Children in Care

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the mental health of these children is extremely important. One recent initiative we have introduced is the role of virtual school heads, who become the overseeing official for a child who is looked after in his or her school setting. We are seeing that that is starting to work. They have control over the enhanced pupil premium, which allows funds to be spent on such things as additional tutoring and mentoring, summer and weekend schools and additional support to schools for these vulnerable children.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure that the Minister has grasped the seriousness of this issue. He referred euphemistically to independent or semi-independent homes. These are homes that are unregistered, in some cases illegal, and beyond the purview of Ofsted. It cannot be right that thousands of children are sent there each year, with minimal checks on who is providing the accommodation. Ofsted reported two weeks ago that it had discovered organisations that were, in its words, “gaming the system” by setting up short-term arrangements to avoid registering as a children’s home. That cannot be right. I have a simple question that the Minister will not have to refer to his trusty ring-binder for: how can it ever be acceptable for a vulnerable child to be placed in an unregistered home?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am afraid it is not quite as simple as the noble Lord would like to suggest. He is quite correct that Ofsted has carried out 150 investigations in the last year, and alongside this it has tightened up requirements under its inspection regime for local authorities to share how they monitor children in unregulated provision. However, the reality is that we have an increasing number of older children in the care system who do not want to be in a traditional fostering situation and want semi-independent living. That is one of the reasons for the increase in this category.