Exploitation of Missing Looked-after Children

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Michelle Donelan)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing this important debate. The Government, the Department and I share her fierce commitment to protect all looked-after children and to work to reduce the number of children who go missing. The hon. Lady raised a number of important issues facing the children’s social care system that can lead to children going missing, and today we have heard some harrowing stories, which I am sure will stay with us. I am absolutely determined to address those issues, because nothing is more important than protecting the most vulnerable children. I am sure we all agree on that.

As a new Minister in the area in question, I am committed to ensuring that the Department is dedicated to providing high-quality services to all the children and families who need them. I know that we need to take a multi-agency approach—something that we have been doing. Social workers cannot do it alone; it cannot fall only on their shoulders. The joined-up response has been working and is not just a matter for local government; it is also for national Government, and I am committed to working closely with my colleagues at the Home Office to ensure that local partners are properly equipped to respond quickly and efficiently.

As part of that, the Home Office is working with the National Police Chiefs Council to deliver a national register of missing persons, which will enable us to have a snapshot of current missing incidents across police forces in England and Wales. The register will give officers realtime information when they encounter a missing person—particularly if that missing person is outside their area. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), who has left the Chamber, mentioned difficulties in his area, and I hope that that will alleviate his concerns.

The Home Office is working towards that register being operational by 2020-21. Ofsted plays a vital role in considering how local areas safeguard children, and to support that we are strengthening statutory guidance from the Department for Education. Such guidance must be clear about the role that each safeguarding partner must play, and that is why we are working with the police to respond to the issue raised by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

The hon. Member for Stockport raised concerns about the fear that children who go missing from the care system could fall prey to criminal and sexual exploitation—something that I and all hon. Members find completely abhorrent. I reassure Members that the Government are prioritising that issue. We are determined to tackle child sexual abuse and close down county lines, putting an end to the abhorrent exploitation of children and young people. We have already revised safeguarding guidance to reflect the emerging menace of threats to children and exploitation from outside the home, as well as the role that children’s social care needs to play in protecting them.

Earlier this year, we launched the £2 million Tackling Child Exploitation support programme to provide bespoke support to local areas. The programme will help local safeguarding partners to develop a tailor-made effective multi-agency strategic response to the specific types of harm and exploitation that children are facing in their area.

I am glad that the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s first independent review is looking into whether adolescents in need of protection from criminal exploitation get the help they need. That will better inform us about how to tweak and improve the current system, and I pledge to take a personal interest in that. Ensuring that children who have been taken into local authority care are in a safe and secure placement that meets their needs is one of the most crucial things we can do. That brings me to an issue that I know the hon. Lady and other hon. Members are working hard to highlight: the use of unregulated independent and semi-independent settings for children in care and care leavers. Some of those children and young people are indeed at risk, and I take on board the comments from the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed).

The report from the all-party group for runaway and missing children and adults continues to highlight that issue, and I thank the hon. Member for Stockport for her work. She will know that I share her concerns about the current state of affairs, and last week in the Chamber I was clear that it is unacceptable for any child to be placed in a setting that does not meet their needs and keep them safe. I note the comments from the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on that issue, and I shall write to her with the specific figures she requested.

Unregulated semi-independent and independent settings are intended for older children as a stepping-stone towards independence. There are good examples of such places, including in my constituency, and they are not all letting children down. However, vulnerable young children were never intended to be placed in them: I will not hesitate, where needed, to strengthen guidance to make that clear. Last week I called on local authorities to put their houses in order regarding unregulated and unregistered provision. Unregistered settings are illegal, and I invite all hon. Members to inform me about any providers that they know are operating in that manner.

Hon. Members also raised the placement of children in settings outside their local area. No child should be placed outside their area when that is not in their best interests, and I am grateful to hon. Members for their sustained interest in that issue. Moving a child away from their home is not a decision that any authority takes lightly, and we have strengthened legislative safeguards regarding children who are placed outside their local area.

Directors of children’s services are required to sign off each individual decision, and Ofsted can challenge them if it believes that an incorrect decision has been made. It can sometimes be right to place a child outside their local area if there is the risk of sexual exploitation, trafficking or gang violence, but those are the only circumstances in which local authorities should consider such a move. Similarly, such a decision could be made to access provision for children who have complex needs, if such provision is not available locally. The welfare of the child must lie at the heart of this issue, and I am sure hon. Members agree that the child’s needs and future must always come first. The needs of the child are paramount, and I will continue working to ensure that our decision making is based on that.

Although local authorities have a duty to meet the needs of children in our care system, I recognise that more should be done to support them in responding to that challenge. Those children are a changing cohort, and we are taking steps to help local authorities manage the system, improve their work with families, and safely reduce the number of children who enter the care system in the first place.

[Ann Coffey]

I recognise some of the good initiatives from the Department for Education over the years, but as I said there are not enough places to allow local authorities to make a choice about what is in the best interests of the child. They are placing children in placements hundreds of miles away because they have no option. That is why we are urging the Department to take a lead responsibility, not only by putting more money into preventing children from entering the care system, which is important, but by dealing with the care needs of existing children in the care system, so that they have the choice of staying nearer home. That choice should not be dictated by the market. Does the Minister have any plans to convene a strategy group and consider how the market is functioning, just as was done in 2012, and to find a way forward to support local authorities and voluntary organisations to develop provisions that meet the needs of children?

[Michelle Donelan]

I will certainly look at that. We need a combination of ways to prevent children from entering the care system—we will all agree that that is fundamental—and to tackle the supply of places. That is why we put an extra £40 million into creating more secure homes. The Government recognise that issue and are acting on it.

I recently announced an investment of £84 million over five years to support 18 local authorities as part of the Strengthening Families programme, and that is one example of how we are enabling children to stay safely with their families. We have also provided funding through our £200 million children’s social care innovation programme, £5 million of which is specifically targeted at residential care and expanding provision.

For the most vulnerable children who need secure provision, we have added a £40 million capital grants programme. We are funding local authorities—£110 million to date—to implement Staying Put arrangements, under which care leavers remain with their foster carers for longer. We are piloting the Staying Close programme with £5 million of funding to support ongoing links with a residential home.

[Mr Reed]

I am listening with interest to what the Minister has to say. She is absolutely right about the need to prevent, to reduce the numbers of children needing to go into the care system. Is she aware—she must have conversations with the heads of such services, as I do—that the reason why local authorities are not spending more on prevention is that their funding has been reduced so much: by 50%, on average? They must use what is left to manage crises, so they have even less to invest in prevention.

Will the Minister consider working with local authorities to set up an investment fund to focus on prevention, to allow them to stop the problems happening? It would cost a little money up front, but save multiples more in future by not allowing young lives to be destroyed.

[Michelle Donelan]

The approach we have taken is to target money at those areas that need it most, ones which have not been performing well, so that we can be specific with that Strengthening Families money of £84 million. We have invested in the workforce as well— £200 million—and our strategy is to put children first. We are doing things in a co-ordinated way.

The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East made reference to care leavers, a subject that the Secretary of State is passionate about, and I share his passion. This week, we announced a £19 million package of things to assist them and to give them the choices and chances that they deserve in life.

Fundamentally, I believe that young people can only ever be safe when they are cared for by local children’s services that have their best interests at heart—something that the hon. Member for Croydon North stressed. Funding is of course important, as he also stressed, and that is why the 2015 spending review gave local authorities access to more than £200 billion up to 2019-20 for services, including children’s social services. In addition, last month we announced another £1 billion for social care in 2020-21, so the issue is a focus of this Government and to say it is not would be unfair.

As I am sure hon. Members agree, however, that is only part of the solution. We are delivering an extensive programme of reform that has a strong focus on prevention, intervening early to provide families with the support that they need. The programme also works to ensure that, where children cannot stay with their family, there are enough places—a point laboured throughout the debate. We are also reforming social work and children’s social care so that we recruit and retain some of the most highly professional individuals. Providing the best possible support for local young people leaving the care system is also paramount.

Let me reassure hon. Members that my Department and I are committed to ensuring that children who go missing can be brought back safely, and that the service they receive in the care of the local authority means that they are in a home that is safe, secure and meets their needs. I commit to work relentlessly on the issue, and I invite any Member to follow up with and meet me after the debate. This is something that should be done and tackled not only across Government but across party. The issue is non-political and, at its heart, should always be about children—their safety, security and futures.