Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


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


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2005
Prepared 14 April 2005