% of IROs and 73% of directors of children’s services strongly agreed that, since 2011, IROs had ensured that children’s wishes and feelings were recorded and taken into account.

Amendment 131B would ensure that there is excellent parliamentary scrutiny should Clause 15 continue to be in the Bill. Major voices from the children’s sector have been clear that innovation is necessary to ensure, in the face of increasing risks and challenges, that the sector can learn and improve. Like many, I share the concern of all the major children’s charities that the right safeguards should be in place to ensure that innovation is overseen properly and delivers for children and families without disruption to their lives. Such scrutiny is essential and should not be overridden. Local authorities should not be exempted from laws that have been developed and scrutinised with care and attention by both Houses without a comparable amount of parliamentary oversight of the potential impact of any exemptions. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve.

The amendment would ensure that only laws subject to the negative resolution procedure in their formation could be overridden by the same process. Whether in the process of seeking to innovate to improve services for children or otherwise, it is not appropriate or democratic that regulations introduced through a debate and vote in Parliament should be exempted without such a process. Our job is to hold the Government to account, and we should not be prevented doing so. It is imperative that our powers to scrutinise the safeguards needed to protect children from the impact of any exemptions are not disrupted by the desire to innovate to improve outcomes for children.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I return briefly to Clause 15, which is a classic example of regulation too far. I agree with everything that has been said so far. It is inappropriate and ought to be struck out of the Bill. Only two things are needed. One is the minimum list of tasks that must be done with children. If anything, the Secretary of State should seek to improve the list and to improve delivery if there is any failure to deliver what must be done, rather than remove any task. Secondly, as has come up over and over again, we are looking for consistency in delivery and to avoid the postcode lottery in the treatment of children all over the country. If there is a minimum list and machinery for looking at that, we will find, as many noble Lords have said, that individual local authorities will encourage improvement in the way those minimum requirements are operated. The way to improve things is by changing single practice somewhere to common practice everywhere, not by regulation. Therefore, I hope very much that, if not before then certainly on Report, this clause will be struck out.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I welcome the thought of a meeting but I would be grateful if the Minister could ensure that somebody from the youth custody arena attends it. I was extremely alarmed when he rather dismissed the example of the legal safeguard that could be lifted, of removing the looked-after status from children remanded in custody. That is very often the first time that they have had any stability in their lives and it would be tragic if it was removed.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and for the offer of a meeting, which I am sure will be very helpful for me. I should have said in my earlier contribution that I am the patron of the National Association of Independent Reviewing Officers, so I have an interest and some experience there. I hear what he says about independent reviewing officers; in my mind, there is certainly a question about tying up so many experienced social workers in one capacity. But one of the concerns is that when a child is in a long-term placement, it may go very well but things can suddenly go wrong. One of the chief concerns that often come up when children need advocates is that while they are in a long-term stable placement, a local authority may suddenly have decided that it is too expensive so they are moved on. There is particular concern that a child may be in a stable placement for a long time and he or she may suddenly need the expertise and professional capacity of an independent reviewing officer. However, I see that there is another side to that.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, the amendment would ensure that information is shared and that notifications are made to relevant authorities when a looked-after child is placed out of area. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, referred to the amendment earlier. It concerns the fact that health services, in particular, are losing track of these vulnerable young people when they are placed out of authority.

Currently, there are a variety of different procedures for placing children out of area, which are dependent on distance, the type of placement and the home nation in which a child is placed. There are also different information-sharing requirements, which means that in some areas crucial safeguarding partners are not always aware of vulnerable looked-after children living in their area and any risks that they may face.

As of March 2015, 37% of looked-after children were placed outside their local authority, with 14% being placed more than 20 miles away from their home authority. Sometimes, an out-of-area placement is important in keeping a child or young person safe—for example, where a child is targeted for exploitation in their home area.

Currently, a distant placement—an out-of-area placement that is not in an adjoining local authority—must be approved by the responsible authority’s director of children’s services and all other out-of-area placements must be approved by a nominated officer. I am grateful to the coalition Government for introducing this change, which means that the director of children’s services has to be involved in the process of sending children out of their local authority. Local authorities across England adopt their own notification processes, but a different approach has been taken in Wales, where a national out-of-area notification protocol is in place to ensure consistency.

Children living outside of their local area are more likely to be reported missing or absent: 50% of all looked-after children reported missing or absent are placed out of area. The Children’s Society sees in its practice many examples of the criminal exploitation of young people thus placed. It sees particular difficulties in ensuring an appropriate multi-agency response because of a lack of information sharing and confusion about responsibilities with these children. It is estimated that 60% of suspected child victims of trafficking in local authority care go missing and almost two-thirds of trafficked children are never found. Most victims go missing within one week of being in care, many within 48 hours and often before being fully registered with social services.

Given these significant risks, if information is not shared with partners before the placement is made there may be significant delays in responding to the child if they go missing or are targeted, while the police and other partners try to gather all the information about a child that they need to keep that young person safe. Does the Minister agree that the police and health services are as important as local authorities in making sure that looked-after children placed out of area are appropriately safeguarded? I beg to move.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment, and entirely agree with what my noble friend has said so far. I endorse his proposal that the Wales protocol should be adopted in England as well. The number of people they put on the informed list under that protocol is interesting, as it means that most people who are likely to need to know, such as the police, health services and the director of social services, are included.

This reminded me of something that happened when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, when the chief inspectors of constabulary, the courts services, education, probation and social services were collectively worried about the lack of information flowing around the system. We published a thematic review of what each of our particular responsibilities needed of the others, what was readily available, what was obtainable only with difficulty and what was not obtainable. We presented this to our respective Ministers, who were interested, but the tragedy was that it fell on stony ground because no one Minister was responsible for cross-governmental working to ensure that all this information was shared by those who needed it.

To the categories mentioned by my noble friend, I would just add that of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, who are frequently moved from their port or airport of entry to local authorities all over the country in order to share the burden. We need to know where they are and what is happening to them, so the information mentioned in this amendment needs to be shared by many others—not just the directors of social services but immigration authorities and others covered in the Wales protocol. I recommend that, which is why I support my noble friend’s amendment.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Earl of Listowel

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. I do so because it reminds me of my experience of being acquainted with a young woman who left care some time ago. She did get access to mental health support and saw a therapist over a quite considerable period. She is thriving; she is doing well and supporting young people leaving care. When she spoke to me about her experience, she highlighted how important it was for her to have that access to a counsellor. So if this amendment helps her with that, I would definitely like to support it. We will hear from the Minister about the Children Act duties and I hope that will comfort the noble Lord, Lord Warner.

This woman has a younger brother in care and she is concerned about the access that he is getting to therapy. This is a real issue for many young people in care and care leavers, so I am looking for as much reassurance from the Minister as possible in his response.

[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.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s response and particularly for what he said about keeping an open mind and thinking further about the degree of the burden on local authorities from keeping in touch with and being proactive towards young people up to the age of 25. What he said about guidance on being proactive was very welcome. Are there currently issues regarding those up to the age of 21? Under the current duty, do local authorities express concern that the duty sometimes causes them to expend resources unnecessarily? Do young people feel a bit harassed by the current system? Otherwise, I am not clear why one should treat those over the age of 21 any differently from those under 21. If there are no current issues, I am not sure why it should be an issue to transfer the provision to under-25s. However, I am sure that that can be answered in subsequent discussions and, as I said, I am grateful to the Minister for his response.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I noticed that the Minister has kindly arranged a meeting with Mr Brokenshire, the Minister in the Home Office responsible for immigration. Will the provisions in Clause 2 apply to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children until the moment they lose the right to remain and have to leave, with them then appealing?

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in favour of Amendments 75 and 135. It would be very helpful if there were a duty on the Secretary of State to address the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the way that the amendment describes. It would be helpful if there were child rights impact assessments for every piece of legislation—for instance, on the housing legislation that we have debated recently. Low-income families have suffered most in the recent years of austerity. We heard earlier about the closure of children’s centres, which are a vital tool in transforming the lives of these young people. It would be very helpful if central government were more aware of the impact of every piece of legislation on children and families, particularly poorer families. There was hardly any mention in the housing Bill of the impact of homelessness. There was some mention of families in temporary accommodation but I suggest that not nearly enough attention was paid to their needs.

Moving to Amendment 135, I was very interested to hear from the Leeds deputy director of children’s services four or five weeks ago. Leeds had been a struggling local authority in terms of children’s services but that was turned around, and he described the process. First and foremost, the foundation of the change was to consider the UNCRC—it was the very basis upon which the change was made. Leeds recognised that to improve children’s services it was necessary to look at all the children in the city and to think about how to improve their lives, listening to their needs and wishes to understand them better. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 135, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has already quoted from the 2016 report by the observers from the UN Human Rights Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was very damning. I want to draw attention to the fact that in 2008 there was an earlier damning report and the Government’s response to that in 2010 was to say that they would give due consideration to the rights of the child in all new legislation and policy. I have to say that there has been precious little sign of that, which worries me.

The other thing that worries me about this is the comment made by the noble Baroness about the inequality that exists in the observance of the rights of the child in the various parts of the United Kingdom, with England consistently lagging behind. I really think that this Bill is an opportunity to do something about this, and we ought to seize it.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I omitted to say that there seems to be a real issue in the United States, France and this country about a large section of the population feeling left out. The success of globalisation has in many ways simply left them behind. This would be one helpful measure to ensure that those at the bottom of the heap are better treated and feel better treated.