Education and Adoption Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Education
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
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Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Storey
I will try a second time.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has a view that he has expressed a number of times: that there is not time for consultation with parents; that if a school is failing, we have to get on with putting it right; and that, the longer we delay doing something, the more effect it will have on the progress of a child and the success of the school. That is a view that I can understand, but I equally understand that parents play a hugely important part in the development of a child’s education. The notion that a school should close down and become an academy without any discussion among those parents is very strange. That does not seem the correct way we have viewed education over the last X number of years. We have always seen parents as pivotal—as part of that partnership.
On my second point, again the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, resonated with me. On Second Reading, he talked about his own experiences in Pimlico, and I think he alluded to some of the abuse that he and his wife received when they were consulting to start up the school. As someone who closed more schools in Liverpool at the time of falling rolls than anyone else, I know those sort of pressures. Yes, some people will use consultation as a means of maintaining the status quo or for political reasons, but that does not make this the right thing to do. Surely we can look at this objectively and say that it can take place at an agreed period of time or if there is an agreed means of doing it. However, the principle of consultation must be enshrined as we go forward on this.
I do not have any objections to academies. I have come to the view, which I have expressed on two or three occasions, that I would rather see all secondary schools become academies than create a whole pattern of different types of schools. Therefore, I do not have any ideological view against academies. We should not be getting to the point where a school is failing and a pupil is languishing in it—we should be in there before that happens. I cannot understand why we get to a point where we suddenly say, “This school is failing, so let us close it down”, with all the trauma that the pupils face when that happens. We should be there before that happens. However, if a school is going to close, an academy is going to be established and an academy is going to be chosen for that school, we should consult with parents. I hope that the Minister will look creatively and objectively at how we might achieve that, with the minimum fuss and the minimum amount of time, but in the interests of that all-important partnership.
Once again, I apologise for getting the amendment wrong.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 24 and 25 in this group and to whether Clause 9 should stand part.
Amendment 24 aims to bring some much-needed transparency to the process of selecting academy sponsors. There is an unanswerable case in general terms for consultation but there is also a case for consultation on this very specific issue. Local communities should not have sponsors imposed on them without having some say in the matter. Sponsors are not just interchangeable. They have particular approaches to managing schools and to the curriculum. They have very different records, in terms of both their effectiveness and their record in managing public money. Again, I urge the Minister to acknowledge the essential fact that public money is involved here—which ought to mean that transparency and accountability are guaranteed. It is public money, yet the Minister wants to cancel the public’s right to have any say locally as to how it is used in educating their children. It is unacceptable that a Minister can come to Parliament, propose such a fundamentally undemocratic measure and hope to get away with it.
Currently, there is absolutely no public quality control of would-be sponsors. On academisation, we know that Ministers are determined to press ahead at full speed and are thus required to find sponsors at all costs. We also know that regional schools commissioners are paid by results—that is, how many academies they can bring into being—and so they need to find sponsors at all costs. That is surely not a healthy situation. Someone, somewhere, needs to have the responsibility to say, “Wait a minute—these people are just not up to the task”. If that means that some schools cannot be converted as quickly as had been intended, surely that is preferable to signing up sponsors who are inadequate. More needs to be done by government—in whose name we are told the regional schools commissioners act—to get the sponsors right, rather than to get them right now.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is a fairly minor point, but I heard the Hewett School in Norwich being mentioned, and I am one of its alumni. Possibly that explains quite a lot.
Lord Addington
It is still a school or an academy, and if we remembered that it might help some of the progress on this Bill.
Regarding some of the points raised by the noble Lord, that school sits on sports grounds that have served half the sports clubs in the area. Indeed, the club where I started my career—I should declare—and finished, started on those grounds. These are the sorts of things that need to be worked into the system. We have to try to get them in somewhere along the line. On its use as a community asset, the noble Lord will not know the place but these are acres of prime playing fields in the heart of one of the fastest growing cities in the country. They are wonderful playing fields on flat, open ground that have been used as an asset by everything going on there. How we build on such a utility is something that should be taken into account. What are we doing on the broader picture? That has not been brought in here, and it should. The fact that the community and parents should be given that courtesy is self-evident. That greater asset to the local community is something we seem to have missed so far.
Lord Storey
My Lords, in our endeavours to ensure that we have the highest standards in our schools, we look at three processes. One, of course, is testing and examinations. When schools are not achieving the level anticipated it is a sign that we need to take action. The second method is inspections when we inspect schools in, I hope, a supportive way, and when there are concerns we are able to act on them. The third area is the quality of the leadership and the teachers in those schools. The amendments in my name—Amendments 30, 31 and 32—are linked to those three areas.
I will deal first with Amendment 31 on teachers. You would not go to your local medical centre to see your doctor and be given an unqualified opinion. You would not go to the dentist and be seen by an unqualified dentist. It is hugely important, not just for the status of teachers and how they are valued by society, that we make it absolutely clear that in whatever type of school—local comprehensive, free school or academy—every pupil has the right to be taught by a qualified teacher. The notion of bringing unqualified people in to teach because they might be enthusiastic beggars belief. That is not to say that there will not be people who have a particular interest and enthusiasm but they will be part of an ongoing project and there would be a qualified teacher with them; nor is it to prevent those people who are aspiring to be teachers from teaching, again alongside a mentor who is a qualified teacher.
The previous Labour Government permitted non-teachers to teach by allowing classroom assistants to teach. I have real reservations about that, I have to say. We allowed NVQ level 3s to teach lessons but not to prepare, plan or mark, and NVQ level 4s to teach, plan and mark lessons. We almost passed the buck when we allowed that to happen. It was interesting when the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said at Second Reading that this present Government and the coalition Government had more unqualified teachers in schools. Actually, that was not correct. There were more unqualified teachers in schools under the previous Labour Government than currently.
I am not trying to score points here. We should not be trying to score points off each other, we should all—Government and Opposition—value the role of teachers, and we should say that every pupil should be taught by a qualified teacher and it is as simple as that. Linked to that should be the quality of the training of teachers, which is not covered by this amendment—
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I am not going to gainsay what the noble Lord has said. I am sure he has done his homework. But will he accept that there are different categories of unqualified teachers? When Labour was in government, a lot of the teachers involved were from other countries so had gained their qualifications abroad and were in the process of bringing those up to standard here or did not have the appropriate qualifications at that time. Quite often, under the current academy status, we are seeing people move into jobs simply on the grounds of enthusiasm and the ability to communicate, and we need a bit more than that if we want to get people through GCSEs and higher exams.
Lord Storey
I agree with that. Of course, the other reason is, despite what the Minister constantly tells us, that there is a shortage of teachers and we are desperate to find people. Figures published last week suggested that one in six teachers comes from overseas. I do not have any problem with overseas teachers, provided that they are qualified. I come back to the issue that I want to see every pupil in every type of school having a qualified teacher. Linked to that would be the quality of the teacher training and of the professional development while that teacher is in post.
On inspection—and this goes back to the previous debate—it is interesting that some academy chains are now bigger than local authorities. My local authority had 50-odd schools. The Harris academy chain has more than 50 schools. We inspect local education authorities but we do not inspect academies. Amendment 30 suggests that if a school is coasting or failing or going to become an academy, do we not want to know the reasons why that is happening rather than just saying, “It has failed, let’s move on”? Do we not want to understand what has happened in that school so that we can put it right? Do we not also want, when we move that school into an academy, to be absolutely sure that the academy that is chosen is up to inspections and up to the mark, and that we do not move the pupils from one difficult situation to another? I beg to move.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, in moving Amendment 32ZA, I will speak also to Amendment 33. This group focuses on the voluntary adoption agencies, about which quite a bit was heard at Second Reading, but considerable difficulties remain as far as the agencies are concerned. We owe a duty to them to air those views and to seek the Government’s help in prioritising them.
The DfE’s Regionalising Adoption document, published in June this year, was interesting. It devoted two pages to the role of voluntary adoption agencies, beginning with this statement:
“We are particularly keen to consider models that have an element of cross-sector collaboration, bringing together the best of the voluntary and statutory sectors”.
If the DfE had finished the consultation document there, I am sure that the voluntary adoption agencies would have been perfectly happy because that is basically what they seek. The document then proceeds to list three options for local authorities,
“to acknowledge and use the potential of the voluntary sector to provide services at a regional level and have the confidence to take forward these partnerships”.
The first is:
“Involving a voluntary adoption agency in a regional partnership as a specialist adoption support provider”.
The second is:
“A voluntary adoption agency leading a regional partnership, providing adoption management services to a group of local authorities, and working with and through local authority staff in social work positions”.
The third is:
“A voluntary adoption agency providing specialist services to a number of local authorities as part of a formal partnership arrangement”.
I have perhaps been remiss in not welcoming the fact that we are on Clause 13 and now dealing with adoption. I have been slightly thrown because of the way in which the amendments have been grouped, with Amendment 32ZA at the beginning rather than Amendment 33, which I was going to speak to first. This is an important issue. I do not believe it is an afterthought in the Bill, as has been suggested. It is a relatively small but very important part of the Bill and will affect a great deal of people.
The voluntary adoption agencies play a very important role within that. I got the impression from reading the sections I have quoted from Regionalising Adoption that the Government value the role of voluntary adoption agencies. My question stemming from that is: why not formalise that role? Voluntary adoption agencies are seriously concerned at the possible dilution of their role and this would help to allay those fears.
Although the Minister had quite a bit to say about Clause 13 in his opening remarks at Second Reading, in summing up he had very little to say. In fairness, I should remind noble Lords that he revealed that he was extemporising on that occasion. That was perhaps somewhat ill advised because he devoted just five lines in Hansard to the question of voluntary adoption agencies, and what he did say betrayed a misunderstanding of the concerns expressed by the voluntary adoption agencies. When adoption agencies in Wales were reorganised into five regional groupings, smaller voluntary agencies were the casualties. What assurances can the Minister give that the same will not happen in England? That fear was expressed by several witnesses who gave evidence to the committee in another place. That view is also held by the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies and by its biggest member, Barnardo’s.
The key concern here is about accountability and ensuring that the new system results in meaningful improvements for vulnerable children, especially the hard-to-place ones—those in the categories of age four and over; children with a disability; sibling groups; and children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Voluntary adoption agencies have particular expertise in work with hard-to-place children and the danger is that local authorities may look to protect their own interests after the introduction of regional adoption agencies, leading to a squeeze on the smaller but still influential voluntary agencies. As I have said, that concern was raised by several witnesses who gave evidence to the committee in another place.
It was also said at Second Reading that voluntary adoption agencies play a key role and yet, despite government support over the past few years, they are struggling for survival. Many are reducing the size of their social work teams as the proportion of adoption work that was done by the agencies decreases. In some areas, local authorities—despite clear direction from government, which I acknowledge—exclude them from discussions. It is not clear how voluntary adoption agencies will play a part in the proposed new regional structures while retaining their individual independence, or how funding arrangements will support their activity.
Voluntary adoption agencies are concerned about transitional instability because some are losing their relationship with local authorities, which feel that they may not need the voluntary agencies when the local authorities become part of a regional adoption agency. As I have said, voluntary adoption agencies play a key role. However, it is not clear how they will play what they would regard as a meaningful part in the proposed new regional structures while retaining their individual independence. Equally, they are concerned as to how funding arrangements will support their activity.
Amendment 33 would require the Secretary of State to lay an annual report before Parliament containing information about how she has exercised the power given to her in Clause 13 and the safeguards she has put in place to protect the voluntary agencies, other models of care and the provision of post-adoption support. In referring to the power to direct local authorities to come together in regional adoption agencies, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, said at Second Reading:
“I assure your Lordships that we expect to use this power rarely”.—[Official Report, 20/10/15; col. 586.]
That is as it should be. However, if that is the case, an annual report to Parliament would not involve many examples of their use and could hardly be regarded as onerous or particularly bureaucratic by the Government. I trust the Minister will not look for reasons to avoid meeting what I believe is a fairly modest requirement.
The Bill provides the Secretary of State with the power to intervene directly in adoption arrangements. That leads us to believe that in cases where she uses her powers of direction it will be because she has failed to achieve the hoped-for consensus and voluntary arrangements that are clearly the Government’s ambition. In such circumstances, is it not right that Parliament should be told what persuaded the Secretary of State of the need to exercise her powers? Meeting the requirements of Amendment 33 would make that information available to Members of both Houses of Parliament, allowing appropriate scrutiny to be undertaken.
There is clear need for the Secretary of State to report on the impact of voluntary adoption agencies, the whole area of children in care and the question of support for adopted children and their parents, especially concerning mental health issues. Why is it the case that children currently entering the care system are subject to a routine physical health check but, despite the often chaotic, sometimes traumatic lives that led to them being placed in care, they are not automatically given access to a mental health check? For those reasons, it is important that the Government are prepared to report on an annual basis to ensure that that information can be made available to Members of both Houses, and that progress relating to this part of the Bill can be tracked. We all wish it success but we also want to see that that is actually what is happening.
Returning to the question of voluntary adoption agencies, these organisations undertake only about 16% of adoption placements. There is therefore a real danger that they could get lost within the new system when the local authority with which they work becomes part of the regional adoption agency. It would be a great shame, and a real loss, to a sector that has recently seen the demise of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering if they fell by the wayside. I look to the Minister to reassure them that their vital and long-established role will be both recognised and protected. She can meet that hope by accepting our amendment and agreeing to report annually to Parliament. I beg to move.
Lord Storey
I will speak just to Amendment 34 in this group, which seeks to develop the work we did on the Children and Families Bill, where quite important progress was made on the whole issue of adoption. There was an important amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the increasing length of time that children stayed with foster parents.
Let us build on that: Amendment 34 seeks to support that progress by saying that children in the care of local authorities are perhaps the most vulnerable children. Many of them have mental health problems. In fact, the figures—I will not repeat them now—are really alarming. Many local authorities and agencies which carry out the role for local authorities make tremendous progress with those looked-after children. But there are real concerns, and this amendment suggests that we should always have those concerns in the front of our minds through having an annual report on the support we are giving those young people, so that we can adjust our provision and policies where we need to. I hope the Government might consider supporting this amendment.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
We think that the VAAs should be involved in early conversations about regional adoption agency design. We will issue procurement guidance for projects shortly, so it is in our minds.
Finally, the noble Lords raise important points about the proportionate use of this power. It is important to emphasise that we are committed to supporting local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies to move to regional adoption agencies voluntarily in the first instance. These powers are only backstop powers to be used for the reluctant few.
As I have already said, we are delighted that the sector has already seized the opportunity to be involved. We have announced 14 regional adoption agency projects that we are working with this year, which, as I said, will involve more than two-thirds of all voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities. In the rare cases where the power is needed, decisions will be made following extensive discussions with all those involved or affected, including voluntary agencies. Prior to making a final decision, we will write to any relevant local authority formally requesting its views on the matter. I therefore reassure noble Lords that all those involved will have the chance to comment on the proposal before a final decision is taken.
I take this opportunity to mention the role of the national Adoption Leadership Board, which meets quarterly and has a remit to drive significant improvements in the performance of the adoption system in England, and which will also have an important role to play in shaping decisions and overseeing service development. This board has already been paramount in driving forward our reform programme, and that role will continue. The board is made up of the most senior officials from key organisations in the system, including representatives both from local authorities and voluntary organisations. The Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, which represents all voluntary adoption agencies, is a key member. Board members have been appointed to represent their sector and to take responsibility for galvanising performance improvements within their respective areas. Involving the board in any decisions about regionalisation will therefore be vital. This is another indication of how we are trying to bring all parties together.
This is a practical and proportionate approach to ensuring that the powers are used appropriately and that all interested parties are involved in decision-making. In view of this, I hope that noble Lords will feel reassured enough not to press their amendments.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I thank the Minister for that reply, which was to a large extent warm and, I am sure, encouraging to voluntary adoption agencies. She talked of them being involved in 14 of the regional adoption agencies that are in the process of being established—that is all very well and good—but that is the start. We look some way down the road and it may not happen. What if some local authorities or some regional adoption agencies decided not to involve voluntary adoption agencies? It is quite unlikely that none would be involved, but the agencies themselves remain concerned—it is not those of us on this side of the Committee who need to be reassured, it is the voluntary adoption agencies. For whatever reason—well, the reasons I have outlined, to be frank—they are not yet confident that that is how it is going to be into the future, and it is the future that concerns them rather than the present.
The Minister did not say specifically what was wrong with Amendment 32ZA. I do not see why it cannot be added to the Bill. It would simply add nine more words and ensure that voluntary adoption agencies were fully involved. If that is the Government’s intention—and I have no reason to doubt that it is—why not just write it into the Bill on that basis? It is disappointing that the Minister is not willing to do that, because I cannot see that it would have any real effect on any other part of the adoption system.
On the annual report, the Minister talked about transparency and about the agencies being fully informed, but transparency is also important as far as Parliament is concerned. You may say that Members of this House or another place can read the reports that are made available—no doubt, they will be put in the Library—but Parliament has a right to expect that such information be made available to it. If there was a need for a debate on these issues—it would not be every year, by any means—that could take place. If I noted the Minister correctly, she said that this would not work in practice. I may have missed it, but I did not hear from her why that would be the case. Yes, it would perhaps be a little bureaucratic, but only a little bit. I think that it would have a much wider benefit, not just for parliamentarians but for the agencies involved. The Minister’s response is therefore disappointing. Perhaps the Government could further clarify why they seem resistant, particularly in respect of including voluntary adoption agencies in the Bill. I know that that is what they want for reassurance and it is what we want with this amendment. But given what the Minister has had to say, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Storey
I am so pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, managed to get this amendment down. I tried, and could only get the wording to say “report”; he actually got a lot more, and I am very grateful for that. He obviously has charm and persistence that we need to learn from. I very much want to support the amendment.
There are moments in our lives that obviously have a profound effect on us and our personal circumstances. Some of those can be life-changing. I can remember one such occasion when, after being a bit blasé, thinking, “Do I really have to go?”, I went to meet a group of looked-after children in Liverpool. This was about five or six years ago. Liverpool Education Authority was the guardian of these looked-after children, and it had formed a committee that invited me to tea. It was one of the most life-changing moments for me because these young people talked about their problems: how they had been pushed from pillar to post, and how nobody had understood their concerns or needs. It made me realise that looked-after children had so many problems and concerns on their shoulders that you would not expect people of that age to have. We have the duty and responsibility to make sure that we do everything possible to help and support them.
I am glad to say that the whole issue of mental health is now moving much further up the political agenda: that is a good thing. The previous coalition Government, for the first time, made resources available for mental health. The present Government are carrying on with that commitment. I noticed that the Labour Opposition have appointed a shadow Minister for mental health, Luciana Berger, which shows how important mental health is. That is to be praised. Certainly in schools, it goes back—dare I be so bold as to say—to this teacher with incisive knowledge of physics, where the issue with the student in front of him might be a mental health issue. Unless that teacher has that knowledge or understanding, or somebody else in the school is able to pick up on this, it is to nought. Just as my noble friend Lord Addington went on and on and on about dyslexia—and probably all of us were waving the white flag and saying, “We give in”—we need the same focus on issues of mental health. We should keep at it like a dog with a bone. We talked about bullying in schools and the issue shot up the agenda. Many of the bullies have mental health problems. If we were able to identify them and deal with them at an early stage, they would not be bullies and some of the problems and the suffering that they and the people they bully face would not happen.
We also need to learn from others. I read about an interesting mental health project in the United States of America for young children. That is why I was nervous when the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was talking in a previous discussion about play—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, rightly jumped up and asked about obese children—but this project looks at how you deal with mental health through role-playing. The results have been quite stunning. So we should be learning all the time from different projects as well.
Looked-after children need us to go the extra mile more than anyone else. I hope that we can all get behind and support this amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I commend the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for tabling Amendments 32A and 34A, for the eloquent manner in which he introduced them and for the eloquent examples he gave of some of the existing stresses relating to adoption.
However, I have a question for him. Given the wording of Amendment 32A, which calls on a local authority or an adoption agency designated by a local authority to act, it might be better to tie the National Health Service into this provision because I wonder whether local authorities have the authority or the power to undertake what he is seeking they should do. I would like to see it done but I am not clear in my mind whether this is the best way to do it.
The issue of support once a child is placed in adoption can be crucial as to whether or not that adoption becomes permanent. Often specialist support is needed to care for a child appropriately. This is because, having experienced abuse or neglect, 45% of children in care have a mental health disorder compared with only 10% of the general child population. However, the mental health needs of children in care often go unidentified and there is a subsequent lack of mental health support. The Government urgently need to provide specific measures and greater resources around mental health assessment and support for the tens of thousands of children entering care, whose welfare must remain a priority concern.
The Department for Education’s document Regionalising Adoption, which I referred to in the debate on the previous group of amendments, stated:
“We still have too few adopters willing and able to adopt harder to place children”.
Harder-to-place children are a particular concern and yet the document does not suggest any solutions for this serious gap in provision. I hope the Minister will be able to say what the Government propose to do in terms of increasing the number of harder-to-place children who find a permanent home. She may well say, “It is out for consultation; let us see”, but this is an urgent matter. The argument advanced by Ministers in terms of the academisation of schools with no day to be lost perhaps applies even more urgently in the case of harder-to-place children.
I am aware that it is only a consultation document but, worryingly, it does not make a single mention of children with mental health problems. In something like—I cannot remember offhand—20 pages there is no mention of that. I wonder whether the Government appreciate the need and fully understand the issue and how it impacts on so many children in care. That is often a significant factor in their being in care in the first place.
The document goes on to say:
“Currently, adoption support services are provided by a mix of local authority provision, the NHS and independent providers”.
But—it was perhaps inevitable that there would be a “but”—
“There are regional gaps, gaps in the types of services on offer, and little evidence of spare capacity”.
We had some gaps a minute ago and here are some more, which are highlighted in the Government’s own document. It is fine to flag them up but we need some suggestion from the Government—the Minister might tell me it is a bit early just now—as to how those gaps are going to be filled because they are pretty glaring and very serious.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
On that Future In Mind document, the Minister said that the chapter on vulnerable children makes specific reference to proposals for looked-after children. I do not expect her to respond now, but could she write to me pointing it out? As I said, I could find the word “adoption” used only once in that chapter.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Clinical commissioning groups have been working with their local authority partners to develop local transformation plans to improve their local offer based on the recommendations. These plans, alongside additional government funding, will cover the full spectrum of mental health issues, including, crucially, addressing the needs of the most vulnerable children.
Improving assessment of and support for looked-after children will be a key priority in our programme of work. We welcome the recent report on this issue from the NSPCC, as mentioned by a number of noble Lords, and agree that getting assessment right when children enter care is critical. All looked-after children already have an annual health assessment, which must include an assessment of their emotional and mental as well as their physical health. That assessment, which informs the development of their health plan, should take account of the information provided from the strengths and difficulties questionnaire which is completed by their carer. The guidance also sets out clear expectations that all looked-after children should have targeted and dedicated support through child and adolescent mental health services and other services according to their need, arranged by CCGs, local authorities and NHS England. However, I accept the point made by the noble Earl that, for some young people with a range of problems, a follow-on referral to specialist health services is required.
The Department for Education hosted a round table last month, bringing together children’s social care and mental health stakeholders, to discuss how to improve mental health services for adopted children. As a result, we are considering how centres of excellence, possibly linked to regional adoption agencies, might enable the mental health needs of looked-after and adopted children to be better met.
At the moment, the specialist support that many adopted children need in order to address the effects of abuse and neglect in their early years is simply not available in their area, as the number of adopted children at local authority level is too low to ensure that the right provision is there. Assessment and commissioning of specialist support on a regional scale will allow providers to expand their services, provide better value for money for the taxpayer and help ensure that all adoptive families receive a consistently high quality of assessment and provision.
In addition, we are providing £4.5 million of funding this financial year to accelerate the development and implementation of regional adoption agencies. Adoption support, including mental health, is a key element of that. We are clear that regional adoption agencies must have a focus on improving the assessment of adopted children’s mental health needs and the provision of appropriate mental health support services.
Regional adoption agencies will be able to make use of the government-funded Adoption Support Fund, as the noble Earl mentioned. More than 2,000 families have already benefited from £7.5 million of therapeutic services provided by the fund for adopted children and their families. We know that getting a high-quality assessment of need is critical, and local authorities are increasingly using the fund to pay for specialist assessments and, where appropriate, specialist therapeutic support.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about harder-to-place children. We are providing £30 million to help pay the interagency fee to both local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies so that harder-to-place children might be adopted more quickly. More than 200 children have already been placed through this new scheme. On recruiting adopters for harder-to-place children, we believe that recruitment from a wider geographical base than simply a local authority, which takes into account the needs of children across a number of local authorities in a regional recruitment strategy and uses specialist techniques for recruiting adopters of harder-to-place children, will have an important effect.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, said that schools needed expertise in supporting looked-after children and children with mental health issues. We made changes in the Children and Families Act to introduce a virtual school head for looked-after children. This measure was designed specifically to ensure that looked-after children receive the support that they need at school.
I hope that noble Lords will see from this range of initiatives the importance that this Government and the previous Government have attached to ensuring that our most vulnerable children receive the support that they need, and that we are already committed to meeting the objectives of these amendments. I hope that the noble Earl will feel reassured enough not to press them.
“(3A) In giving directions under subsection (1) regarding the provision of adoption support services, the Secretary of State must take steps to ensure that decisions as to whether a particular child should be placed for adoption with a particular prospective adopter are made in such a way as to be blind to whether the adopter was approved by the relevant local authority, an external local authority, a regional adoption agency, or a voluntary adoption agency.”
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I will also speak to the Clause 13 stand part. Amendment 33A would require the Secretary of State to take steps to ensure that the process for making decisions about matching children with prospective adopters is conducted so that the decision-maker is blind as to which body—be that the local authority, the regional adoption agency, or a voluntary adoption agency—approved the prospective adopter. This would ensure that personal bias and other irrelevant factors are absent from decision-making and that instead, decisions are focused solely on considering the best match for the child. This would reduce unnecessary delays in the matching process by ensuring that a wider pool of prospective adopters are given full consideration from the earliest possible point, preventing the sequential decision-making that currently happens.
The Department for Education’s Regionalising Adoption consultation document—I am not sure whether it will be pleased that I am mentioning it for the third group in a row—contained some telling statistics, not least from Professor Elaine Farmer’s research. This found that some local authorities tended to seek to place their children with adopters approved “in-house” before considering adopters approved by other local authorities and then voluntary adoption agencies. This results in what is termed, as I mentioned earlier, sequential decision-making, which means that some children wait longer than they should to be adopted and the average is eight months between placement order and match. Professor Farmer’s investigation revealed that in 30% of cases delay was associated with an unwillingness to seek an adoptive family outwith a local authority’s own group of approved adopters. Clearly, that kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
The aim of Amendment 33A is to ensure that regional adoption agencies are not allowed to discriminate in terms of financial considerations when deciding where to place an adoptive child. There should be an assumption of them being blind to provenance, otherwise the interests of the child are not being put first. Unfortunately, an assumption—even where given by a regional adoption agency to the Department for Education—will not be enough. It needs to be guaranteed by being on the face of the Bill.
Currently there is an interagency fee of £27,000 per child placed with adoptive parents and it is welcome that the Department for Education has given £30 million in one- off funding. I heard what the noble Baroness just said in reply to the previous group. I had understood that that was simply in general terms to enable local authorities for whom the interagency fee, or at least the extent of those fees, was preventing them matching children, and that the £30 million was to break the logjam. If it is specifically, as the Minister said, for harder to place children, that is interesting, but perhaps she can clarify that in her reply.
What happens in the future after that £30 million has been spent? If local authorities need to save costs—we know that they will—they may well cut the voluntary adoption agencies out of the process, as I suggested earlier, and place a child with another authority to which, by agreement, they do not need to pay each other the interagency fee? That situation must not be allowed to develop. The fact that the voluntary adoption agencies are already fearing that it might do so ought to provide the Minister with the confidence to accept this amendment.
Turning to the clause in general, I have to say that it is worthy of support, as far as it goes. The trouble is that it does not go far enough. Will the Minister say why this clause focuses only on adoption? Why did the Government not think more creatively, more substantially and bring forward something called, perhaps, an emerging from care Bill rather than just a clause, with all types of settlement included? The adoption reforms in the Bill relate only to the 5% of children in care who are placed for adoption. It is wrong for adoption to be singled out for preferential treatment in relation to other forms of permanence.
Of course, where adoption is in the child’s best interests, an adoption order must be made, and the placement commenced in a timely fashion. That said, for other children, adoption is not necessarily in their best interests. Foster care, kinship care or special guardianship may be more appropriate for a range of reasons, so care should be taken in advocating increasing the number of children to be adopted. What is clear is that the number of children being placed for adoption is falling, whereas the number of children going into care is rising. It stands to reason, therefore, that there is a hold-up in the system. Certainly—I think we all agree—the process needs to be made more efficient.
It is also not helpful, to put it mildly, when the Prime Minister uses language such as appeared in his press release of 2 November, when he said:
“It is a tragedy that there are still too many children waiting to be placed with a loving family—we have made real progress but it remains a problem”.
That comment is both inaccurate and misleading. Many children in excellent foster homes are not waiting to be placed with a loving family; they are with a loving family who are meeting their needs, caring for them, helping them recover from trauma and offering stability and continuity. The same is true for children placed with relatives. The Government’s suggestion that adoption is the primary focus and that other options are somehow lesser is at best unhelpful and at worst insulting to those who give so much for children in other forms of care.
Lord Nash
My Lords, Amendment 33A seeks to ensure that adoption agencies match children with the right parents for them, regardless of which agency recruited and approved those parents. The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, also oppose the inclusion of this adoption clause within the Bill.
Clause 13 introduces powers to direct one or more local authorities in England to have certain adoption functions carried out on their behalf by another adoption agency in order to create regional adoption agencies. Regionalising adoption is necessary if we are to remove delay from the adoption system and ensure all adopted families have access to the support services they need wherever they may live.
We have already made significant improvements to the adoption system, with record numbers of children finding permanent loving homes, but there is still more to do. The system remains highly fragmented, with around 180 different adoption agencies currently recruiting and matching adopters. We do not think such a localised system can deliver the best service to some of our most vulnerable children. This is starkly illustrated by the almost 2,500 children who are still waiting for their forever families despite there being enough approved adopters across the country. Forty-five per cent of these children have been waiting longer than 18 months.
That is why we are proposing the measure in this Bill to increase the scale at which adoption services are delivered. Actively encouraging local authorities to join forces and work together will give regional agencies a greater pool of adopters, enabling them to match children more swiftly and successfully with their new families. It will also ensure vital support services are more widely available as these will be planned and commissioned at a more effective scale.
The noble Lords raised important issues about how decisions on matches between children and prospective adopters are made. The amendment seeks to remove the practice of sequential decision-making, where agencies seek first to place children with adopters they have recruited and approved before looking more widely. I appreciate the intention behind the amendment and can reassure the Committee that one of the primary motivations in introducing regional adoption agencies is to prevent this sequential practice and to encourage agencies, both local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies, to work much more closely together, always putting the interests of the children first.
The Government will also continue to invest in national infrastructure to enable matches to be made between children and adopters from different regions. We will also continue to use data to bear down hard on any delay so that regional adoption agencies are incentivised to find the right family for a child as quickly as possible, regardless of which agency recruited and approved the family in question. The proposals in the amendment would be difficult to make work in practice and could have unintended consequences.
Effective agencies will plan their pipeline of adopters so that they match well with the children coming through the system. This means links can be made early in the process to avoid any delay. This good practice would be difficult to maintain if the agency was discouraged from shaping its own recruitment to match the needs of the children it knows are coming through the system. If we break the link between the children waiting and the adults being recruited, the opportunity for strategic targeting of recruitment will be weakened.
Furthermore, if agencies have to consider all adopters available nationally in every single case, it is likely to increase delays as they try to filter and sort a large number of potential adopters. It could also impact negatively on adopters who are considered and rejected for a large number of potential matches.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I was not arguing that all national agencies should be considered in each case—it is more local to whatever the region happens to be—but the amendment would make sure that nobody was excluded. That may be the intention—I heard what the Minister said and, no doubt, reading that in Hansard tomorrow, a number of agencies will be encouraged—but what about the future? That cannot be guaranteed. The purpose behind putting it into the Bill is to make sure that all local options are considered—not nationally. It need not slow the process down if that is kept within the region in which the agencies operate.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I was particularly interested to hear what the Minister said about Martin Narey and his work around children’s homes, which is very welcome. I endorse what he said about the quality standards for children’s homes, which are a step forward. If there is one thing that I might ask him to bring up with his colleague, Edward Timpson MP, it would be with regard to residential childcare. It is a matter of great regret that mental health and social care in children’s homes have not been embedded together from the word go. I was talking to a psychiatrist about the history of residential care in this country. We have some excellent residential care, but I am afraid that in general the quality is pretty variable in my experience.
The continentals were interested in our approach. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, published his report on staff in children’s homes, Choosing with Care, which I think came out in 1993. In the witness evidence to that inquiry the psychiatrist said that on the continent staff in children’s homes have an ongoing relationship with mental health professionals. I discovered later that they learned that from us. If we only had that ongoing partnership in all our children’s homes, we would see better outcomes and better protection for children in those homes. I am asking for a model where a clinical psychologist, who is appropriately trained, a child psychotherapist or some other mental health professional goes into children’s homes regularly—maybe once a fortnight—and speaks with the manager and staff, providing an opportunity for them to talk about their relationships with young people and how they are managing them.
In my experience that has such an effective input. This kind of work is emotionally exhausting. People talk about the turnover of staff and how they just burn out after a few years. However, if there was that kind of support, staff would be far more likely to stay. There would be a continuity of relationship, which is so important, and experience would be built over time. Staff members would have years of experience of children with complex needs and they would know the right things to do. We should make sure that all children’s homes have that close support from CAMHS which would make all the difference in this area. I am glad to hear from the Minister of Martin Narey’s review.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I thank both the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the Minister for their replies to the debate. I very much share the comments of the noble Earl relating to the importance of role models, particularly for boys. Having a father figure or male in the household is important for many reasons.
I note that the noble Earl picked up the point I made about resources for local authorities. The Minister did not, but in fairness to him that is not his remit. It is important if we are looking at the broader context. The £30 million that has been made available will be welcome and well used. There will still be people in the hard-to-place groups that the Minister highlighted, as well as those who have been waiting for some time in the logjam. They will need specific assistance. At a time when local authority budgets are shrinking, it would be helpful if the Minister had something to say about the clause being robust enough to withstand the stresses and strains that will inevitably come in the years immediately ahead of us.
I note what the Minister said about the Narey review. I await that with interest as it will cover important issues. I hope that it will provide some positive ways forward. In terms of the overall structure, we can exchange a bit of political knockabout across this Committee Room but the professionals who are doing the job daily—I mentioned the NSPCC, Barnardo’s and the voluntary adoption agencies—would not have been speaking to members of the opposition parties had they not been sufficiently concerned that the proposals as they stand, and how they are likely to play out, would create further difficulties in the future. As I said earlier, it is not me or my colleagues that the Minister has to reassure but those at the sharp end. It appears, so far at least, that they are not reassured.
I was disappointed that the Minister made a rather dismissive remark about my comment on the Prime Minister. I note that in his earlier remarks, the Minister himself talked about loving families. He must realise that the point I was making was that the Prime Minister’s statement seemed to suggest that other forms of care were of a lesser value, or were not providing enough loving homes, whereas adoption did. That was the point I was trying to make. Adoption seems to be a buzzword within the department and the Prime Minister has used it in this context. I think that is unhelpful and, again, the professionals in the field think it is unhelpful. There are many loving homes that are not the subject of adoption orders. That was the point I was trying to make. It just so happened that the Prime Minister had made the remark. I want to see children secure in whatever form of care is best for them. If it is adoption, fine; if it is any of the other forms of care, so be it. I want to see the resources available to make sure that permanence is the watchword for those children.
It has been a lively and, I think, helpful debate. A lot of the points have been highlighted and we will return to them in other forums. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.