Memorandum submitted by the NSPCC
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The National Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is the UK's leading charity specialising
in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children.
The NSPCC's purpose is to end cruelty to children. We seek to
achieve cultural, social and political change—influencing
legislation, policy, practice, attitudes and behaviours for the
benefit of children and young people. This is achieved through
a combination of service provision, lobbying, campaigning and
public education. The NSPCC has more than 180 teams and projects
around the UK.
1.2 This submission is a summary of the
NSPCC's view of the Government's Every Child Matters programme.
It is set out below in sections that correspond with the terms
of reference of the inquiry as given in the Education and Skills
Committee press notice. It focuses particularly on issues left
outstanding from the Children Bill and sets out a number of issues
we would like to see considered further. These are summarised
at the end of the response.
2. THE PLACE
OF HEALTH,
SOCIAL SERVICES
AND EDUCATION
RESPECTIVELY WITHIN
INTEGRATED SERVICES
2.1 The NSPCC believes that every organisation
working with children, or whose work brings them into regular
contact with children, must give priority to safeguarding and
promoting the welfare of children, ensure that it can safeguard
and promote the welfare of children, and have a strategy in place
for this. It is imperative that the implementation of the strategy
is endorsed, actively supported, and if necessary, enforced by
the leadership of the organisation; that there is an identified
person who is accountable for implementation; and that the resources
necessary for implementation are made available.
2.2 Early intervention is essential, but
children at serious risk today need effective protection. It is
not clear how child protection will surface as a priority within
the systems proposed in the Every Child Matters programme.
At a minimum, each agency must be committed to protecting children
as a pre-condition of effective joint working. Effective inter-agency
protection starts with each agency having in place its own safeguarding
and welfare promotion strategy and implementing it with commitment
and determination. A more comprehensive integrated approach can
then be taken forward from this base.
2.3 The Children Bill does not provide a
framework which appropriately aligns the roles of health, social
services and education within integrated services. While health,
education and social services will be under a duty to co-operate
at a strategic level, service providers at an operational level
are not under a duty to co-operate so the mechanisms for achieving
integrated services at the frontline are unclear. Partners must
make plans for co-operation arrangements, and education and social
services are to be jointly planned under Children's Services Authorities
(CSAs), but joint planning of children's health services is not
explicit in the Bill. We are concerned that the Bill does not
facilitate effectively cross sector bodies to pool funds, integrate
staff team and facilities within a defined legal framework that
enables joint planning, commissioning and inspection. It is difficult
to see how integrated services will be planned, commissioned and
achieved, or what requirements integrated services will be inspected
against, or how strategy for workforce development across agencies
can be provided for. The Committee should explore this in the
inquiry.
2.4 The NSPCC supports the Government's
intention to develop schools as the hub for services for children
and families, and provide children with easily accessible services
designed around their needs. This would allow for the school's
safeguarding and welfare responsibilities to be met, by ensuring
pupils and their parents have access to a range of support services.
2.5 The National Service Framework (NSF)
for Children, Young People and Maternity Services introduces safeguarding
as one of its five core standards. However, sufficient resources
must be made available to realise it fully and the Government
must be clear on what the performance indicators are for this
standard.
3. THE PRACTICAL
IMPLICATIONS OF
THE "DUTY
TO COLLABORATE",
INCLUDING THE
EFFECT ON
FUNDING STREAMS
AND LOCATION
OF STAFF
AND FACILITIES
3.1 It is important that multi-disciplinary
teams are established to bring together professionals from all
the local agencies—social services, health, education and
the police—responsible for the assessment of and investigation
into children's welfare. The NSPCC believes that multi-disciplinary
teams are needed to handle individual cases, carry out needs-led
assessments and refer children and families to counselling, family
support and therapeutic services.
3.2 The Every Child Matters Green
Paper proposed that the most effective way of safeguarding and
promoting the welfare of children is to put in place preventative
services, intervene early where children are at risk, and develop/enhance
effective protection services. The Government was clear that these
systems require professionals to work in multi-disciplinary teams
based in and around schools and Children's Centres, providing
a rapid response to the concerns of frontline teachers, childcare
workers and others in universal services. The proposals in the
Children Bill do not achieve this. The Bill does not make it a
legal requirement for service providers to co-operate and work
together to improve children's well-being. It states that strategic
bodies such as children's services authorities, police authorities
and primary care trusts work as partners to make arrangements
to promote co-operation, and set up a "children's trust approach".
Without a legal requirement to operationalise these strategic
arrangements we do not believe the aims of Every Child Matters
will be realised.
3.3 There is real evidence of multi-disciplinary
teams in the Government's programme through the replacement of
Area Child Protection Committees (ACPCs) with Local Safeguarding
Children Boards (LSCBs), which are very welcome, as well as the
new requirement for strategic organisations to co-operate to improve
well-being. Proposals for a Common Assessment Framework and information
sharing (addressed below) may also enhance co-operation, but they
do not amount to multi-disciplinary teams. The Government says
their goal is to move towards multi-disciplinary teams but it
is not clear what the mechanisms would be for introducing them
at an operational level, without a duty to co-operate on service
delivery agencies. We believe that exhortation alone is insufficient
to bring about the change necessary to safeguard children effectively.
3.4 The NSPCC welcomes the proposed screening
groups to be established under the functions of Local Safeguarding
Children Boards (LSCBs) to investigate and review child deaths.
However, the proposed remit of LSCBs goes beyond that of the current
Area Child Protection Committee (ACPC) system. The role of screening
groups is a new burden. In the Committee stage debate in the House
of Lords, the Minister gave assurances that the Government would
cover extra costs under the new burdens procedure.[1]
The Government must be held to this commitment because, unless
specific funding is provided, it is likely to be very difficult
to create the thorough review and investigation systems that are
required. LSCBs must be adequately resourced to fulfil all their
functions (including screening groups) and they should be able
to influence safeguarding planning either through review and amendment
of children's services plans or by producing safeguarding plans
themselves.
3.5 We welcome the proposal for extended
schools and co-location of services as a way of improving access
by children and families. We are keen to see these services provide
someone to turn to—a trusted, safe, professional adult—for
every child to ensure any problems or difficulties they may have
can be considered at the earliest opportunity.
3.6 It is important to recognise that it
will be difficult for co-located services to engage with some
children and families, in particular where parents and their children
have had negative experiences of education or social services
intervention. We suggest that co-located services should include
partnerships with family support and therapeutic services to ensure
that contact is developed and maintained with these families.
The key principle is flexibility, and the need to design services—including
where they are located—in consultation with both parents
and children and young people. Such services are more likely to
be used when they have been designed with users' needs in mind.
It is also vital that children and families are able to self-refer
into these services as this has a significant impact on the outcomes
of the process.
3.7 Any service development that considers
the development of co-located services should also look at work
with children who have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.
This work should complement any health and social care intervention
schemes, such as counselling and listening schemes and other therapeutic
services. There is much research that demonstrates how emotional
and behaviour problems, risk-taking behaviour and many barriers
to learning are linked into early maltreatment experiences, and
we are currently undertaking research to build up an understanding
of how such experiences create these behaviours.
4. STAFF AND
MANAGEMENT NEEDS:
TEAM-BUILDING,
LEADERSHIP AND
TRAINING
4.1 The Government has stated its intention
to establish a workforce which is properly skilled and adequately
resourced through proposals for pay reviews, recruitment campaigns,
new training routes, common core training, workload surveys and
leadership development programmes. Children need consistent and
stable relationships with social workers and other professionals
who work with/care for them. The current reliance on agency staff
can prevent stable relationships forming and can be a barrier
to team-building. There is not only the need to properly skill
and adequately resource the current workforce but also a need
to recruit and retain more staff. This will require a substantial
and sustained investment. The scale of investment required cannot
be underestimated and should be of central concern.
4.2 The Government (or possibly the Committee
in conjunction with the Health Committee) should undertake not
just a pay review but also a review of the amount of money spent
on agency staff (social workers, nurses, teachers, doctors) to
assess the impact of this on social care, health care and education
of children, including the limitations that agency working often
places on the role in question. Consideration should be given
as to why professionals choose to work in this way, with a view
to changing pay and conditions of those directly employed by the
statutory sector.
4.3 The NSPCC welcomes proposals for common
core training for all those who work with children and families.
All staff need a basic set of skills to do this, and shared training
is a good way of getting people to work together. However, it
is essential that, before undertaking joint training, staff should
have a clear understanding of child protection within their own
professional practice and their responsibilities in this regard.
For example, there is a need for additional resources to ensure
that teachers and early years workers are adequately trained in
this regard. The NSPCC is currently involved in developing multi-disciplinary
training materials for safeguarding children, through our EduCare
programmes.
4.4 It is vital that the complexity of child
protection work is fully recognised. Minimum training requirements
and performance standards should be established for social work
managers who are responsible for supervising childcare practice.
These should address both the supervision skills and the specialist
professional knowledge required for child protection decision-making.
4.4 The NSPCC is also working in partnership
with Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) to create a programme
of training for council lead members on children's services, which
every council must have under provisions in the Children Bill.
It is essential that council lead members have a full understanding
of child protection issues.
4.5 As mentioned above, the NSPCC believes
that all organisations involved with children must have a safeguarding
strategy in place and give this the necessary priority within
the organisation. It is imperative that the implementation of
the strategy is endorsed, actively supported, and if necessary,
enforced by the leadership of the organisation; that there is
an identified person who is accountable for implementation; and
that the resources and training necessary for implementation are
made available.
5. INSPECTION
5.1 The NSPCC supports an integrated inspection
framework and an approach to inspection that tracks an individual
child through the system and radiates out from the child to look
at the services s/he has been in contact with. In this respect,
however, this may not just include children's services. The inspection
framework needs to be mindful of adult services, particularly
mental health, domestic violence and substance misuse services,
which are not directly received by the child but do have an impact
through their work with the child's carer. The NSF has stressed
that should be fully recognised. Compliance with this should be
monitored through inspection.
5.2 Through the Children Bill, the Government
has proposed new duties on a range of partners to co-operate and
to establish arrangements to safeguard and promote welfare of
children, as well as a new duty on local authorities to promote
educational achievement of looked after children. The Government
has consistently argued that inspection will be a key lever to
encourage closer co-operation and joint working. Therefore, the
NSPCC would like to see a greater emphasis in the Comprehensive
Performance Assessment (CPA) to reflect an authority's standards
relating to child protection and welfare, and the well-being and
educational attainment of looked after children.
5.3 Furthermore, we believe there should
be inspection and analysis of the partnership rather than just
its component parts through integrated assessment, because under
the proposals in the Children Bill for a children and young people's
plan, an excellent-rated Children's Services Authority does not
have to produce plan even if other service providers (eg health)
standards are not good. The value of joint area reviews/inspections
should be evaluated against the whole of children's services not
just the component parts.
5.4 Throughout the passage of the Children
Bill, the Government resisted attempts to have a duty to co-operate
applied directly to schools and other service providers but agreed
that schools will be a vital part of the agenda. The NSPCC is
concerned that, with increasing autonomy for schools (through
the Government's five year strategy and changes in the relationships
between schools and LEAs), it will be difficult to tie in those
schools who are unwilling to play a part. The Minister again suggested
that inspection could be a useful tool in ensuring schools were
part of the Every Child Matters agenda, and suggested that
the Government could "use tools such as amending the legal
framework for school inspections to take account of the [new]
duties".[2]
The NSPCC would like confirmation from the Government if and when
any such amendment of the schools inspection framework would take
place.
6. LISTENING
TO CHILDREN;
THE ROLE
OF THE
CHILDREN'S
COMMISSIONER
6.1 Children have no vote and therefore
no political voice of their own. They play no significant part
in the political processes that impact so greatly on their lives.
They are often invisible in government structures and their concerns
go unheard. The Commissioner should act as a voice for children
and ensure that their needs and concerns are both heard and acted
upon.
6.2 However, the NSPCC is disappointed at
the likely final shape of the legislation establishing a Children's
Commissioner, provided for by the Children Bill. The Government's
decision during Standing Committee to remove references to "rights"
from Clause 2 of the Bill only gives the Children's Commissioner
a function of "promoting awareness of the views and interests"
of children. This function was heavily criticised by the Joint
Committee on Human Rights, and is in contrast to the much stronger
proposals resulting from cross-party amendments in the Lords which
would have given the Commissioner the function of "promoting
and safeguarding the rights and interests" of children. This
latter definition would have been in line with the remit of the
other UK and European Commissioners.
6.3 The NSPCC also has concerns about the
power of the Secretary of State to direct the Commissioner to
undertake an inquiry (provided for by Clause 4 of the Children
Bill). The Government has given assurances that they foresee this
being used only in cases of extreme significance. However, the
Secretary of State under existing powers can already convene such
an inquiry, and the Commissioner has the power to undertake inquiries
himself under Clause 3. Therefore, Clause 4 is unnecessary and
sends an alarming message about the Commissioner's lack of independence.
The question marks over independence and the limited function
of the Commissioner legislation has even led the President of
the European Network of Ombudspeople for Children to suggest that
the Commissioner would not be eligible to join the network.
6.4 The NSPCC remains concerned about the
role of the Commissioner regarding children in other parts of
the UK in relation to non-devolved matters. As the Bill now stands
there is potential for a great deal of confusion for children
in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as to who will represent
their interests. It is not clear how the Commissioner will be
best placed to listen to children in Wales, Scotland and Northern
Ireland on non-devolved matters, even when considering this at
the most basic level of the linguistic challenges this will pose.
The Commissioner may well need offices in these countries as well
as an English office and this will necessarily require extra resources.
The Government's thinking on these matters was not made clear
in the passage of the Children Bill and requires further clarification.
The various Commissioners are independent, non-decision-making
bodies so it is difficult to understand why they should be constrained
by the devolution settlement.
6.5 The NSPCC sincerely hopes that the limiting
shape of the legislation will not restrict the role of the Commissioner.
Pending the final shape of the legislation, the Committee should
review the ability of the Commissioner to undertake the key roles
outlined below that the NSPCC believes the Commissioner should
have:
6.6 To be an advocate for children—The
Commissioner should be a voice for children and their views should
be sought to inform all of his or her work. The Commissioner should
monitor the effectiveness of complaints procedures for children,
oversee arrangements for children's advocacy, examine "whistle
blowing" procedures, and undertake investigations in matters
of principle, where there is concern that children's rights are
not being respected.
6.7 To influence policy and practice—The
Commissioner should monitor all legislation and must be consulted
on proposed legislation to ensure that the needs and interests
of children are met. The Commissioner should also monitor the
practice of public agencies and make recommendations for changes
in policy and practice to better meet the needs of children, such
as in the provision of services provided by local authorities,
health authorities and courts.
6.8 To oversee, review and examine child
protection arrangements—The NSPCC also believe the Children's
Commissioner would have some specific child protection functions,
such as to:
— Oversee and collate information on
child death reviews.
— Oversee or carry out inquiries into
major child abuse and child death scandals.
— Examine the adequacy of public agencies'
practices in terms of their responsibilities for children (eg
child protection reporting procedures in schools, accident and
emergency reporting protocols and employee vetting procedures).
6.9 To undertake and commission research—The
Commissioner should identify gaps in current research on matters
affecting children, undertake or commission research to fill the
gaps and make recommendations for improvements. For example, looking
at best practice in the collection of data and statistics on all
issues affecting children, and in particular the extent and nature
of child maltreatment.
7. WORKING WITH
PARENTS
7.1 The NSPCC welcomes the recognition given
to the important influence of parenting, and the quality of the
parent-child relationship, on children, and the inclusion of "Supporting
Parents and Carers" as core standard 2 in the NSF. If the
aim of creating "more and better universal services, open
to all families as and when they need them", is realised,
then both children's and parents' lives should be significantly
improved. However, this will require significant and sustained
investment. Additional resources must be allocated to the parenting
fund to realise these aims and more effort should be put into
helping parents understands how their child develops, for example
through preparation for parenthood as a core/mandatory part of
the national curriculum in schools.
7.2 Compulsory action with parents and families.
The NSPCC recognises that in extreme cases services will sometimes
need to employ compulsory measures to help parents to fulfil their
parenting role. However, we believe that such compulsion should
be a last resort, and that universal services should be substantially
improved and widely available to support parents at a much earlier
stage, before problems with their children become so severe as
to require such compulsion.
7.3 Private fostering. The Every Child Matters
programme and the Children Bill have done little to address the
issue of private fostering arrangements, despite Lord Laming's
recommendations in the Victoria Climbié Inquiry. The Children
Bill proposes to create registration of private fostering arrangements
only if an enhanced notification scheme is deemed to be inadequate
in four years time. The NSPCC believes statutory provision should
be made to ensure better protection for children in private fostering
arrangements, and regrets that the opportunity was not taken in
the Children Bill. The legal definition of private fostering should
be clarified to ensure that children living away from their home
in various circumstances are safeguarded. The current legal definition
excludes some family members and not others, and also fails to
define parental responsibility within the context of private fostering.
The Committee should seek information from the Government on exactly
how it proposes to evaluate the notification scheme during the
"sunset" period provided for by the Children Bill.
7.4 Legal framework. The NSPCC is disappointed
that the legal framework governing family relationship was not
adequately addressed in the Children Bill. The NSPCC believes
that the law must be amended to give children better protection,
and to create genuine "cohesiveness of Government policy
on children and young people". The NSPCC would like to see
the law amended to give children the same rights to protection
from assault as adults. The NSPCC believes that if society is
serious about wanting to reduce the number of children who are
severely abused then it must create a culture in which children
are respected and treated as equal citizens with rights of their
own, not as adjuncts of their parents. The proposals on reasonable
punishment in the Children Bill attempt to legally define ways
in which children can continue to be hit. The proposals are unjust,
unworkable and send an alarming message that violence towards
children is acceptable. Any change in the law must be accompanied
by extensive public education on positive parenting and more support
for parents.
8. THE CREATION,
MANAGEMENT AND
SHARING OF
RECORDS, INCLUDING
ELECTRONIC DATABASES
8.1 The NSPCC believes that it is in children's
interests to share routinely only a limited amount of objective
and factual information about them. This would allow professionals
and agencies involved to be sure that a child has access to universal
services and that practitioners know whom else to contact when
there are important issues to discuss about a child's welfare
or safety.
8.2 Information sharing is important but
it is not a panacea. Information sharing needs to be selective
to avoid information overload and to respect human rights. For
example, where there are concerns for a child's safety information
must be shared without reservation, but in most cases the need
to share information has to be balanced against a child's rights
to privacy and family life. Information should only be shared
about a child where it is demonstrably in the child's best interests
to do so.
8.3 The NSPCC has concerns about the routine
sharing of subjective and unsupported judgements concerning children,
or "any cause for concern" provided for in the Children
Bill currently before Parliament. The phrase "cause for concern"
is not one that is widely recognised in the childcare professions
or one that has any definition in the Children Bill or any other
legislation. The Government has just released a consultation on
this issue, which asks, "is there any better terminology
that could be used . . . rather than "concern"?"[3]
We are pleased to see this question being raised during the consultation
process. However, we are concerned about the establishment of
a new legal term and threshold in statute that may be altered
or replaced following consultation.
8.4 Agencies must be allowed to retain the
discretion not to disclose information where to do so would be
detrimental to the child. Sensitive services such as drug services
and sexual health services should be permitted to make professional
judgements about whether to disclose or not in cases where perhaps
to do so would result in the disengagement of the child with any
service at all. The Government has offered a similar view in the
consultation document recently released on information databases.
However, the NSPCC is concerned that the Children Bill itself
makes no such allowance and that requiring the disclosure of information
by statute overrides the essential need for professional judgement
to be applied to decisions about the safety and wisdom of disclosure
where sensitive services are involved.
8.5 The NSPCC believes that Information
Sharing and Assessment (ISA) systems can only work if the information
they contain is objective, factual and of high quality. Children's
services authorities will be stretched enough in ensuring that
the basic details of children in these systems are correct. Government
IT projects have been much criticised in recent years. Databases
must be kept as simple as possible to prevent scarce resources,
which might otherwise be used to support vulnerable children and
their families, being used to support poorly designed IT systems.
8.6 The Committee should consider, either
alongside or in light of the consultation, the role of professional
judgement and the recording of "concerns" in information
sharing systems.
8.7 In light of the criticisms of Government
IT projects over many years, the development of information databases
should be open and transparent, and carefully monitored.
9. SUMMARY OF
ISSUES FOR
FURTHER CONSIDERATION
— The Committee should investigate
not just the respective roles of health, social services and education
within integrated services but how such integration can be achieved
within the legal framework of the Children Bill. (para 2.3).
— What will be the performance indicators
against the safeguarding core standard of the NSF and how will
sufficient resources be allocated to realise this standard? (para
2.5).
— How will the duty to co-operate be
fully realised at an operational as opposed to a strategic level?
What will the mechanisms be for introducing multi-disciplinary
teams at an operational level without a duty to co-operate on
frontline service providers? (para 3.3).
— Will Local Safeguarding Children
Boards (LSCBs) be adequately resourced, and what will their role
be in influencing safeguarding planning in children's services
and partner agencies? (para 3.4).
— There is a need for substantial and
sustained investment to create a properly skilled and adequately
resourced workforce. There is a particular need to review further
the impact of agency working on the various professions and services.
What are the effects on provision of stable relationships for
children and on team-building? (paras 4.1, 4.2).
— Joint training is necessary but professionals
must have an understanding of the role of child protection in
their areas and be clear on their responsibilities before this
can take place. How will child protection training be adequately
resourced across all professions involved? (para 4.3).
— How will the inspection framework
take account of adult services that have an impact on the child
via his/her carer? (para 5.1).
— How will reviews and inspections
evaluate the partnership as a whole rather than just the various
component parts of children's services? (para 5.3).
— Will the schools inspection framework
be amended to take account of the extent to which schools co-operate?
(para 5.4).
— Pending the final shape of the legislation
on the Children's Commissioner, the Committee should consider
the ability of the Commissioner to carry out the key roles of
being an advocate for children, influencing policy and practice,
undertaking and commissioning research. (paras 6.50-6.54).
— How will the Government evaluate
the notification scheme during the "sunset" period provided
for by the Children Bill? (para 7.3).
— The Committee should consider, either
alongside or in light of the consultation, the role of professional
judgement and the recording of "concerns" in information
sharing systems. (para 8.6).
— How will the development of information
databases be monitored? (para 8.7).
November 2004
1 Hansard, HL Deb, Vol 661, col 1176, 24 May
2004. Back
2
Hansard, HC Standing Committee B, col 174, 19 October
2004. Back
3
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, DfES, 27
October 2004, para 3.29. Back
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