| Children Bill [Lords]
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Tim Loughton: Does the Minister think that people's behaviour may change if we see some high-profile prosecutions of people who have not complied with the law? Margaret Hodge: It may indeed. I want to come on to how we can better use the existing legislative framework without moving immediately into a new framework. Would legislation to establish a register be more effective than current arrangements, or would it provide an additional deterrent, as both the ADSS and the LGA—organisations that are not off the wall and which represent the professional cohort—believe? I am sure that their statement was sent to the hon. Gentleman, but I would be happy to share it with him. The Social Care Institute for Excellence was established specifically to discover and spread best practice. In December 2002, it published a position paper on the effectiveness of child-minding registration and its implications for private fostering. It found that for some types of private fostering arrangements, registration might not be the most Column Number: 288 appropriate or effective safeguard. I am merely drawing to hon. Members' attention the fact that although they passionately believe that the proposal is the best way of dealing with an intractable problem, we are receiving equally passionate and clear advice that some of the key professionals do not believe that it is the best way forward.My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre claims that a registration scheme would ensure child safety. He said that it would ensure that Government policies could defeat the sexual and domestic exploitation. It might, but I am not sure that it would. My hon. Friend must accept that it could equally drive it underground. If we make better use of our existing legislative framework, which has not been properly used, we may not need a registration scheme. That is why the powers in the clause strengthen the legislative framework in which local authorities operate, giving us what is known as a sunset clause, so that if these final efforts to identify and protect privately fostered children do not work, we can attempt to introduce a registration scheme without having to return to Parliament with primary legislation. I am worried about introducing a registration scheme, but I accept that if we cannot make the other scheme work, we will have to do so. Mr. Dawson: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but the argument that registering something and trying to raise standards will drive the problem underground was used against the registration of child minders. We use the criminal law to deal with people who evade their responsibilities. I have great respect for the Association of Directors of Social Services, but I am not inclined to take lessons from it because it is part of the body that has failed on this matter. It is astounding that its officials say that the legislation enables them to run a scheme, when they have palpably not done so since the Children Act was introduced in 1989. I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend told me what she considers so wrong with a registration scheme that would address itself to the aptitudes, abilities and safety of people doing private fostering. Margaret Hodge: First, on the analogy with child minders, there is a difference, partly because private fostering is a complex world, as we know. It involves not just the group about whom we are most concerned—the children of African families who come here—but many others. People usually become child minders to earn money, so they have an incentive to register. However, many private fostering arrangements are made without the exchange of money, so the incentive to register does not exist. I shall now say something about the notification scheme and what we want it to do. The clause is in the Bill because we want to strengthen the scheme and give it one last chance to work. It is not wrong in theory, but it needs strength and power to ensure that it is implemented. First, we want to promote awareness by publicising it, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham suggested. I agree with him that we should publicise both the existing notification scheme Column Number: 289 and some high-profile cases; that may bring about a culture of compliance, which is what we want. However, we do not need to change the law and create a registration scheme to do that—we will require local authorities to promote awareness of the scheme.Secondly, we will require local authorities to monitor the operation of the scheme far more closely, and to provide information for us on how many registrations they achieve each year. They will monitor registration, and we will monitor their effectiveness. That will give us a tool to determine, over time, whether the notification scheme is working. We will then require the inspectorates, in the framework of inspection that we are developing for all children's services, to do their work, and we will require the local safeguarding boards to have regard to how well or otherwise private fostering arrangements are being implemented. We are putting in place several mechanisms that will support the scheme. The hon. Gentleman gave the example of a suddenly bereaved family who might want to use a register. That is a dangerous route, and I ask him to think that matter through. Using the analogy of the world of child care in the home, the fostering system is similar to the light-touch registration scheme that we propose to implement in the new year for nannies and childminders.
3.30 pmIn the system for notification, a simple, basic check is undertaken using the Criminal Records Bureau and the household itself. We try to ensure that there is safety for the child. We do not do the very thorough checks that are carried out for those who become foster carers of looked-after children. It would be an error to assume, from the basic checks that we undertake, that we can provide the same sort of comfort to parents who choose to use a particular private foster carer that we need when we are placing children who are looked-after. There is a great danger in using the register to say, ''This person has been authorised; this person will be appropriate for dealing with your child.'' Through checking, all we will have done is to ensure that there is nothing—nothing in the ether—that makes a particular private foster carer unsuitable for working with children. One must always be careful with such regulatory frameworks, particularly those relating to the care of children, that one is not giving parents greater security and certainty than can actually be provided. Tim Loughton: The problem at present is that if someone has not been banned from being a private foster carer, the assumption is that they are okay, without there having been any checks at all. The key thing is to ensure that there are appropriate, balanced checks, which are not enormously burdensome in their rigour. Those checks would give a degree of comfort to someone that the person that they are selecting for a private fostering arrangement is at least secure and knows what they are doing for that particular job, just as local authorities must assess the private foster carers that they use for their looked-after children. Column Number: 290 Margaret Hodge: Those basic checks that give some comfort exist in the notification scheme. I agree with all hon. Members that the notification scheme has not worked—there has not been compliance with the regulatory framework. Through the Bill, we are attempting to toughen up the regulatory framework so that local authorities take the task seriously, and will publicise, monitor and deliver in relation to the notification. Moreover, for the first time, we are adding a requirement that local authorities should be informed about a placement before it occurs. They will then have a duty to check out the place and the person before the child arrives. That is a new provision in the notification scheme, which we think will strengthen it. Having said all that, we have concerns with a registration scheme and the reason why we have included a sunset clause is because I recognise that if those additional duties that we are giving to local authorities in our clause do not work— The Chairman: Order. I ask the Minister if she could kindly address the Chair, because Hansard is having difficulty in picking up her words. Margaret Hodge: My apologies, Dame Marion. The reason why we have placed a sunset clause in the Bill is because I accept what hon. Members say and, if this final attempt to get the notification scheme to work is not successful, we would have to examine an alternative, despite the many concerns that we have about the alternatives. Private fostering is a complex area that covers many people. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said that through regulations we could limit the measure to that group of children about whom we are all most concerned, but the way in which she has framed her amendments would not enable us to do that. We would have to have a registration scheme that registered all those young people who went to language schools, who fell out with their families and spent some time on a friend's sofa, and who were placed with another relative because their mother went into hospital or was ill. A mental health illness would be a classic example. Mr. Dawson: We would have to register young people only if they stayed away for more than 28 days. I have made the point previously. Of course young people clear off and sleep on friends' sofas, but 28 days is a long time. If we do not have a proper registration scheme, we are leaving a huge gap whereby children could be abused. I believe that language schools should be registered. Allowing young people to come to a foreign country without these schools being registered is incredible. Margaret Hodge: We are not leaving a huge gap: we have the notification scheme. It has not been properly brought into effect, but we hope that it will prove more effective with the amendments that we are making to it. Our fear remains that, under a formal registration scheme, there is no incentive in the circumstances about which we have most concerns—a young child being privately fostered—for anyone to come forward and be properly registered. In fact, there might well be Column Number: 291 a disincentive, because there would be the issue of costs, who pays and so on. When I was a child and my mother was very ill, I was placed with distant relatives for about three months. The idea that they would have had to register to help my mother out would have been completely potty.
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