Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourth sitting)

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing clause stand part.

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

I have already talked about our general support for clause 3, as well as some of the issues around the geography, content and cast lists of the teams, which brings me on to funding. On Tuesday, we asked the Local Government Association about the new burdens doctrine and whether there would be clarity on funding for these new requirements. The Government do not plan to commence this clause until 2027, so will local authorities be appropriately resourced to meet these demands? In its summary of the Bill, the Department for Education says:

“Later commencement allows more time to secure funding and resources and workforces will have more time to engage and prepare for change.”

Do the Government know roughly how much extra funding will be required? As Ruth Stanier from the LGA said in her evidence to us on Tuesday,

“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.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 13, Q21.]

We are talking about those multi-agency units here. What are the Minister’s rough estimates of what will be required, and at roughly what point will that be agreed? Again, the DFE notes on the Bill say that it will be

“set out in regulations how the multi-agency child protection teams will carry out their day-to-day activities.”

That will be extremely specific; for example, it says:

“The new provisions will include a power for the Secretary of State to set out in regulations requirements for the practitioners who are nominated to be part of the multiagency child protection teams. This might include examples of the types of ‘minimum qualifications or experience’ that they will need, which have not been included in the legislation as this will require discussion with the relevant work forces, including police, health and education, to understand what would be relevant”.

The big question is: how much will this roughly cost, and when will the Government agree that with local government, so that we can fulfil the requirements of the new burdens doctrine?

I would like to turn to amendment 19. I have come to believe very strongly, in public services, in the importance of setting up self-improving dynamics whenever that is possible. The Japanese talk about the principle of “kaizen”, or continuous improvement, and really that is the spirit of our amendment. Everybody supports the idea of the new multi-agency meetings, and we are all supportive of the principle of trying to make that happen really well. We do not want just a meeting, or that the letter of the law is followed, but the spirit of it is. We really want to do this as well as we can, and that is what our amendment is about.

There are very different ways of making these things work, and they work in very different places already. There is lots of scope to learn from each other at the local level, and central Government have scope to learn from them all. The amendment is self-explanatory, so I will not go through it, but it is basically looking for a report on all the different aspects of the ways in which this clause plays out on the ground. I am keen to press it to a vote, and I hope it is one that the Government might accept, at least in some form.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is very good to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I think everybody agrees with the principle of this clause, and there is undeniable valuable in having all the relevant agencies working together. I am afraid it is invariably a conclusion of reviews that, when things go badly wrong, part of the issue is that working together has not functioned as well as it could. The Bill does not invent multi-agency working—that is not a new thing—but it does write something very specific into primary legislation, and that is welcome.

Amendment 19 is good and important and requires reporting back on the work and impact of multi-agency teams. What we need to focus on is actual practice. It is one thing to set out that so-and-so must talk to somebody else—no one would argue with that—but as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said, there is quite some variety in the way these things happen. Will there be more guidance in terms of operations to stress the importance of following process and procedure, but also recognising the centrality of professional curiosity and taking ownership of problems through to their solution?

I am keen to understand better from the Government the extent to which what the clause proposes is different from multi-agency safeguarding hubs, commonly known by their acronym, MASH. Is it the same, or is it for a subset of higher level cases? Are we drawing a distinction between safeguarding and child protection?

MASHs themselves have worked in quite different ways. I said that these things are not new—I remember that in 2012, when I was on the Education Committee, we did an inquiry in this area. We visited a couple of different MASHs and had a couple of local authorities, one from Devon and one from Leeds, at a Committee hearing. One of those authorities had a MASH; the other had actively decided not to because it felt that there were better ways of achieving some of the same aims. That highlighted the importance of what is done operationally and what is done in practice. We were frequently told about the advantages of physical colocation —simply being in the same room facing each other across the desk—but that does not guarantee that people will work as well together as they could. Relationships are incredibly important, and so is the willingness to appropriately share information, and these days that can arguably be done without colocation in ways that it could not in the past.

As far as I can make out, the clause does not adopt the principle from what we used to call the troubled families programme, which is now the supporting families programme, of having a designated key worker for each family. Can the Government say why that is, or if it is their intention that that should be the case? More generally, it would be interesting to hear how this programme works with the supporting families programme—probably still better known to many as the troubled families programme.

The creation of that programme straddled the previous change in Government: it started in pilot and research form before 2010 and came into being fully after 2010. Louise Casey is now Baroness Casey of Blackstock and still very involved in incredibly important work. Some of the work of that programme is on the key upstream stage where, sadly, we sometimes end up in child protection territory. Some of the common features identified in Baroness Casey’s report, “Listening to Troubled Families” —abuse, institutional care, violence, mental health problems, drug and alcohol abuse, and so on—are incredibly prevalent in this group.

I hope the Government can say more about how the multi-agency child protection teams and the supporting families programme would work together, particularly since that programme, which used to be in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is coming or has come—I do not know if it already has—into the Department for Education, so there are great opportunities for good working with children’s services.

[Neil O’Brien]

My right hon. Friend asks a really good question, and I intervene to sharpen that further. He asks whether the new teams are displacing or replacing the MASHs. Does the Government think that the MASHs that exist now will still be running alongside these new teams, or does the one turn into the other?

On the point about continuity of knowledge, which is so important in these cases as often the same family is in trouble for a long time, is it the Government’s expectation that it would be quite normal for people who are currently on one of the MASHs to find themselves on the new teams as well, or is this a new thing? I am just trying to understand the intent.

[Damian Hinds]

I think amendment 19 has a lot of value and I hope it will be agreed.

I want to ask about resourcing. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has rightly asked about cash resourcing—how much there will be—and there is of course the new burdens principle to follow, but I want to ask about staff availability. It is one thing to legislate for people to do a certain thing, but if it is very difficult to hire those people, that is obviously an impediment. To what extent and, if it is possible to quantify, by how much, does this programme create a new human resource requirement? How many more person days per year are we talking about?

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The flexibility will allow the multi-agency teams to work in a tailored way and bring in expert and specialised skills and knowledge to ensure that all aspects of a child’s wellbeing can be considered. Within those roles and responsibilities, the teams will address inconsistencies and ambiguities in child protection practice, and improve joint working. It will stop children falling through the cracks.

[Neil O'Brien]

I agree with everything the Minister is saying—it all sounds very sensible. She may be coming to this, but on this point about where MASHs already exist, do these new teams replace them? Are they likely to have similar members? What happens to the existing bodies when the new one is created?

[Catherine McKinnell]

As I said earlier, at the moment, local authority teams are not required to have multi-agency safeguarding hubs. We will build on the work that has been done and make sure that every local authority has a child protection multi-agency team, so that no child will fall through the gaps where provision does not currently exist.

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[Neil O’Brien]

I have two specific questions, although there may be no answer to the first—it may be for regulations, and there may be no decision yet. If a large local authority such as Birmingham wants to have more than one of these things, can it do so? My other question —which Iaised before the break—is about substitutes. What happens if one of the nominated people is sick? The meeting obviously still needs to go ahead, so can substitutes be used?

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Gentleman is really getting into the detail of how these will work operationally and in practice. We are exploring through 10 pathfinder programmes how this will work most effectively, to ensure that no child falls through the cracks. This will be set out in greater detail to ensure that we have a consistent approach nationally. Obviously, the point is to ensure that it can be tailored to local need; indeed, different areas will ensure that they are bringing the expertise and adding to the capacity already in the system, wherever it is needed, to keep children safe. I implore members of the Committee to support the passing of this clause.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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Information sharing and consistent identifiers

[Neil O’Brien]

I beg to move amendment 20, in clause 4, page 6, line 33, at end insert—

“(4A) Where the relevant person considers that the disclosure would be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing the information, this decision must be recorded.”

This amendment requires decisions made not to disclose information to be recorded.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 21, in clause 4, page 7, line 5, at end insert —

“(6A) Where information is disclosed under this section, the recipient must consider the welfare of others to whom the information may relate or involve and take steps to promote their welfare.”

[Neil O’Brien]

The first thing to say about clause 4 is that we are extremely supportive of the principle of consistent identifiers. This is something we were working to deliver when I was in Government. I remember being in meetings about it when I was at the Department of Health and Social Care, discussing for example whether it would be possible to use the NHS number as the identifier. We are really keen that this happens. We have seen far too many young people fall through the cracks because of inconsistent identification, which means that problems are not connected and dots are not joined up. Government Members will not always hear me say this, but this is a very good and important idea, and one of which we are completely supportive.

Our amendments are therefore tweaks to ensure the idea works as well as it can. I will also ask some questions that do not have an amendment with them, but which I hope the Government will take away and think about so that this can work as well as possible.

To start with our amendment 20, I understand the reason for the safety valve in clause 4(3); however, I am wary. In practice, how can a single agency take the decision not to share information until it knows what other information its partner agencies hold about the same case and person? Surely there needs to be a level of trust and strong information-sharing protocols to allow sharing to happen. For example, there might be concerns about a child who has delayed speech at school, but without knowing that the mother has suffered years of abuse, been to A&E and never called the police, it is difficult to judge the situation accurately. What is the Minister’s answer to that concern about the safety valve? I hope one part of the answer can be our amendment. That is what it is there for.

Where information disclosure is not carried out because of a risk of detriment, something pretty serious is obviously happening. That information itself—that there has been deliberate, conscious non-disclosure—is very important. It is information from which we can possibly learn, and we certainly do not want it to just disappear into the ether and be lost. That is totally against the spirit of what we are all trying to do here. Our suggestion is that a conscious decision not to disclose for that reason should be clearly recorded, so that there is no confusion later about what happened or whether it was a conscious choice to not disclose, or just inaction or error.

Our amendment 21 would insert a new subsection (6A), in order to encourage those involved in taking such decisions to consider not just the welfare of the person whose information is being disclosed, but

“the welfare of others to whom the information may relate or involve”.

The person whose confidential information is being shared is not necessarily the only one whose welfare is going to be affected by that sharing.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

The amendment appears to have two parts. The first is the requirement to consider the welfare of others to whom the information may relate. That seems quite reasonable; however, the requirement to take steps to promote the welfare of potentially anybody to whom the information may relate seems to me very broad.

[Neil O’Brien]

I thank the hon. Lady for her thoughtful question. It is a very general point to say that people should take steps to think about their welfare. We are not asking people to move mountains or work miracles or anything like that—I cannot think of a clearer way of putting it. We want them not just to think about it, but to act on it, and there are two different amendments here.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman has set out his questions. To clarify, amendment 20 would require the relevant person to record their decision to withhold information if they considered disclosing it to be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing it.

We absolutely agree that practitioners should record the reasons for their information-sharing decisions. However, that should happen irrespective of the reason for sharing or not sharing particular information. The current, non-statutory information sharing guidance for practitioners and managers issued by the Department for Education covers this point, making it clear that practitioners should keep a record of their decisions, including their rationale. Rather than legislating on this issue, it is our intention to cover it in statutory guidance, which relevant persons would be required to have regard to in relation to these matters.

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman raised a range of other issues and questions about clause 4 more generally, and I will respond to those in the clause stand debate.

[Neil O'Brien]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move amendment 44, in clause 4, page 7, line 37, after “welfare” insert “or wellbeing”.

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Ultimately, some of this governance stuff covers not only the Department for Education but the Department of Health and Social Care and the Cabinet Office. I would love to know, even at this stage, about the involvement the Information Commissioner’s Office and its future involvement.

[Neil O’Brien]

I have already asked most of my questions, but I want to add some simple ones to those. First, I may have missed this in the conversation, but is the intent that the system will be for people up to the age of 18? Secondly, what are the Government’s initial thoughts about people who do not have NHS numbers?

Thirdly, I wish to sharpen and bring out the point I was making in my questions about all the different get-outs from the system. The case of Victoria Climbié is the ultimate example: she had eight different identifiers with her name spelled differently every single time. The worry is that the system needs not to have too many holes in it—although it needs some, otherwise everything would grind to a halt.

At the bottom of page 7 of the Bill, proposed new section 16LB(5) of the Children Act 2004 says:

“Subsection (4) applies only so far as the designated person considers that the inclusion of the consistent identifier is likely to facilitate the exercise…of a function…that relates to safeguarding”.

That is one out. Proposed new subsection (6) says:

“Subsection (4) does not apply if the designated person considers that”

it would be “detrimental” to include it, which is another out—and perfectly sensible in a way. Proposed new subsection (7) says that the person does not need to comply if they do not know the consistent identifier and it would slow things down. So there are quite a lot of outs.

We will not press our amendment to a vote, and the Minister is right to say that the statutory guidance requires a record of why decisions have been made at the local level, but I am sure that the Department and officials would want to set things up in such a way that a national report can be built out of that data, to figure out what is going on at a local level.

Finally, let me explain what I was going on about with the complexity of parsing proposed new subsection (9), which says:

“A duty under this section does not operate to require or authorise the processing of information which would contravene the data protection legislation (but the duty must be taken into account in determining whether the processing would contravene that legislation).”

That is quite a complicated sentence that I find difficult. I would be supportive of Ministers if they want to give frontline professionals more legal protection so that they think, “I don’t need to worry about data protection first—I need to worry about the safety of children first.”

[Catherine McKinnell]

I totally accept that Members’ comments have all been made with a view to making sure that the legislation can be as effective as it needs to be, and that we all share the desire to ensure that it serves to safeguard children.

The right hon. Member for East Hampshire asked whether the information-sharing duty is the same as mandatory reporting. The duty in the clause and the mandatory reporting are intended to address different problems. The information-sharing duty underpins how existing multi-agency partners, along with schools and early years providers, can share—I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s philosophical reflection on the word “share”—and request information among themselves so that they can build a full picture of a child. They can then use that to assess risk and put in place appropriate support and intervention.

The mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse is due to be introduced in Home Office legislation. It will impose a duty on professionals to report instances of child sexual abuse, and will also impose criminal sanctions on those who prevent others from reporting abuse. The duty in the clause and mandatory reporting have different purposes and different legislative frameworks.

The right hon. Member for East Hampshire asked about the terminology and the meaning of the word “share”. In this context, the sharing of information covers the exchange of knowledge, data or insights with others, and it can happen in a number of ways.

On the specific question of whether information about an individual child or dataset is relevant, we intend the duty to be about supporting individual children day to day, to ensure their safeguarding and to make sure that they and their families get the support they need.

The right hon. Gentleman thoughtfully raised a range of important questions and kindly acknowledged that I would not be able to respond to them all in this debate. We will take them away and work them through, and that will feed into how we pilot this idea and test the system so that we get this right, as he rightly highlighted.

The single unique identifier in the NHS system will apply to children up to the age of 18. The right hon. Gentleman asked what would happen to a child without an NHS number; that will have to be considered as part of the pilot, which is why we are undertaking one. This is an important change. We do not underestimate the challenges of delivering it, but we are determined that it will make the difference to children and to safeguarding.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Information: children in kinship care and their carers

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Given that kinship care arrangements are particularly prevalent among a number of ethnic minority communities, where culturally it is much more normal for extended families to live together, cousins may well be involved in the arrangements. I understand that the Department has confirmed that such wider family members are intended to be captured by the phrase “other person connected”, but nowhere in the Bill is the term defined. Nor has there been any indication as yet that regulations or statutory guidance will make plain who falls within the scope of that phrase. Clarity is important for families and practitioners. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that and on the other issues raised in the amendments.

[Neil O’Brien]

I rise to speak to clause 5 and amendment 22. The previous Government were promoting kinship care and there is no great disagreement about it; in fact, there is great agreement, including with the hon. Member for Twickenham. I pay tribute to her work on the issue, and she is right that her amendment 39 is similar to our amendment 22.

Creating a duty for a local authority to publish a local kinship care offer seems sensible to provide clarity and to ensure that kinship families are aware of what support is available. The statutory guidance on kinship care, which exists already, states that every local authority must publish information about the services they offer in their area to children in kinship care and their approach towards meeting the needs of those children. That has been there since 2011, but too many still have no up-to-date offer, so we are supportive of clause 5.

This is an example of the current Government building on the direction of travel under the previous Government. The kinship care strategy we published in December 2023 set out a definition of kinship care that has been used in the updated statutory guidance on kinship care published by this Government in October.

One important reason for having something that is public and visible to everyone is that when many people hear mention of kinship care they think of uncles, aunts and grannies, but of course a lot of kinship carers are not related to the child. Some 140,000 children live in kinship care, but a further 24,000 live with kinship carers to whom they are not related, such as family friends.

The Minister will be aware of the concerns expressed by kinship carers and the organisations that represent them, such as the Family Rights Group, that the definition of kinship care in this clause of the Bill—on pages 9 and 10, in proposed new section 22I of the Children Act 1989—risks providing less clarity and potentially greater confusion for children, families, practitioners and agencies. They argue that it does not adequately address the different types of kinship care arrangements, while the expectations for councils to involve families in shaping or promoting the local offer are minimal. What is the Minister’s response to that, and what does she plan to do about it?

The Family Rights Group also made a specific point about something that should be amended in the Bill, stating:

“The Bill includes a list of categories of services available in the authority’s area that the kinship local offer should include. We are very concerned by the omission of legal support and family group decision making from this list. These categories already appear in statutory guidance but not…the Bill.”

The Family Rights Group proposed an amendment to remedy that, which we tabled. Will the Government at least consider taking it up?

The Family Rights Group made another point:

“We are concerned that the Bill sets low expectations regarding the involvement of children, kinship carers and others in the development of kinship local offers, as well as in respect of publication and transparency. This is in contrast to the SEN and disability local offer…established in section 30 of the 2014 Children and Families Act. That legislation gives the Secretary of State the power to set out in regulations how the offer should be published, when it should be reviewed, and”—

this is the key bit—

“how children and families are involved in developing it.”

That takes us to our amendment 22. Again, as with previous ones we have tabled, our amendment seeks to set in train a self-improving system by collecting feedback from children in kinship care. We have heard several times during our sittings about the importance of the voice of the child and the voices of those who provide care; this is a way of ensuring that we hear them. We are proposing a light-touch process in the amendment: keeping a record of feedback. That helps to protect from the loss of knowledge when personnel inevitably change, so we can still have that feedback and knowledge. It also provides a resource for learning and performance improvement at the local level. By publishing it, as we suggest in the amendment, we allow for better public discussion and for learning at the national level.

That is the purpose of our amendment. We have no great disagreement about the spirit of this clause—quite the opposite, in fact—and we hope that the Minister will adopt or in some way implement the ideas in our amendment.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I rise to speak to the amendments and to clause 5 stand part.

On amendment 38, which the hon. Member for Twickenham tabled, I appreciate her engagement and great interest in the kinship local offer, and I will explain how we see it working. We expect that local authorities would include information on legal support when setting out their general approach to supporting children living in kinship care and to kinship carers under the newly inserted section 22H(1)(a) to the Children Act 1989, as set out in clause 5. To be clear, the listed categories of information about services have been kept very broad by design, in order to cover as many different kinds of services as possible. That means that local authorities could reasonably be expected to provide information about legal support under one of the categories that we have included.

Clause 1 already sets out the requirement to offer family group decision making at pre-proceedings and new section 22H(1)(b) to the 1989 Act will require local authorities to publish information about financial support that may be available to children living in kinship care and their carers. Therefore, I would like to reassure Members that the list of categories of information about services in the Bill is deliberately not exhaustive. It also remains our intention that further detail about what we expect to be included in the kinship local offer will be made in statutory guidance, so we will take on board the points made in this debate. We believe that amending clause 5 as has been suggested would not achieve that effect. We believe that we have the measures in place that will deliver what the hon. Lady is looking for, so we kindly ask her to withdraw her amendment.

On amendments 22 and 39, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and the hon. Member for Twickenham respectively, I appreciate the concern that exists about consulting children and carers on the kinship local offer and making sure that their feedback is collected. The children’s social care national framework and the existing kinship care statutory guidance make it clear that children’s wishes and feelings should be taken into account whenever adults try to solve problems and make decisions about them, and local authorities are legally obliged to adhere to article 12 of the UN convention on the rights of the child, which makes it very clear that the child has the right to express their views, their feelings and their wishes in all matters affecting them and to have their views considered and taken seriously.

The kinship care statutory guidance also sets the expectation that local authorities should consult children, kinship carers and parents as appropriate in drawing up their kinship local offers, and set out how the kinship local offer has been informed by their views, to ensure transparency.

New section 22H(7) to the 1989 Act states:

“A local authority must review and update its kinship local offer from time to time”,

to give opportunities for the views and opinions of children living in kinship care and their carers to be taken into account. However, since the intention of clause 5 is to ensure that local authorities publish information about what their kinship local offer includes, what is published should be a clear reflection of the services available, and consultation on the publication would be of limited value.

We cannot be more specific about how kinship local offers are published, because that would potentially limit the accessibility of the information. For example, requiring online publication would potentially limit access to the information among those who do not have access to that technology. For that reason, new section 22H(6) of the 1989 Act already puts an obligation on local authorities to:

“take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that children”

and kinship carers

“receive the information relevant to them.”

Consequently, we do not believe that the amendments are required, as there are sufficient safeguards within clause 5 and other legal frameworks, and because the local authority will be best placed to determine what information should be published. More prescription in legislation might hinder local authorities as they design and publish their local offer in a flexible way that reaches people and makes the maximum impact.

I will respond to the question raised by the hon. Member for Twickenham and to some extent by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston about some lack of clarity on the definitions of a connected person. To be clear, that is because they are defined in the Children Act 1989. The term “relative” is deliberately not defined in the Bill, because the measures on the kinship local offer are not freestanding: they form part of the 1989 Act. Although section 105 of that Act defines relatives, new section 22I(1)(a) under clause 5 includes

“a relative, friend or other person connected with the child”,

so it is broad enough to cover every type of person. Although cousins are not specifically defined as a relative, they would fall within the category of another person connected with the child. I hope that has answered all the questions raised by hon. Members, and I urge them to support this clause.

[Neil O'Brien]

The Family Rights Group raised a specific point. It would effectively like to add another item to the list on page 9, line 17 of the Bill, which currently states that the list of support services should include

“health…relationships…education and training…accommodation”.

The Family Rights Group would like to add legal support to that list. Will the Minister go away and have a look at that?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate the request; I have dealt with that in my response, in that we feel that we have included broad headings that are clearly not exhaustive and leave room for local authorities to publish the whole range of services that they feel will support kinship carers. Fundamentally, we know that having a good kinship care offer is in the best interests of a local authority, because it is the one supporting the children who it knows need that care, but I will certainly take away the hon. Gentleman’s specific consideration.

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[Munira Wilson]

I thank the Minister for her response on the point about legal support, which is in amendment 38 along with financial support and family group decision making. I intended to push the amendment to a vote, but, given her assurances that this will be in statutory guidance, I am happy to withdraw the amendment and not push it to a vote.

On her point about connected persons, we need some clarity. As she says, the term “relative” is in the Children Act 1989, but it does not cover cousins. Practitioners on the ground and families would like clarity for those other arrangements. Whether or not that is in guidance, it needs to be spelled out further. Nevertheless, based on the assurances the Minister has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6

Promoting educational achievement

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Neil O'Brien]

We have not tabled an amendment to clause 6, as this is another area where the Government are building on the direction of travel set under the last Government. The role of the virtual school head was already extended on a non-statutory basis from September 2021 to include strategic oversight of the educational outcomes of children with a social worker in a local authority’s area; through this Bill, it is now being extended again to champion the education of children, including children in kinship care.

Educational outcomes for children in need and children in care are still far too low, despite the efforts of successive Governments over the last 40 years to improve them. About one in five children in need and looked-after children achieve grade 4 and above in English and Maths GCSEs, compared with 65% of all children. That is a huge gap.

As the Minister knows, local authorities have an existing duty to monitor child in need or section 17 plans, which I believe is about twice a year. Will the Minister clarify whether the Bill gives us an opportunity to escalate that monitoring? Does it extend to children in kinship care, where a child is falling behind or where their attendance drops sharply? Have the Government considered extending priority school admissions for children in kinship care and making them eligible for pupil premium plus?

I have a question about how a single person can discharge this duty in any local authority, let alone a large one—thinking of dried Birmingham, Kent, Leeds or somewhere like that. What is the Government’s expectation of what the person responsible for delivering this work will be able to do?

[Damian Hinds]

The clause extends the role in legislation of virtual school heads to children in need, previously looked-after children and children in kinship care. The virtual school and virtual school heads concepts are not new. The concept was first piloted in 2006 in Liverpool. It was the Children and Families Act 2014, which we both remember well, Sir Edward, that required all local authorities to administer pupil premium plus.

The Oxford University report on the virtual school heads concept noted that there had been improvements in outcomes at key stage 2 and key stage 4 for looked-after children and a marked decrease in permanent exclusions. However, as the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, rightly said, there is still a yawning gap in attainment and all manner of life outcomes for this group of children.

Previously, looked-after children were added to the virtual school head cohort in 2018. There was a pilot to include children in need in 2021. From 2023-24 onwards, pupil premium plus was extended to age 16-plus. Once again, this is a policy area where there is no difference between us; the current Government’s work builds on previous Governments’ work, and we welcome that. We also note the successes of the virtual school heads concept.

My question is about the danger of dilution. In terms of orders of magnitude, there are 80,000 or 85,000 children in care—looked-after children, but there are 400,000 children in need, so that is a big increase in number. I note that paragraph 4 of proposed section 23ZZA(4) of the 1989 ACT introduced by clause 6 puts a strategic duty on to virtual school heads; it is not about individual children. The bigger number of children there is, with that dilution effect, there is a risk that some of the benefits of the virtual school heads program reduce. We can counter that, to a degree, by upping the resource. My real question is therefore about what resource will be behind this measure, to make sure that the maximum effect can be felt from virtual school heads.

As we talked about earlier on multi-agency working, it is actual practice that matters. People have been working in different ways, and we can learn from what works in different places, but what work will there be to propagate the best and most effective practice between places across the country?