Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting)

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you. We will start our questioning.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

Q The first question is for Dr Homden. You talked about some of the things in the Bill that you would like to see amended. I wonder whether you could expand on that, and particularly your point about the timeliness of intervention.

Dr Homden: Particularly, we are concerned that some of the very sensible provisions in the Bill, such as breakfast clubs, are not extended to infants in the early years. There are a number of areas where early years extension would be appropriate, so while we recognise that this is a Bill on children’s wellbeing and schools, none the less the children’s wellbeing elements for the youngest children are particularly important—especially the opportunities for children to receive free meals, and also for the extension of admissions priority. The provisions for the extension of recognition of quality for teaching staff could and should be extended to early years workforce issues.

The second key area is the fact that there are no provisions in relation to children’s access to advocacy—particularly 16 and 17-year-olds, those who are excluded from school, and those who face other forms of crisis in, for example, unregulated accommodation. While others will call for broader extensions of advocacy, these are the focus areas that we would recommend and commend to you as being the most effective ways to ensure that young people have the information they need to exercise decision making, and that they can hold the system to account.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q I have follow-up questions specifically about some of the measures in the Bill about family group decision making—a thing that a lot of people generally are very supportive of. My only slight concern about it is at what stage in the process that happens, and whether, if it is at the point where you are seeking a court order, that is possibly too late in the process, where it is no longer voluntary or consensual. I wonder whether you thought we should look at bringing that forward in the process, or—you mentioned young children—whether it is something that needs to happen much earlier, particularly for the under-twos and the particularly vulnerable child in dangerous households.

Dr Homden: That is indeed an extremely valid point. Many local authorities will offer family group decision making support prior to pre-proceedings, and it is important that the new duty introduced does not take away earlier opportunities to extend the involvement of the family network when children’s services are involved. Timescales are indeed acknowledged to be of critical importance in family law, and statutory guidance should make it clear that nothing in the family group decision making requirement, or the provisions of the Bill, should slow down processes, or delay solutions for babies and children.

Overall, we support the promotion of the family first decision-making approach, but point out that while we understand that it is the preference not to specify a particular model, the evidence from the randomised control trial that Coram conducted is in relation to family group conferencing, and that evidence shows very clearly the importance of independent support, and of consistent and sufficient practice. So we do call upon the consideration of the ways in which there would be a strengthening of consistency and quality of approach to ensure that this really meets the needs of children and families.

It is also worth remembering that family group decision making will not necessarily divert children from care. There has been a significant increase in kinship foster placements, now representing 19% of all active households, but all our casework in the Coram Children’s Legal Centre demonstrates that family group conferencing and well-delivered family group decision making most certainly help.

Anne Longfield: I will briefly add my support on that. There is widespread support for upholding the principles of family group conferencing. In my experience, that intervention can transform children’s and families’ experience at that point and avert decisions being made about them without their involvement, including children, but it has to be done properly. We all want families to be involved, but this is around a process of involving families and children in solutions. That will have a point that it needs to get over, in terms of the mechanisms around it and the actual formality of that. So there is something there that there is widespread support for strengthening.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q Do you share, Dr Homden, the concern that we should be very clear that this should not delay decision making?

Dr Homden: Absolutely.

[The Chair]

This is a reminder to Members that is important to catch the Clerk’s eye if you want to ask a question. We will try to get everybody in during the morning and give everybody the same crack of the whip. I will now call the Minister to ask questions.

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[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from two more witnesses. We must stick to the timings: this session must end at 10.30 am. Will you briefly introduce yourselves, please?

Andy Smith: My name is Andy Smith. I am the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. In my day job, I am director of children’s services and adult social services in Derby.

Ruth Stanier: I am Ruth Stanier, assistant policy director at the Local Government Association.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q Thank you for coming. We have an important principle in local government called the new burdens doctrine, which is that if the Government put a burden on local government, they pay for it. Given the various new duties and obligations that the Bill will place on local government, do you agree that that principle should be followed and that local government should be funded to implement those duties? Secondly, what is your understanding of the current situation? Is funding being offered to implement the duties in the Bill?

Ruth Stanier: Thank you for those extremely important questions. We very much welcome many of the measures in this Bill, which we have long been calling for, but they must be appropriately resourced to have the impact that we want.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q Would you like to see resourcing clearly specified in this Bill?

Ruth Stanier: You are absolutely right that the new burdens doctrine must be applied in the usual way. There are a number of measures in this Bill for which additional funding will be required, for example the new multi-agency units. We are encouraged that at this stage we are already having early discussions with the Department about the implementation arrangements. We are yet to undertake the full cost estimates, but that work will be set in train with the Department.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q That is very helpful. Clause 18 provides for regulations to be made on agency workers and their pay. We would all like to spend less on all these different things, but even though we might be sympathetic to the ideas in the Bill, do you agree that if we just cap prices without taking action on supply, it will fail, because the underlying cause of the high prices has everything to do with supply and planning over time?

Andy Smith: You have to cover both. It has been incredibly important and positive that the Government have taken forward measures to tackle the cost of agency workers. We are seeing the impact of the measures that have taken place already. For example, on Friday in my region we were talking about the implications and impact of the changes that have started to be implemented. We are seeing less churn of workers from one authority to another; we are also seeing some agency workers move over to the permanent books of councils, which is better for children.

It is also important to ensure that we have a sufficient approach and strategy for the workforce generally. That covers all elements of the Bill, so it would include social work but also other professions and other agencies where we have particular challenges. Yes, we absolutely need to focus on the recruitment and retention of social workers as well as tackling the costs of agency workers. I believe that that is already under way and is making some impact.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q Are there any other ways in which you would like to see the Bill amended?

Andy Smith: I think some things are missing from the Bill. There are some things that will be positive; no doubt we will come to those. What was disappointing, from the policy paper to where we are now, was the lack of corporate parenting: we would have expected to see all Government Departments committing to corporate parenting. We see that lack as a real disappointment, actually. It feels like a once-in-a-generation time for us to focus on the wider responsibility that all Departments should have for our children in care, so that is a particular gap in the Bill.

Ruth Stanier: I very much agree on extending the corporate parenting duty—this must be the right time and the right Bill to do that, and the Government have already committed to doing so in a recent policy paper, so it is really important we get that included. We were also disappointed that the Bill does not have powers for Ofsted to inspect multi-academy trusts, which was a Government election manifesto commitment. We support the similar new powers relating to care placement providers, but in respect of trusts that is an omission.

I am sure you will want to come on to discuss the elective home education provisions. We do support those, but there could be scope for them to go further. In an ideal world, councils would have the power to visit any child where there were concerns. Obviously, that would need to be appropriately resourced, but there could be scope to go further on that provision.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

Q Thank you both for being witnesses before the Committee. A question to you both: what impact will the Bill have on children and their families entering, or at risk of entering, the children’s social care system?

Andy Smith: A strength in the Bill is the focus on family help and early intervention. We talk a lot about the cost of the care system, but we need to see this in a much more strategic context and sense. We know that there is a lot of evidence. We published research last week showing that for councils that have been able to invest and maintain early help services, it has a direct impact on reducing the number of children coming into the more statutory end of things within children’s social care or the looked-after children service.

The challenge is that we have real variability around early help services across the country, because of the difficulties there have been with council budgets over the past 10 years. Seeing these reforms and the focus on family help in its totality—this goes back to the earlier question about the funding required to implement the reforms—will make a positive impact. It is ultimately better for children to remain with their families. If not, there is a big focus on kinship care, where children remain in the family network. That is a real strength in the Bill.

Ruth Stanier: I completely agree with that. We very much support the measures on support for kinship families. We think that is a very important area.

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[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Julie McCulloch, senior director of strategy, policy and professional development services at the Association of School and College Leaders, and Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. You are very welcome. Do you both want to say a brief word of introduction?

Paul Whiteman: I am Paul Whiteman. We broadly support the provisions within the Bill, as far as they connect with schools. The Bill builds upon a lot of the policy positions and ambitions that we have held for some time. We do not see it as a revolution in education, but the provisions are broadly sensible.

Julie McCulloch: We are in a similar place in our schools. There is much in the Bill that aligns with our existing policy positions. We have a few logistical questions about how some of the proposals might play out, and perhaps some questions about how they sit within the Government’s broader vision and strategy for education, but we are broadly in favour of the proposals in the Bill.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q Good morning, and thank you for coming. Julie, on your logistical questions, ASCL said in its statement that

“work will be needed to get these measures right…Further changes must be done with care and must not seem ideological.”

You talked about some of the issues that you want to see addressed as we amend the Bill. What are they?

Julie McCulloch: They are largely about the fact that these proposals are landing in a particular context. There are three areas where those logistical challenges exist. The first is that they are landing in the context of a system that has been systematically underfunded for many years. That particularly relates to the proposal about breakfast clubs. We have some questions about ensuring sufficient funding for breakfast clubs.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q Can I press you on that one? I do not understand from the Bill how breakfast clubs are supposed to work. Obviously, many primary schools already offer a breakfast club, and they charge for it. If you are now supposed to offer 30 minutes and a free breakfast—I think the going rate will be 60p in the first wave—how does that work with schools’ current charging arrangements? Are they allowed to charge before that period, so there will be both charging and a free session? Is that your understanding of what the Bill does?

Julie McCulloch: That is our understanding. Is that yours too, Paul? There will be the provision of additional funding for the children who most need it, but you can provide provision around that.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q So you will have two tiers. What is your understanding of the position on secondary school breakfast clubs? Have you had any undertakings on the future of the free school breakfast programme that exists in secondary schools, or the holiday activities and food programme? Is it your understanding that there is secure funding for those things?

Julie McCulloch: I am not sure I would be as confident as that. We have started to have some conversations about that, but not detailed ones.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q You would welcome greater certainty about those things, presumably.

Julie McCulloch: We absolutely would, and continued funding.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q Is there anything else that you would like amended in the schools section of the Bill?

Julie McCulloch: I have two other thoughts, just to finish my point about the context within which this is landing. The second is about the challenge around recruitment and retention in schools. Although the proposal about qualified teacher status is absolutely welcome and the right thing in principle, we have had some concerns from our members about the challenges of ensuring that can be followed through, when they are already really struggling to recruit.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q Do you think it is sometimes better to have a good professional person whom the head thinks is a good teacher, rather than no teacher at all?

Julie McCulloch: In some cases, yes. That is a sad place to find ourselves, but sometimes that is the case, particularly when we are looking at vocational subjects at the top end of secondary school and into colleges. There are some excellent teachers and lecturers in further education colleges and secondary schools on vocational subjects, who do not necessarily have qualified teacher status, and we need to make sure we can retain them.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q You can be a good teacher even if you do not have QTS. You can be the right person.

Julie McCulloch: Yes. We absolutely in principle think that there should be qualified teacher status, but it is about that contextual piece.

The third area where we have some concerns about the context is the extent to which there is capacity in local authorities—you have just heard from local authority colleagues—to pick up some of the additional requirements on them. Again, we do not have any concerns about the principle, but some of our members are concerned about whether there is that capacity, and whether that expertise still exists in local authorities.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q Do you have a sense that a large number of schools are not providing a broad and balanced education at the moment? Do you have a sense of how many schools are not following the national curriculum?

Julie McCulloch: No, it is absolutely not a significant number at all. We hear from our members that the vast majority do use the national curriculum as their starting point and as a benchmark, and they innovate on top of it.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q What do you think the problem is that that measure is trying to solve?

Julie McCulloch: In our view, it is right that there should be a core national entitlement curriculum for all children and young people; we think that is the right thing to do. The devil is in the detail—we are going through a curriculum review at the moment. Our view is that that entitlement is important—on the ground it might not make an enormous amount of difference, but it is still important.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Q When it comes to school admissions, do you think the measures in the Bill will help local authorities to fulfil their statutory duties? Could you comment on how you think it will impact on children and schools?

Paul Whiteman: We do think it will help local authorities—we think there has been a gap in terms of their ability to ensure that their admissions duty is fully met. To that extent, the difficulty of some parents to find the school that their children really should go to has been fettered. Therefore, we think these provisions are broadly sensible and to be welcomed.

Julie McCulloch: We agree. The more join-up we can have between local authorities and schools on admissions the better; there are some areas where that is working really well already, and there are others where that statutory duty might help.

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[Munira Wilson]

Q Obviously, breakfast clubs are for primary schools, but hunger does not end at 11. Do either of you think that we should be extending provision of free school meals right up to 18?

Paul Whiteman: May I add something in response to your first question, and then deal with your second question? In terms of QTS, we agree with what Julia said, but would add that it is a legitimate expectation of pupils and parents that they are taught by someone who is qualified to do so. Therefore, the provisions in the Bill meaning that people travel towards becoming qualified teachers are very important. That necessity has a marginal impact on recruitment and retention, frankly.

Recruitment and retention is so much more than the flexibilities that may or may not be allowed to academy chains under pay and conditions. Those are sparingly and judiciously used at the moment—we have no objection to how they have been used so far. But those flexibilities have a marginal impact. What affects recruitment and retention is more around workload stress, the stress of accountability, and flexibility within employment, rather than those flexibilities.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q A quick question for Julie. You said it was not clear whether the Bill currently delivers a floor, not a ceiling. Would you welcome it if we all passed an amendment to make that very clear?

Julie McCulloch: Yes.

[Amanda Martin]

Q What is the importance in the Bill of providing a clear legal basis for sharing information with the purpose of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children?

Paul Whiteman: We absolutely support that. A statutory duty for schools and educators to be consulted in that respect is necessary, and it will widen the voices within that. After all, it is in schools that children are most present and visible, and teachers and school leaders already play a role in noticing changes and issues.

Julie McCulloch: We feel the same way. I would simply add that it is a growing set of responsibilities on schools—burden is not the right word, because schools absolutely need to do it. We are hearing a lot about the pressures on designated safeguarding leads in schools. While we also welcome schools’ having a statutory role here, we need to recognise that schools will need support and sufficient resources to deliver that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Jacky Tiotto, chief executive of CAFCASS—the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. Please could you introduce yourself?

Jacky Tiotto: Thank you. My name is Jacky Tiotto. I am the chief executive of CAFCASS and have been there for five and a half years.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q Good morning and thank you for coming. Clause 1 states:

“Before a local authority in England makes an application for an order”

it has to

“offer a family group decision-making meeting”.

Those meetings are generally a very good thing. They are in statutory guidance already, but I have two nagging worries as we move to mandate a good thing, as it were. The first is about pace. I worry that through people using the courts or their legal rights, some people will slow this down, or I worry that the local authority will sometimes worry about fulfilling this requirement when the priority should be the pace of getting a child away from a dangerous family. And I worry, on the other hand, that because we are saying that they should think about this and do more of these meetings just before they put an order in, you are at the point where the meeting is not going to be that useful because you are already not into a consensual process. We want to try and get local authorities to do this earlier more often. Do you have worries about the pace, particularly for very young, very vulnerable children? Could we amend the clause to try to address some of my nagging doubts?

Jacky Tiotto: I think they are good doubts to have. I should say at this point that CAFCASS is not involved before the application to court has been issued, so it does not technically affect the work that we do. But when the proceedings are issued, we are interested in why they have been issued and what has not happened for the child. Our position is that if you are introducing something largely consensual about engaging people in the care of children in their family at a point when you are going to formalise a letter that says, “If you do not act now, we may remove your children,” I think it will be very confusing.

As drafted, the Bill probably could move it down to the point at which there are formal child protection procedures starting so that the family can get to know what the concerns are, work with the child protection plan for longer, understand what the concerns are and demonstrate whether the protection can happen. On the second point, if the Bill were to stay as drafted at the edge of care, I think there are risks for very young children, and babies in particular. The meetings will be difficult to set up. People will not turn up. They will be rescheduled—

[Neil O'Brien]

Q What is the average length of time?

Jacky Tiotto: I do not know, but I would think it is a number of weeks.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q Is a number of weeks a potentially dangerous thing?

Jacky Tiotto: For very young children when you are concerned, if they are still with the parents, which is sometimes the case, or even with a foster carer, you want permanent decisions quickly. That does not negate the need for the family to be involved. You can have it much earlier because you have been worried for a while at that point.

[Neil O'Brien]

Q So if you had the power, you could get this Bill into exactly the way you would draft it. With lots of experience in this world, you would change it so that we moved this thing in clause 1, part 1, so that it was focused on the point where there are initial child protection conversations rather than being in addition to. That is incredibly helpful. Is there anything else you would do to amend the Bill?

Jacky Tiotto: There are a few bits that it would be good to talk about. I do not know if you have a set of questions.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q My real question is: what would you amend? We are trying to find out how we should change the Bill as it goes through.

Jacky Tiotto: If I speak too long—because this is a great opportunity—please interrupt me. To go back to family group decision making and make a point about CAFCASS, we are the largest children’s social work organisation in England. We see 140,000 children through proceedings every year. The Bill tends to focus on those who are in public law proceedings. Two thirds of the children we work with are in private law proceedings, where there are family disputes about who children spend their time with and where they live. Very often, those children are in families where conflict is very intense. There are risks to them; there is domestic abuse. The Bill is silent on children in private law proceedings, and I think there is an opportunity for that to be different.

One suggestion I would like to make on CAFCASS’s behalf is that family group decision making should be offered to families where the court has ordered a section 7 report—a welfare report that, if ordered to do so, the local authority has to produce for the court in respect of what it advises about where children should live and who they should spend time with. I think the opportunity for a family group decision-making meeting for those families is important. I just put that on the table, if I may.

I want to talk a bit about clause 10, which is on deprivation of liberty—I do not know whether you have spoken about it yet. Obviously, CAFCASS is involved in 98% of those applications; to give you a sense of the span, last year there were 1,200 applications to deprive a child of their liberty. As I am sure you will know from the research briefing, that is an increase of about 800% since 2017, because the provision to secure children is not there. This is therefore a welcome change to section 25, but it is a missed opportunity to deal with the arrangements around deprivation, and some better, stronger regulations could be made for those children—who, let us face it, are actually being secured, or deprived of their liberty.

Our data shows that 20% of those children are aged 13 or under. Currently, if a local authority applies for a place in a secure unit for a child aged 13 or under, the Secretary of State for Education has to approve that application. I think an assumption is made in the Bill that that strength would remain in the amendment. We need to make it clear that, for all applications for 13-and-unders into places where they will be deprived, the Secretary of State should still approve. That has been unnecessary because the courts have been using their jurisdiction to deprive children. This clause will remove that, and make the accommodation usable legally, but we need to ensure that for young children it comes back. That is one point.

The second point is that for those young children, the review of their deprivation should be stipulated in terms of how regularly that deprivation is reviewed. For a 10-year-old deprived of their liberty, a week is a long time. The children who we work with tell us that they do not know what they have to do to not be deprived of their liberty, and very young children will be confused. So the frequency of review, I think, becomes more regular if you are younger.

I very much feel that the Department for Education should definitely consider what has happened to the child before the deprivation application is made. From our data, only 7% of those children were the subject of child protection plans, and it is hard to imagine going from not being protected by a statutory child protection plan to being in a court where they might deprive you. The relationship between child protection and deprivation needs strengthening.

[Neil O’Brien]

Q What would that look like? Do you have to do a case review?

Jacky Tiotto: As soon as that child becomes the subject of a concern, such that you might be making an application to deprive, you hold a child protection conference and you have a plan in place to protect that child beyond the deprivation, so including and beyond—it helps with the exit.

The final point is about the type of people who apply to run this provision as amended: Ofsted needs to be really sure who they are and what their experience is. I have run this provision; I have worked in it. These kids are really needy. They need specialist, highly qualified people, and at the moment the provision that they get is not run by those sorts of people.

[Stephen Morgan]

Q Jacky, thanks for presenting evidence to the Committee. I have two questions: one about local authorities, the second about kinship. On local authorities, what impact do you think mandating local authorities to offer a family group decision-making meeting will have on families and children?

Jacky Tiotto: The intention to be family-centred and to promote families as being the best place for children to grow up in is a good one. As I said, I think it is too late when you are in a panic and get a letter that says, “We may remove your children”—you are going to engage very differently at that point than if you were involved earlier. I think it is a good thing, but the problem with mandation is that just because you say it has to happen does not necessarily mean that people will come, and it does not necessarily offer protection to children. The principle is right but how it becomes operationalised will be important.