| Children Bill [Lords]
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Tim Loughton: I am grateful to the Minister for her lengthy response to the amendments and for taking them in the spirit in which they were meant. I concur with a number of her points. The BBC's ''Taking Care'' season was an excellent innovation and I was pleased to sponsor an early-day motion in support of it. I was slightly surprised by the Minister's figures on adoption, because, from memory—she recently replied to a parliamentary question of mine—I think that the number of adopted children stands at about 3,500. That is certainly an increase, but the Minister said that there had been an increase of about one third. When we considered the Adoption and Children Act 2002, I think that the figure was a little short of 3,000. There are signs that things are improving and one would hope that they are improving for the right reasons. Clearly, there are still problems for children in particularly complex cases who are not seeing that uplift, but I am not sure that the improvement is as good as the Minister made out. It is interesting to hear the figures on out-of-area placements, which, as the Minister knows, is a bugbear of mine. In her area, Barking and Dagenham, 59 per cent. of foster placements are out of area, and 41 per cent. in area. In Camden, 78 per cent. of foster placements are made outside the local authority area, and in Brent 100 per cent. of placements in private children's homes are made outside the authority's area.
4.30 pmThat is a real problem in London boroughs in particular. The majority of boroughs place the majority of their children in children's homes or in foster care outside the borough, in many cases very far away. We have seen many such cases in my constituency, with the problems that I have already outlined. Out of sight can mean out of mind. However many of the innovations of which the right hon. Lady is speaking come to pass, if the authority does not have control over the child's education, and if we are dealing with a placing authority far removed from a host authority, gaps will appear, and they will need to be addressed. I think that the Minister made more of the amendments than I intended, saying that they could be construed as passing the buck to schools. I made it clear that there is a joint responsibility between the schools and the authority, whether that is the LEA or the social services department. We all have a joint—now a joined-up—responsibility, which I hope will be addressed.
Column Number: 305 The Minister has again trotted out the argument in which I never have great confidence: ''If we single out one group of people . . . ''This is a very special group to single out. That is why we have the Bill before us and why she has mentioned the clause. It is not prejudicial and we would not cause prejudice against non-looked-after children, against which I cautioned earlier, by getting schools to lay out clearly what their policy is, and whether they are fulfilling the undertakings that they should be fulfilling anyway. If there is greater transparency of information, there will be fewer grounds for infringement.I appreciate the point that the Minister made in response. I am not convinced that the amendments are not required, and we may wish to return to the matter on Report to see whether she can give us any further assurances as to why they should not be accepted. In the interests of moving on, as we still have much of the Bill to debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Mrs. Brooke: I beg to move amendment No. 97, in
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 201, in
'( ) The governing body of a maintained school shall ensure that the school promotes the educational achievement of any pupil of the school that is looked after by the local authority.'.
I had some concerns about the previous amendments, which is why I kept quiet. I was worried about the publication of an admissions policy that singled out looked-after children, even though I agreed with most of the points made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. While we are talking about admissions policies, may I mention in passing adopted children? They land suddenly in their new homes and their arrival might not fit in with the deadlines for applying to schools. If those schools are in an over-subscribed area, it will not help them; they are the very children who need to go to a local school to get to know people. In considering looked-after children, we should not forget about the next stage, adopted children. There was a tragic case in my area. These amendments are partly along the lines of the previous ones in trying to put a duty upon the governing body. The Minister has given her answer. I Column Number: 306 do not agree with her; I see it as a dual responsibility. However, we do not need to go through the arguments again.I draw attention, which is probably rather foolhardy, to new clause 16, which was a thought of my own. In all the lobbying that we received on this issue, the point was made over and over that although the DFES guidance says that there should be a designated teacher, the actual designation of teachers throughout the country is very patchy. It therefore occurred to me that it would be better to attempt to put that on the statute book. The point is that there might be a teacher with a title, but in some schools there is an issue with having enough hours to do the necessary liaison. Mr. Mole: We have talked about the fact that looked-after children have complex needs, yet our special education needs legislation requires that all schools have an SEN co-ordinator, usually abbreviated to SENCO. It would be astounding if a school with children with special education needs such as behavioural problems was not picking up on a looked-after child with special education needs but was fulfilling the role which the hon. Lady suggests the new clause seeks to achieve. It therefore seems to me that such a new clause is probably superfluous to existing arrangements, which, so far as I can see from my experience as a school governor and a local councillor, are clearly working. Mrs. Brooke: That is probably the point; the provision is patchy. Again, I can think of an example along the lines that we discussed earlier in which a child can be placed with a different foster carer at fairly short notice, but because of the shortage of suitable foster carers and the complexity of the child's needs, that carer can be some distance away. If no teacher has been given enough hours to liaise with the local authority, it is quite possible that the case might not be put strongly enough that the best interests of the child lie in their staying at the school if at all possible. That is why I tabled the new clause. The wording is more or less exactly as it is in the guidance. I am simply picking up on the point that the measure is not being implemented. This may be something that we need to flag up for the inspection system, and the new clause is a way of doing that. My amendments are probing, and I do not expect a very long answer from the Minister. Mr. Dawson: Any Member of Parliament can meet and talk with looked-after young people, and those who have been looked after, on the third Wednesday of every month at 5 pm, which is the usual meeting time of the all-party group for children and young people in care. If hon. Members attend those meetings, they will be challenged enormously by highly intelligent, extremely able, very articulate and extraordinarily resilient young people who have been through experiences that would have floored anyone here. Some of them are achieving extraordinary things. Last February, my right hon. Friend the Minister presented certificates to achieving young people in care from all over the country. Many of them had achieved things such as settling down, being a little happier and Column Number: 307 getting into school. Some of them were training to be barristers and doctors. Several of them were poets, and one of them was an extraordinary singer and musician.There is nothing wrong with children and young people who are looked after. It is the local authorities—the corporate parents—who have comprehensively failed them at every turn. We will get no further forward until we provide stability, and until everyone working for any local authority, not only those who work in social services or education, takes seriously and enjoys their corporate parenting responsibilities towards these children and young people. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: it should not be beyond the ability of people of good will at all levels in Government, local authorities and elsewhere to sort out the problem of 60,000 looked-after children, and it should be sorted out. Margaret Hodge: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The awards that he mentioned were made to children and young people who, against the odds, throughout their childhood and into adulthood, achieved a tremendous amount. I have no doubt that they will make an enormous contribution to society as adults. What is astonishing is finding out from those individuals how often they changed homes and were rejected or bullied at school, but they survived everything, which shows how strong they had to be. That is why we should have great confidence in them, and why the BBC programme on the subject last year was so welcome. I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole that children who are adopted find it difficult to gain admission to schools, especially when they move into an area. Anyone who moves into an area with a popular, over-subscribed school knows that that is difficult. I am sure that the hon. Lady's surgery is, like mine, full of people who say, ''I moved into the area because I thought I could get my kid into that school,'' but who found that the school was over-subscribed and that the purpose of their move had failed. It is a difficult problem and we have to balance rights and interests. I could not agree more that the interests of looked-after children should be at the top of our list. I was slightly puzzled earlier because we took the amendments, especially amendment No. 97, to refer to securing the education of looked-after children in custody, which the hon. Lady clearly did not intend. There was a disagreement about the interpretation of the amendment. Children in custody are the responsibility of the Prison Service, which has a statutory duty to ensure that they participate in education and training courses for at least 15 hours in a normal working week. I am pleased to tell the Committee that children in prison have on average 24 hours a week of education and training. When I visit children in prison I am aware that the problem is largely about stability. Children in youth offending institutions and other such establishments stay for about two weeks, and given that instability it Column Number: 308 is difficult to ensure that they are properly looked after. We are developing a specification with the Youth Justice Board and the Learning and Skills Council to put into place enhanced arrangements for looked-after children.I sympathise with the intentions behind amendment No. 201 and new clause 16. Schools have a crucial role in the lives of looked-after children, but the amendments are unnecessary and inappropriate, as they would place a duty on local authority governing bodies. The local authority is the corporate parent that holds the key to improving young people's educational achievements. On new clause 16, our guidance document recommended that schools designate a teacher to act as a resource and advocate for children and young people in care. The evidence that we have got back suggests that most schools now have a designated teacher in place. It is usually the head teacher, which is to be welcomed, the deputy head or, in some cases, the inclusion co-ordinator. I would not want to call the hon. Lady a Stalinist, but placing on every school a formal statutory duty to have a designated teacher, so that even the smallest rural primary school had to have one, would be an unnecessary, inappropriate and somewhat bureaucratic step, and I think that she shares our desire to lift as much of the bureaucratic burden from schools as we can. I am happy to repeat the assurance given by my noble Friend Baroness Ashton in the House of Lords that the guidance that we shall publish in due course—to ensure that local authorities are clear about what the duty placed on them will mean in practice—will reinforce the importance of the designated teacher's role. We also made it clear in earlier debates that our guidance on inter-agency co-operation to improve the well-being of children will make it clear that front-line providers such as schools should be closely involved in the arrangements. In light of those arguments, I hope that the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment.
4.45 pm
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