Memorandum submitted by the Children's
Society
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Children's Society is a national
children's charity working with around 50,000 children and young
people in 90 projects across England. Our projects provide a wide
range of services in communities and work with a wide range of
children and young people including young offenders, young refugees,
disabled children and young people and children and young people
at risk on the streets. We seek to involve these children and
young people in decisions that affect their lives; to provide
opportunities for their voices to be heard and to work with them
in campaigning against the injustices that they face.
1.2 This memorandum is informed by our practice
experience, consultations with children and young people about
Every Child Matters and our policy and research.
1.3 The Children's Society responded comprehensively
to the consultation on Every Child Matters and Youth Justice:
Next Steps and we attach our Summary of Recommendations for the
Committee's information and consideration.
1.4 The Children's Society is also a leading
member of the Refugee Children's Consortium which has also made
a separate submission to the Committee's inquiry highlighting
the gaps in the Children Bill and the impact of the Every Child
Matters reforms for refugee children.
1.5 The Children's Society is a member of
the Interagency Group, that includes the Association of Directors
of Social Services, Local Government Association, Association
of Chief Education Officers, the NHS Confederation, SOLACE and
many children's charities. We have valued the opportunities to
contribute to the Green Paper consultations through that group,
and are signatories to the group's joint statements.
1.6 All references to the Children Bill
provisions relate to the Bill as it entered the House of Commons—Bill
144.
2. THE EVERY
CHILD MATTERS
AGENDA
2.1 The Children's Society welcomes the
vision for reforming children's services set out in Every Child
Matters. We commend its scope and its ambitions for improving
protection for all children. The philosophy that "Every Child
Matters" is, in itself, a landmark policy commitment for
government, because it means that each and every child, no matter
what their history or current behaviour, no matter where they
come from, or what their capacities, is a child for whom safeguarding
must be a priority.
2.2 We also greatly welcome and support
the key themes of the Green Paper:
— That the foundation upon which an
effective system for safeguarding children must be built, is the
provision of good quality, accessible, universal services for
each and every child, young person, parent and carer.
— That all policy- and decision-making,
funding, commissioning and professional practice should be coherently
focused on a common set of outcomes to be achieved for all children
and young people.
— That effective and efficient joint-working
is the key to achieving those outcomes.
— That accountability for the safeguarding
of children and young people, and for the delivery and quality
of services to which they are entitled, must be clear and robust.
2.3 In its detail, the Every Child Matters
agenda primarily offers proposals for ensuring that "every
child matters" within services for children. This is one
of the most important and most obvious places to start on a programme
of reform for children. We do not underestimate the scale of the
task if the reforms are to be achieved. However, there are other
important elements of a comprehensive strategy for children. Without
a central "vision" and set of principles for children,
many of the conflicting ways in which children can be seen and
treated by different professions and groups in society may be
perpetuated.
2.4 The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child sets a clear standard for how children should be understood,
respected and treated. We find the paucity of any reference to
children's human rights under the UN Convention conspicuous and
disappointing. The UN Convention must be the "benchmark standard"
for the work of the proposed children's commissioner, as all other
children's commissioners have found to be essential. But we would
also want to see this government, as a champion of human rights
on the international stage, actively embrace and promote a modern
vision of children in this country, as people who have human rights,
freedoms and dignity in their own right. As a signatory State
to the Convention for over 10 years, it is time the UK government
made clear its commitment to making children's rights a reality,
by tying new policy and reform for children to their rights to
protection, provision and participation. During debates on the
Children Bill, the Government rejected amendments that would have
provided this commitment across Government in statute.
3. EVERY CHILD
MATTERS?
3.1 In his introduction to the Green Paper,
Every Child Matters, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
Paul Boateng states:
"Child protection must be a fundamental
element across all public, private and voluntary organisations.
Equally we must be ambitious for all children whoever they are
and wherever they live."
One of the key tests of the new reforms must
be whether they deliver for all children. There are four areas
in particular, however, where we find the Government has failed
to identify the need and potential for more radical reform.
3.2 Every Child Matters promotes joint working,
information sharing and stronger lines of accountability based
on new duties to co-operate (clause 7), and to safeguard and promote
welfare (clause 8) but there is a distinct lack of join-up with
key agencies which puts the whole agenda at risk. In relation
to refugee children and children in trouble with the law in particular
we are concerned that the immigration and crime and disorder policies
and laws are sitting in direct contradiction to the Every Child
Matters agenda. In relation to what is happening on the ground,
some have suggested that the "zero tolerance" approaches
to management in the social housing sector and the impact of children
of the anti-social behaviour agenda are a fundamental threat to
the effective implementation of the philosophy of Every Child
Matters[38].
3.3 Refugee children: We had welcomed the
Every Child Matters agenda and understood if only by its very
title, its reforms to apply to refugee children just as much as
for any other child. However the Children Bill has disproved this
understanding. Further, Every Child Matters highlights
unaccompanied children for special attention, identifying them
as the most vulnerable children and yet the Children Bill offers
nothing by way of increased protections for those children.
3.3.1 We are extremely concerned and disappointed
that about the exclusion of critical services responsible for
the welfare and support of refugee children and their families
are excluded from the new safeguarding framework proposed by the
Children Bill and specifically from the otherwise exhaustive list
of those to whom the new duty to have regard to the need to safeguard
and promote the welfare of children in discharging their normal
functions applies in Clause 8 (Bill 144).
3.3.2 We have lobbied consistently with
the Refugee Children's Consortium for the inclusion of immigration
officers at ports of entry, managers of immigration removal (detention)
centres and the National Asylum Support Service in clause 8.Their
exclusion and the Government's refusal to move appears to run
counter to the Every Child Matters agenda and Government intentions
as set out in both the Green Paper on Children at Risk, Every
Child Matters[39]
and the recent Every Child Matters: next steps[40]
as well as Ministerial commitments given in the Lords that its
wording includes all children. The Baroness Ashton stated:
"noble Lords can rest assured that the
wording of the Bill covers all children. There are no exceptions;
noble Lords would not wish it otherwise, and neither would I."[41]
We draw the Committee's attention to the most
recent report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights which criticised
most strongly the exclusion of refugee agencies from Clause 8
and states:
"We conclude that the exclusion of immigration/asylum
agencies from the scope of the new duties and arrangements is
unjustifiable discrimination against such children on the grounds
of nationality."[42]
3.3.3 Improving access for all refugee children
(whether unaccompanied or in families) to mainstream health and
education services is essential if their needs and possible concerns
for their safety are to be identified as early as possible. Refugee
children and their families can experience difficulty registering
with GPs and, when registered, in accessing primary and specialist
health services. Because of the impact their experiences may have
had on their physical and mental health, this can have serious
and even life threatening consequences. Refugee children have
been recognised in the National Service Framework as being "children
in special circumstances", which is welcome. This recognition
should be mirrored by Local Children's Safeguarding Boards.
3.3.4 Refugee children continue to be contained
under immigration act powers. Detention centres cannot afford
children the care and protection they need, nor uphold their rights
under UK and international law, including human rights law. In
particular, detention breaches the child's rights to freedom,
to a normal social life, and to education. The impact of detention
on children cannot be underestimated. Provision for play, education
and health facilities are limited, and children suffer physically,
mentally and socially.
3.3.5 The detention of children will always
raise serious child protection concerns. Recent statistics[43],
showing a six-fold increase in the number of children detained
from December 2003 mean that now more than ever refugee children
being detained need to be protected. Safeguarding children from
harm and neglect is the principle that lies the very heart of
the Every Child Matters agenda and the detention of children flies
in the face of this aim. HMIP has raised many concerns about the
detention of children in a number of centres. HMIP recommends
that there should be an independent assessment of the welfare,
developmental and educational needs of each child in detention,
carried out as soon as practicable after detention and repeated
at regular intervals to advise on the compatibility of detention
with the welfare of the child and to inform any decision on the
necessity for detention, or continued detention[44].
In its most recent report on Oakington, this recommendation is
reinforced. This is an urgent but basic child protection measure
that the government has failed to implement.
3.4 Youth Justice: We are very pleased at
the inclusion of youth offending teams, prisons and secure training
centres in the new duty to make arrangements to safeguard and
promote the welfare of children (Clause 8) and view this as a
positive response to addressing concerns about the treatment and
care of children and young people within the criminal justice
system. However, vulnerable children have been, and continue to
be, placed in prison custody who are known to be at risk of coming
to harm there. Although they are included under the new duty,
neither Youth Offending Teams nor prisons can change decisions
on placements of children in prison custody, even where it is
evident to them that the placement is inappropriate because of
the risks faced by the child. This remains a major gap in the
safeguarding system.
3.4.1 The youth justice system (and the
prison system in particular) is one in which children have died
on an unacceptably regular basis, many more self harm, and face
on-going, serious risks to their health and well-being. A high
proportion of children and young people in trouble with the law
come into the youth justice system with histories of abuse and
neglect, suffering the consequences of systematic failures to
meet their protection and welfare needs.
3.4.2 If the "Every Child Matters"
philosophy of spreading and sharing responsibility for safeguarding
children's welfare is to be achieved, the youth justice system
must be recognised as a site of well-documented shortcomings in
respect of child protection.
"Young people in YOIs (Young Offender Institutions)
still face the gravest risks to their welfare, and this includes
those children who experience the greatest harm from bullying,
intimidation and self harming behaviour. (Para 8.19 Safeguarding
Children Department of Health 2002:72)
"The work of YOTs (Youth Offending Teams)
was detached from other services, and there was only limited evidence
that they were addressing safeguarding issues. The focus of their
work with young offenders was almost exclusively on their offending
behaviour, and did not adequately address assessing their needs
for protection and safeguarding." (Para 8.20 Safeguarding
Children Department of Health 2002:72)
3.4.3 If every child really does matter,
public and professional confidence in the child protection system
must mean that we allow no identifiable holes in the safety net
to go unaddressed. The youth justice system represents to us not
an accidental hole, but a deliberate tear in the safety net for
children and young people. The only way to address the structural
and cultural barriers to effective protection in the youth justice
system is to undertake a fundamental review of the way in which
we treat children in trouble with the law—in our response
to Youth Justice: the next steps, we provide more detail of our
recommendations.
3.4.4 The Children's Society recommends
that:
— Children's welfare and protection
should be the paramount consideration in response to all children,
including children within the youth justice system. At the very
least the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 should be amended to ensure
that the statutory aims for everyone working in the youth justice
system explicitly include the safeguarding of children's welfare.
This would bring the law in England and Wales in line with that
in Northern Ireland.
— Any young person who is at the stage
of being involved in criminal proceedings should be considered
to be a child "in need" under section 17 of the Children
Act 1989, and many are in need of protection, under section 47.
3.5 Teenagers
3.5.1 Our longstanding experience in working
with young people at risk in troubled and dangerous circumstances,
for example those who run away, has been that existing child protection
systems and practices do not generally respond as well or as rapidly
for teenagers as they do for children and infants. In many such
cases, the fact that the young person is nearing 16 means a new
referral will not be a priority for the stretched resources of
the social work teams. In some cases, the young person's own behaviour,
such as involvement in drug dealing, dependence or self harm,
are what put them at the most immediate risk, and the traditional
child protection "paradigm", which tends to focus on
abuse or neglect by a third party, can find it difficult to provide
an appropriate response.
3.5.2 We find that many young people facing
significant stress, abuse or neglect at home create their own
strategies for changing, escaping or coping with their situations.
These can include running away, living with older friends or sexual
partners, becoming pregnant, heavy drug and alcohol use, self-harm,
or even suicide. These strategies are also employed by some young
people with no background of abuse or neglect at home, but who
come to be at risk through trying to cope with stressful and emotionally
traumatic events, such as bereavement, bullying, persecution,
exile or reactions to them coming out as gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Other young people find themselves under the negative influence
of particular friends or partners, which encourages them to take
significant risks with their own health and safety. In many such
respects, the child protection system, its tools and current practices,
are poorly equipped to protect a young person whose problems do
not necessarily revolve around the quality of parenting at home.
To add to the challenges for the child protection system, many
such young people feel old enough to make the critical decisions
about their own safety, and "vote with their feet" by
disengaging from services if they do not get the responses they
need.
3.5.3 In our practical experience, statutory
responses to these risks are usually poorly thought out, are too
slow to respond to immediate risks, and consideration of mechanisms
for responding to such risks is often entirely left out of ACPC
planning. We urge the government to consider requiring Local Children's
Safeguarding Boards to pay specific and equal attention to the
safeguarding of young people, children and infants as three distinct
groups, as part of their overall remit. Safeguarding children
and young people is a much wider remit than protecting them from
familial abuse and neglect. There is an urgent need to clarify
the position of 16-17 year olds in respect of their rights to
support and protection, and how appropriate responses and resources
can be assured for them.
3.5.4 If the new Boards are to make sure
they are able to fulfil their remit for all children and young
people, we believe there is a need to look more closely into the
very wide range of risks faced, across the age spectrum, and the
diverse situations in which children and young people face those
risks. The need is to make the system fit to respond to the situations
faced by each child or young person at risk, and not to have to
find ways of making the young person's needs fit into a system
primarily focussed on protecting younger children.
3.6 Disabled children and young people
3.6.1 We welcome the current move to develop
a "change for children" programme across Government
and in the implementation of both the Every Child Matters reforms
and the National Service Framework. The integration of reforms
is of particular importance to disabled children for whom the
NSF is broadly far-reaching and positive.
3.6.2 There is no commonly agreed "definition"
of a disabled child across all agencies, neither are there agreed
methods for collecting information about the needs of disabled
children. This makes it difficult to plan for either universal
or targeted services or evaluate whether services are currently
meeting the needs of disabled children. The development of an
information hub through the establishment of information sharing
databases provides the opportunity to agree a common definition
to be used across all agencies but there is also a need for legislative
change in this area.
3.6.3 Disabled children and young people
are particularly vulnerable to abuse. We know however that abuse
of disabled children has been traditionally underestimated and
underreported[45].
The National Working Group on Child Protection and Disability[46]
recommended in 2003 that a national strategy be developed to improve
the way the child protection system works for disabled children.
The report stressed the importance of social workers being given
enough time to undertake assessments of the wishes and feelings
of disabled children:
"Existing child protection systems and
procedures often do not allow for the additional time that is
required to carry out a high quality assessment involving a disabled
child. If time is short, it is more difficult to gather information
from a number of different sources about how to ascertain the
child's "wishes and feelings".[47]
3.6.4 We welcome the new statutory rights
created by the Children Bill for children and young people to
have their wishes and feelings taken into account in assessments
of need under the Children Act (clause 45, Bill 144 and Commons
amendments 61 & 62, HL Bill 124) and child protection investigations
(Commons amendment 63, Bill 124); this will especially improve
the situation of disabled children who are least likely to be
appropriately included in decision-making.
3.6.5 In order to promote disabled children's
rights and protect them from abuse, we believe that there needs
to be explicit commitment to addressing disabling barriers and
meeting needs relating to impairment. There needs to be a more
robust approach to disabled children's entitlements under existing
legislation. For example, disabled children's entitlements to
assessment and services under the chronically Sick and Disabled
Persons Act 1970. Communication needs are more than just about
speech and language therapy. They are also about a whole range
of professionals working together to carry out comprehensive assessments
and regular reviews of communication needs, and agreements to
meet the child's needs without disputes about budgets and responsibilities.
3.6.6 Disabled children who are victims
of offences, including child abuse, often fall at the first hurdle
in terms of getting access to justice when social care professionals,
police and lawyers assume they will not make "credible"
witnesses. Unless current barriers within the criminal justice
system are tackled, resulting in successful prosecutions, such
assumptions will continue to be made. The Children's Society recommends
that government:
— require that good practice in witness
preparation, which is being carried out in a number of areas throughout
the UK, be adopted on a national basis to ensure that disabled
children and young people are properly supported to give evidence
in an effective and confident way;
— speed up the full implementation
of the guidance "Achieving Best Evidence". This is extremely
important for all children and young people, but we would highlight
the need to pay particular attention to how the special measures
can be used to assist disabled children and young people as witnesses.
3.6.7 To safeguard children placed in residential
establishments including residential schools, health establishments
and hospices, reform is needed to require local authorities to
take action to safeguard the welfare of all children for whom
they arrange care [for more than a 24 hour period] outside the
family home. All such children should be afforded the same legal
rights as looked after children and young people.
4. CHILDREN'S
COMMISSIONER
4.1 We are very concerned and disappointed
that at the time of writing the Government continues to resist
amendment to the Bill to ensure that the Children's Commissioner
is the "children's champion" promised. In Commons Standing
Committee B five references to children's rights and the provision
to support individual children were removed. This leaves the English
Commissioner without the function of "promoting and safeguarding
the rights and interests of children", which Commissioners
in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and other European countries
have. The Children's Minister has now replaced this with "promoting
awareness of the views and interests of children". This exceptionally
narrow function has led the President of the European Network
of Ombudspeople for Children to write to the Children's Minister
explaining that it is unlikely England's Commissioner will be
eligible to join the Network.
4.2 In its recent report the Joint Committee
on Human Rights verdict on the amendments that were made in the
House of Lords was to state:
"Part 1 of the Bill provides a statutory
framework which has a good chance of establishing an office which
can help to achieve the aim of making the interests of the child
a primary concern in the work of the agencies of the state. We
believe Part 1 as it stands, provides, for the most part, the
basis for what can be seen as a genuinely independent children's
commissioner."[48]
4.3 With the Government intention to overturn
the amendments to Part 1, it is of huge concern that the Bill
will no longer provide the necessary framework to make the Commissioner
an independent human rights institution as the JCHR suggests:
"The work of the Commissioner should be
to help make a reality the work of Article 3.1 of the CRC . .
. The Commissioner will make scant progress towards that goal
unless he or she operates in a strategic way, mainstreaming awareness
of the rights, views and interests of children through the whole
of the public sector and beyond."[49]
5. INFORMATION
SHARING
5.1 The Children's Society supports the
general aim of improving information sharing between agencies.
We support the principle that problems and concerns should be
identified and responded to as early as possible. We believe that
it is good practice to share information appropriately with other
agencies where this is necessary and beneficial for the protection
of the child. We also recognise (and experience) the problems
caused by the diversity of practice and understanding about how
and when to share information, and we agree that this can and
often does act as a barrier to the effective protection of children.
5.2 Any system that aims to identify children's
needs and problems early, and to ensure effective multi-agency
working to protect children, will always rely on the quality of
professional practice, awareness and judgement being employed,
and the prompt delivery of the services and help that will actually
improve the child's situation. We emphasise this because we feel
there is a risk that the proposals are aiming to work the other
way round—ie that a new information sharing system will
itself bring improved multi-agency child protection practice.
We believe that there are significant risks in such an approach.
5.3 We are very disappointed and concerned
that the Children Bill is returning to the Lords without any amendment
to the provisions for the establishment of an information sharing
database in clause 9. This clause is the enabling power for the
implementation of the information sharing hub identified in the
Green Paper. It gives the Secretary of State wide-ranging powers
to require a number of bodies, including the new children's service
authorities, to establish and maintain databases of information
about children and young people
5.4 The databases are intended to facilitate
information sharing between professionals and to ensure appropriate
delivery of services to children and young people. We are broadly
supportive of the need to improve information sharing to ensure
that children are better safeguarded, but we remain concerned
about the type of information to be recorded and in particular
the recording of a "cause for concern" (clause 9(4)(g)
and the lack of professional discretion about when to record information,
particularly in relation to "sensitive services".
5.5. The Bill has proceeded without the
detail of how these two issues are to be addressed. The Government
refused to amend the Bill to address them but a commitment was
made on the 5 July to consult on these matters. The long-awaited
consultation document was finally produced on 27 October[50]
and whilst we welcome it we are very concerned about the contradiction
being created between statute and the Government's stated intentions
in the consultation and the apparent disregard that the Government
is demonstrating for the importance and impact of statute. The
views expressed in the consultation document would appear to reinforce
our position that the Bill is in need of amendment.
5.6 Clause 9(4) sets out the information
that those agencies listed in Clause 9(7)(f) will be required
to disclose, including "information as to the existence of
any cause for concern" (clause 9(4)(g)). Agencies will be
obliged to provide all of the information listed. Our concern
is that the clause establishes a new legal term without establishing
its meaning and then consulting about whether or not this is the
right term to use. The Government consultation document contains
questions about how cause for concern can be defined and specifically
asks the question:
"Is there any better terminology that could
be used to describe the indicator a practitioner puts on a child's
record, rather than a `concern'?"[51]
5.7 Subsection (7) of Clause 9, in conjunction
with subsection (6)(b) creates a statutory requirement on a range
of listed persons or bodies to disclose information for inclusion
on the database. There is no caveat or exception to this requirement
in the Bill itself. The long list of agencies that would be required
to share information includes services concerned with children's
education, health, social care and offending behaviour.
5.8 During the Standing Committee debate
the Minister rejected the need for professional judgement and
the discretion for them to be able to make decisions about the
wisdom and safety of disclosing details to the database[52].
The Government consultation document released on 27 October[53]
appears to contradict this message, by indicating the Government's
"initial" intentions to rely on professional judgement
about the best interests of the child to inform decisions on disclosure[54].
However we understand the Bill itself rules out such discretion
by permitting no exceptions for the agencies who are "required"
to share information.
5.9 The Bill does not mention or provide
for an individual's consent to information sharing, nor does it
establish that the best interests of the child should be the basis
for professional judgement on whether or not to disclose. Moreover,
the fundamental difference between the statement of the Minister,
and the intentions outlined in the consultation give rise to genuine
confusion, and require urgent clarification.
5.10 A blanket policy of required disclosure
may itself put some children at risk, and we are concerned about
the impact on children's access to essential but sensitive services
that automatic notification to the database may have. The engagement
of the child with the service they most need may be the single
most effective means of achieving a safe and healthy outcome for
the child—their need to get that help, in confidence, must
therefore be allowed to take priority over a blanket legal requirement
to share information on a database.
6. SHARED OUTCOMES
FOR CHILDREN
6.1 We welcome proposals in the Bill to
create a statutory framework of five outcomes for improving the
well-being of children. As the Bill is currently drafted the outcomes
are proposed as the framework for planning and accountability
for the new children's' services authorities (clause 7(2)).
6.2 Most of the outcomes are expressed as
conditions experienced by children, with the exception of the
fourth outcome (2)(d) which is defined as "the contribution
made by them to society" The critical question remains as
to how the outcomes will be made meaningful as a means of monitoring
and accounting for activity. There is a need for clarity about
how the five outcomes for children will be measured and how it
will be ensured that children and young people's views and experiences
are at the heart of any evaluation. If the success over time of
improvements in children's services is to be measured in terms
of "the lived experience" of children, then children
and young people's own accounts of their quality of life, and
their satisfaction with the services they receive, must be at
the heart of a consistent approach to measuring the outcomes.
6.3 Children and young people we work with
have suggested two additional outcomes: "being treated equally"
and "being listened to and taken seriously". These build
in core elements of what every child should be entitled to expect,
and what our joint efforts as professionals should strive to achieve.
6.4 Being treated equally is to reflect
the priority to be attached to the eradication of discrimination
and prejudice, and their damaging impact on children and young
people. Assessing whether policy and other activities ignore,
reinforce or tackle discrimination is an important indicator of
their "safety" for all children.
6.5 Children and young people have emphasised
that their ability and opportunity to participate (reflected in
the outcome of "the contribution made by them to society")
is only one half of the equation and suggest that being listened
to and taken seriously is an outcome in itself, and would mark
a major cultural change, if all children and young people, no
matter how young, or how they communicate, are actually listened
to and taken seriously by adults.
7. EQUAL PROTECTION
FROM VIOLENCE
FOR CHILDREN
7.1 The Children's Society is a member of
the Children Are Unbeatable! Alliance which has been campaigning
for a change to the law since 1998. We are hugely disappointed
that the Government has chosen not to provide equality in law
for protection from violence for children. The amendment (Clause
49) introduced at Lords Report stage by the Lord Lester, at best
does not go far enough and at worst entrenches in law discrimination
of children by preventing them from having equal protection from
physical violence. The amendment simply restricts use of places
the current common law defence (confirmed by statute in the Children
& Young Person's Act 1933), that children can be physically
assaulted if it can be shown that it was in the pursuit of punishment
of the child, (or "reasonable chastisement") to situations
where actual bodily harm is not caused. The Joint Committee on
Human Rights has concluded that in its retention of the defence,
Clause 56 is incompatible with the UK's obligations under the
UNCRC[55].
Removing the defence would send out a clear message that children
are equal in law, would make it easier for children to identify
abusive behaviour towards them and would set a clear standard
for the care of children to be supported by public education and
support for parents.
8. CONCLUSION
8.1 As the Children Bill is about to receive
Royal Assent, the focus must turn to implementation. We can only
hope that implementation will go some way to plugging the gaps
left by the lack of statutory movement on the key areas we have
identified. We would urge some caution in the implementation process
about moving too soon and too fast at the risk of ensuring the
meaningful or lasting change envisaged and required.
November 2004
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39
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Hansard House of Lords Official Report, Vol 660 No 77, Tuesday
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42
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Nineteenth Report of Session,
2003-04, HL Paper 161, HC 537, para 97. Back
43
Home Office show that on 26 June 2004 Home Office Asylum Statistics:
2nd Quarter 2004. Back
44
An Inspection of Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre, October
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45
Morris J, [1999] Disabled Children, Child Protection Systems
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46
Co-chaired by the Council for Disabled Children and the NSPCC. Back
47
Morris, J (ed) (2003) "It doesn't happen to disabled
children", Child protection and disabled children. NSPCC,
pages 36-37. Back
48
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Children Bill, Nineteenth Report
of Session 2003-04, HL Paper 161, HC 537, para 58. Back
49
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Children Bill, Nineteenth Report
of Session 2003-04, HL Paper 161, HC 537, para 58. Back
50
Information Sharing Databases in Children's Services: consultation
on recording practitioner details for potentially sensitive services
and recording concerns about a young person, DfES, 27 October
2004. Back
51
Para 3.29, Information Sharing Databases in Children's Services:
consultation on recording practitioner details for potentially
sensitive services and recording concerns about a young person,
DfES, 27 October 2004. Back
52
Hansard Col 263, Standing Committee on the Children Bill, 21
October 2004. Back
53
Information Sharing Databases in Children's Services: consultation
on recording practitioner details for potentially sensitive services
and recording concern about a young person, DfES, 27 October 2004. Back
54
Para 1.5, "DfES: Information Sharing Databases in Children's
Services: consultation on recording practitioner details for potentially
sensitive services and recording concern about a child or young
person." Released 27 October 2004. Back
55
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Nineteenth Report of Session
2003-04, Children Bill, HL Paper 161, HC 537. Back
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