Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Meacher

Monday 11th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I must first apologise that I was unable to be present when my opposition to Clause 11 was debated. Unfortunately, I have a serious family health problem which has prevented me from being present or even doing any work on this Bill until today, I have to confess. I will speak briefly to oppose the proposition that Clauses 12 and 13 should stand part of the Bill. I assure the Minister that the aim here is not to have the clauses struck out but to provide an opportunity to explore the implications of the two clauses as they are worded and to enable noble Lords to raise any general concerns ahead of Report.

I recognise the need to establish a stronger statutory framework that will introduce greater accountability for the three key agencies involved in safeguarding children—local authorities, the local police and the local health service, as proposed by Alan Wood—though I understand that there are concerns that other services should also be incorporated. However, the single purpose of a new framework, as made clear in new Section 16B(2), is absolutely rightly specified as,

“to ascertain what (if any) lessons can be learned from the case about the way in which local authorities or others should work to safeguard children”.

I hope we can explore how, in drawing out and disseminating the lessons from tragic events, we as a society can avoid increasing the blame culture, which has affected social workers and other public servants so severely in recent years. If we do increase the blame culture, the risk is that good social workers and other public servants will walk away from their jobs, as many public servants have done in recent years; others will simply not take up these professions; and the net result will be that the risks to children will increase rather than diminish. I know that that is absolutely not what the Government want to achieve—but there is a very serious point here, which I hope the Government will take on board.

If a social worker working with a family where a child unfortunately dies or is severely injured does fall short in some way, it is surely a matter for that social worker’s managers. It should not be a matter for national politicians and a national panel—whose role, as the Bill makes clear, must be solely to ensure that lessons are learned and disseminated. At a national level, the worst of all this is what happens when the media get involved—and they will get involved: they just do. That can wreck the lives of front-line workers to the point from which, to some degree, they never recover. I really do believe that it is that bad.

The review will of course need to establish whether any failings were a reflection of procedural issues, system failures or a lack of adequate resources. All of that is right and proper, but somehow we need to protect the individuals, not from proper disciplinary action or whatever is appropriate but from this national glare and utter devastation of their lives. If they have made an error, they probably did not intend to. So we have to get this right. It is terribly important that we do and I do not believe that the wording in the Bill achieves that at the moment.

Subsection (4) of new Section 16B inserted into the Children Act 2004 by Clause 12 requires the panel to publish the report on supervised child safeguarding in practice reviews. Alternatively, subsection (5) states:

“If the Panel consider it inappropriate to publish the report, they must publish any information relating to the lessons to be learned from the case”.

Is it really ever necessary or appropriate to publish a whole report on a specific case, which would inevitably involve publishing material about an individual front-line worker? The only national interest is in the lessons to be learned—the material that would be published under subsection (5). So I would welcome the Minister’s view as to whether subsection (4) could be deleted from the Bill. This would focus the minds of members of the panel on their sole role. It would also go some way to reassuring front-line staff that the Government are not aiming to focus national media and political attention on blaming an individual front-line worker. That is the key point that I hope we can think about in relation to these clauses.

My other point is a concern of the Local Government Association that the national panel, as outlined in the Bill, is too closely controlled by the Secretary of State. Again, this risks politicising the serious case review process, and the concern is again for the protection of front-line staff. But it is also very important to ensure that all the lessons are learned from these reviews, so it is absolutely vital that these reviews are seriously and really independent of government control. A review may need to comment on the impact of national policies on safeguarding failures and make recommendations for policy reform as well as procedural changes that are needed.

The Government have tabled Amendment 114, which risks placing too great an emphasis on the actions of individual practitioners in determining the cause of failures. We need to maintain the systems approach that we have had when undertaking these reviews. A focus on an individual’s failure in a particular area will have no relevance to the authorities in other parts of the country. Will the Minister look at the wording of Amendment 114 with this concern in mind?

The NSPCC has questioned whether it is right to limit the role of the national review panel to those cases that involve a death or serious injury, as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. With the focus clearly on lessons to be learned, it may be important to include cases involving near misses or areas where a lot of children have suffered some harm. It may help to clarify that in the Bill.

Finally, it seems important to clarify further the dissemination activities that will be required of the panel. Somehow this business of learning the lessons seems to be somewhat skated over. The Bill needs to make absolutely clear how this country will learn from these serious cases. That is what the panel needs to do.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we are content to support the amendments in this group that were ably moved and explained by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Meacher. I wish to comment on Amendments 105 and 107. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, when discussing the rights of the child in this Committee recently urged the Government to ensure the automatic review of child deaths in institutions. The two amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, would ensure that that continued to happen.

I am sure all noble Lords will have received a six-page letter from the Minister this morning, looking at what we have done on the Bill so far. The last page of the letter refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, on which he seeks to give reassuring commitments that the Government are indeed moving forward in a number of fields with regard to the rights of children.