Staying Put Agenda

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

May I say what an honour it is to have secured this evening’s Adjournment debate?

We have all heard some of the statistics on outcomes for our nation’s 68,000-plus looked-after children, and I think everybody will agree that our country’s record on helping this most vulnerable group of young people when they leave care is nothing short of appalling. Of the 7,000 19-year-olds who were in care at 16, 36% are not in education, employment or training, and only 6% of all care leavers are in higher education, compared with 43% of their peers. We can add to those figures the fact that just 12.8% of children in care obtained five good GCSE grades, compared with 57.9% of their peers, and that about 23% of the adult prison population have spent some time in care. Around a quarter of those living on the streets also have a care background, while care leavers are four or five times more likely to commit suicide. Finally, about 47% of looked-after children aged five to 17 show signs of psychosocial adversity and psychiatric disorders, which is higher than among the most disadvantaged children living in private households.

Physical and mental problems increase at the time of leaving care. In order to address the many serious challenges faced by care leavers, the Government propose to introduce an amendment to the Children and Families Bill to allow young people who are fostered to remain with their carers until they are 21, if they wish and their carers agree and if it is considered to be in their best interests to do so. All young people in foster care will be offered enhanced support until they are 21. For young people in foster care, this is one of the biggest, most fundamental changes to their support when they leave care and is widely applauded as a hugely significant change in the right direction for this incredibly vulnerable group of young people.

The scandal, however, is that the extension to fostering excludes the 9% of young people in care who are placed in children’s homes. These young people have a wide range of needs and challenges. What most have in common is that they are vulnerable. That vulnerability is further enhanced by a stigma attached to residential care among politicians, the public and still, sadly, some in the social work profession. Ministers appear to see living in a family as the best option for children in care—I believe they are right—and as the only setting in which children may thrive. That is reflected by some social workers who see children’s homes as the last resort—a place where children who have “failed” family placements may be sent or as somewhere the more challenging young people may be placed. Many of the public see children’s homes as places where “naughty children” are sent. Historically, that view was compounded by some local authorities that used children’s homes to accommodate the more challenging young people.

When recently asked by the Select Committee on Education to explain different care leaving ages for foster children and those in children’s homes, the Secretary of State for Education replied that fostering is different from residential options and that children’s homes will not get support until an unspecified number of children’s homes nationally have improved within an unspecified time, at which point he may consider it. However, Ofsted inspections of 400 children’s homes concluded by June last year found that on overall effectiveness 65% were good or outstanding and only 7% were inadequate; on outcomes for young people, 67% were good or outstanding and only 3% were inadequate; on quality of care, 74% were good or outstanding, with only 6% inadequate; on safeguarding of children and young people, 69% were good or outstanding, with only 6% inadequate; and, finally, on leadership and management, 57% were good or outstanding and only 9% inadequate.

The Ofsted data, based on Ofsted inspection standards, thus show that the inspectors found most children’s homes to be good or outstanding and only a small percentage to be inadequate. I wonder whether the Secretary of State realises the absurdity of his argument. Surely, as the holder of the purse strings, he should be targeting the homes he is not happy with, and not the young people who are in them through not fault of their own. This suggests strongly that the stigma and misuse of residential care often mask some excellent work that is taking place. It is a credit to residential care that so many of the young children placed in children’s homes under such pressure grow up to lead fulfilling lives.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Perhaps I should declare my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, but is not part of the problem the fact that the children who end up in residential children’s homes are, as he says, often there as a last resort, and will usually be there for only a matter of months, when what we really need to look at, rather than short-term spot purchasing of places, is long-term planning? Children need to go into good-quality residential children’s homes—the quality still needs to be improved—as a long-term planned option, just as it is for long-term fostering, rather than as a last resort. If that were the case, enabling children to stay on, which would be wholly consistent with fostering, could be seen as much more of a natural process.

[Craig Whittaker]

I agree absolutely with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend, who has had massive experience in this field over the years and has worked tirelessly for young people. The solutions sought for these young people need to be diverse, but long-term planning for residential care is, without question, vital.

The problem with allowing the amendment just for those in foster care is that it leads to inequalities and discrimination within the system, creating a two-tier system for these vulnerable young people. It does not include young people in residential care, so the state just washes its hands of children anywhere between the ages of 16 and 18 and cuts them free without any support in the big wide world. I have even heard stories of young people being sent back to their birth families just a few days before their 16th birthday, so the local authority no longer has to support them.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on looked-after children and care leavers—a post held that the Minister held before me, so he has had massive experience with the APPG—I have been inundated with stories of young people feeling that the state is yet again letting them down because of the inequality and discrimination being created. In this particular case, however, I have noted a real anger coming from those young people in residential care—an anger that I feel is justified. The brilliant campaign led by the “Every Child Leaving Care Matters” team has in less than a month secured 5,000 signatures for the petition from care leavers to change the Government’s mind, and this has been backed by academics and charities from all over the nation. Five thousand young people cannot be wrong: they are angry about their exclusion, and as one young man said to me, “We are being stitched up yet again.”