Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
9 JUNE 2004
RT HON
MARGARET HODGE
MBE MP
Q100 Chairman: You have seen Professor
Pascal's work in Birmingham on how many children are just missing,
they are never registered, are in refuges. If Victoria Climbié
was in that category no-one would have known where she was. There
is an estimate that there are several thousand missing children.
Margaret Hodge: Interestingly
enough, a lot of professionals came into touch with Victoria Climbié.
Q101 Chairman: Absolutely, they did,
but according to the research by Professor Pascal and her colleagues,
as I understand it, there are those who have never been registered
anywhere, they are out there and we do not know about them. How
do you meet that need? Have you talked to that group of professionals?
They are highly respected.
Margaret Hodge: I talk to Professor
Pascal quite a lot about other things; I have not talked to her
about that.
Q102 Chairman: Do you accept there are
missing children out there at the moment who are not being picked
up by the net?
Margaret Hodge: Is any scheme
100%?
Q103 Chairman: It is very important when
you also pick up the recent work on the right to education at
home and if that child is not known to the authority then we do
not know whether that child is being abused.
Margaret Hodge: The child being
taught at home will be known.
Q104 Chairman: Why?
Margaret Hodge: If we either go
for the NI route, the National Insurance number route, or the
NHS route, that are both from the birth of the child, both of
those routes give you probably the most universal coverage that
you can get. Interestingly enough, one of the advantages of developing
the data system that we want is that for children who get lost
during their childhood, which I accept is an issue, we will have
a much, much better way of tracking them and making sure they
access universal services than we have currently got. It is not
just a way of picking up early signs on children at risk, it is
also a way of ensuring that every child accesses the universal
services to which they are entitled. To go back, we will only
have that very basic information and how the system will work—I
am hypothecating a little bit on the detail—is if a particular
professional is working with a child or has a concern about a
child, at that point they would register not the action they have
taken, not the concern, but that they are working with the child
on the system, and then if another professional comes along and
also has a concern they will see that professional A is also working
with the child and, therefore, will talk to them. You will not
have case data on the database, you will not have, "I am
worried about the child's birth weight", or "I am worried
because the child came to school with a bruise", or "I
am worried because the child missed school", or whatever
it is, what you will have is, "I have some concern and I
have taken some action in relation to that child". Then the
doctor can talk to the social worker or can talk to the teacher
or the nursery worker or the youth worker.
Q105 Mr Gibb: So you have changed your
view then because you have been quoted as saying any cause for
concern, from alcoholism in the family to a child being unhappy
at school, could be recorded on the database. That is no longer
your view, is it?
Margaret Hodge: Give me the first
example again, I cannot remember.
Q106 Mr Gibb: Any cause for concern from
alcoholism in the family to—
Margaret Hodge: Right. Let us
say, for example, that a GP may have cause for concern about the
child's wellbeing because of what is happening in that family
in that particular instance, the GP will log on to the database
that he is working and has taken action in relation to the family
but the actual details of the cause for concern will not be on
the database. If that was implied by what I said, that was a mistake.
Q107 Mr Gibb: That is a very good answer.
Will the parents have access to this data? Will the parents be
able to go and check that there is not some nonsense on this?
Margaret Hodge: Clearly consent
has to be a principle underpinning this except, and there always
has to be an exception—this is another detail that we have
to work through—where child protection issues override concerns.
Clearly we will want to build consent as a principle in as often
and as universally as possible with always that proviso that if
there is a concern about child protection you have to override
consent.
Q108 Mr Gibb: Will parents be able to
see the database and see whether there is a mark on it from the
social worker? Yes or no, will they be allowed to do that?
Margaret Hodge: I can see no reason
why but, for example,—
Q109 Mr Gibb: Why not?
Margaret Hodge: I cannot see why
they should not see it. Trying to think of a hypothetical example,
if a child has gone into A&E with some fracture or something
and there is a suspicion that it was caused by the parents, so
the hospital doctor wants to show on the database that they have
some concerns about the child and the parent objects, in that
sort of instance you would probably accept the view that the hospital
doctor has, that they want to flag that concern, overrides the
parent not wanting it.
Q110 Mr Gibb: That is not my point. The
point is not whether they have the power to remove the mark from
the file but whether they can just know that it is there.
Margaret Hodge: I think, and I
say "I think" because these are the sorts of details
that we need to develop as we learn from the Trailblazers and
the feasibility study, my view at this point would be that they
should know, they should not have the power to remove.
Q111 Mr Gibb: But they should have the
ability to know?
Margaret Hodge: To know that the
doctor has flagged a concern.
Q112 Mr Gibb: Finally, just about the
amendments, are you going to issue guidelines to the relevant
authorities on this or will it be done by regulation that will
go through the House?
Margaret Hodge: One of the issues
of concern that was raised as to how we had framed the legislation
was that there was too much on guidance and too little on regulations,
so we are meeting that concern by saying we will put more into
regulations and less into guidance so that it can be properly
vetted and examined through parliamentary processes.
Q113 Mr Gibb: We are not going to have
the Criminal Records Bureau fiasco and Passport Office fiasco
applying to this database, are we?
Margaret Hodge: The reason we
are going more slowly is that I am determined that should not
be the case. I think one of the principles I keep in my mind is
that it has to be simple, which is why there is such basic information
kept on it.
Q114 Chairman: Minister, you have not
made it sound very simple.
Margaret Hodge: The protocols
surrounding the use of the information are complicated, the actual
establishment of the database is to keep it simple. We are looking
at the feasibility as to whether it should be a local database
or a national one, and my own view at this point, subject to the
feasibility study and experience from the Trailblazers, is that
it should be local. The protocols around it have very complicated
issues that we have to think of.
Q115 Mr Gibb: If it is local, what happens
if people flit between authorities?
Margaret Hodge: You are quite
right, that is the question. Having every authority using the
same system and building into it mechanisms for children who change
local authority areas is one of the challenges. If you go for
a big one it becomes more difficult to set up and there are greater
dangers of it not working. If you go for a localised one it keeps
it simple and you have then got to sort through very carefully
can you get the locals to talk to each other properly. You are
right, I am not pretending there are easy answers to any of this.
Mr Gibb: Thank you, Minister.
Q116 Jonathan Shaw: It sounds a bit like
a scary monster you are creating. It does not feel like it has
been thought through at all, Minister.
Margaret Hodge: I can assure you
that there is a huge amount of effort, it is not a scary monster.
Q117 Jonathan Shaw: Is it not?
Margaret Hodge: It is a tool to
support better professional working. Let me put it this way: I
think it is really difficult, there are a huge number of issues
that we have not got answers to yet but if we fail to grasp it
then we will be failing the memory of Victoria Climbié.
Q118 Jonathan Shaw: We are so preoccupied
by creating these systems with which we are going to protect children
and ensure that we do not fail the memory of Victoria Climbié
but the problem is the likelihood is she would not have been picked
up by this system in the first place.
Margaret Hodge: I think she would
have been.
Jonathan Shaw: All the most vulnerable
children in our community, like privately fostered children, may
not be picked up. We are spending all this time creating this
system when the most vulnerable children will not be picked up.
In terms of thinking through the process, and when I talk about
a scary monster, you are not sure whether a GP can put something
on the file without the parents knowing, or will they know, will
there be an appeals process. If it is not a scary monster, it
is certainly a flipping great big can of worms. Will it protect
the most vulnerable children, that is the key in terms of safeguarding
children and Victoria Climbié?
Q119 Chairman: What do the experts say
about it?
Margaret Hodge: If I can say to
you, Chairman, I think it would be really helpful to the Committee
to hear from the Trailblazers themselves. If you have the time
for it, I would suggest that to you. We have got them beavering
away trying to see how it works on the ground and I think you
would find a session with them extremely beneficial. Again, we
have got them spread right across all sorts of different authorities
but uniformly they are supportive of our endeavour to find better
systems for sharing information to support better professional
working. I always say that it is a tool.
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