Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 270)
MONDAY 10 JANUARY 2005
MR NIGEL
WILLIAMS, MR
PETER CLARKE
AND PROFESSOR
KATHLEEN MARSHALL
Q260 Chairman: I only ask because
you seem to get on so well that you could not possibly have been!
Mr Williams: Having said that,
I resigned my membership on taking up this position, just to emphasise
the very point that Kathleen made of complete independence.
Q261 Paul Holmes: You have networked
informally and learned from each other but you have not had to
formally work together although that will change because of the
overlapping of the jurisdiction of the English Commissioner. We
have already covered a lot of the issues about the overlap in
jurisdiction but I would just like to clarify one or two things.
Are you saying that in the areas like criminal justice, social
security and refugee issues that affect children, you have taken
those on board in your respective parts of the UK but once the
English Commissioner is in place you will not be able to do so
any more?
Mr Clarke: Having done it for
four years, for instance I have taken up cases of individual refugee
and asylum seeker children, juvenile justice cases and the rest.
The Act, as it stood prior to the recent Children Act, said that
I could do that through two routes, I could either go direct to
the Wales Office, and hence to the UK Parliament, or through the
Assembly, but I tend to go for whatever is the shortest. The advent
of the English Commissioner will add another route because none
of the actors remove my power to do that. Potentially in that
sense, if we get it worked out, it could be a route that could
be better. I am not clear and I am not aware whether or not the
English Commissioner can actually delegate part of their powers
to us under agreement and that is something we will want to explore
with them.
Q262 Paul Holmes: The Children's
Minister has said all this worry about the overlap in jurisdiction
is not that important, you can just sit down and sort it out between
yourselves. Is it going to be as easy as that?
Mr Clarke: I genuinely do not
know. Certainly, I have stopped commenting publicly since the
Act was passed because I thought we are now in phase two where
it has happened, all my whingeing is over and it is now time to
move on and make it work, and that is still my general orientation,
that is what I am intending to do now. We will find out whether
we can make it work well and, if not, I think it would be our
collective duty to say there are still some residual problems
that need sorting out.
Mr Williams: It is absolutely
right that we will seek to try to make this work. I am confident
that as people with the best interests of children at heart, we
will try and find the best solution. I suppose an occasion like
today highlights the concerns that we have had about how it may
work and, therefore, we go into this with our eyes wide open.
There are certain issues that we are concerned about but we will
try to find the best possible way around those. Just to respond
to your previous question to Peter, the position from me in relation
to the kinds of powers that you described is that those authorities
are not designated within my legislation so the Home Office is
not designated as the authority for immigration and asylum and
so on. I cannot get involved in instigating an inquiry, I simply
have an advocacy role. There have been cases where I have written
on behalf of a child or highlighted an issue that I would like
the Home Office to think about dealing with, but I cannot get
involved in investigating that in detail.
Professor Marshall: Can I just
add that criminal justice is devolved in Scotland so that certainly
falls within my remit, which again shows the complexities of what
overlaps and what does not. As regards the other matters that
are reserved to Westminster, I have always been very clear about
the fact that it is matters that are reserved, not children. My
focus is on children and young people in Scotland and I feel I
have a very clear advocacy role safeguarding and promoting their
rights and I do not think anything is going to affect that. As
the others have said, obviously I would regard the English Commissioner
as being a very early port of call on any issues or on matters
that are reserved to Westminster.
Mr Williams: The other thing to
add is that there are things that affect the children that happen
outside the UK for children who have a very strong connection
in relation to one particular area of the UK. I have had the case
of a child caught up in a custody battle in the United States
where it was born in Northern Ireland and one of the parents was
from Northern Ireland, where we sought to make some representations
in that case even though it is technically outwith our responsibility.
Q263 Paul Holmes: The organisational
details and the support structure of the English Commissioner
has not been settled yet. Nigel talked about the benefit of learning
from Peter's experience and Kathleen said she benefited from looking
at both previous examples, what would you recommend from the three
different experiences now for the English system as to how it
should be organised?
Mr Williams: I would recommend
that in relation to the work programme that the Commissioner is
going to undertake that they do some exercise near the beginning
of their term to try to establish in a broad sense what the agenda
is going to be and what the concerns are of children and young
people on issues that are not currently being dealt with in a
way that meets their concerns. The Commissioner does have to take
account of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child so I would
encourage that they use that to inform them overall of the issues.
I think it is important to get that overall perspective, because
there is a danger, as Commissioners, that we can be blown about
a little bit by the issue of the moment because the media inevitably,
now that there is a Children Commissioner, if an issue comes up
affecting children, will not just go to the individual MP in whose
constituency it happened, they will not go just to the Minister
for Children and the Government, they will go to the Commissioner
and say "what do you think about this?" It would be
easy, if you are not careful, for the media to dictate the agenda
rather than the children and young people you are trying to assist.
That would be my major piece of advice.
Professor Marshall: Given that
there is such a great focus on the views of young people in the
English legislation, as indeed there is in mine, I have been concerned
to map out what is already existing and trying not to re-invent
the wheel. Given that, for example, both in English and Scottish
legislation as well, I am not sure about the others, it talks
about paying particular attention to those who have difficulty
being heard, we have decided as a matter of principle that we
have got to try and build on what is already there for the mainstream
and work from the outside in trying to get the disaffected groups
included. Obviously, there are going to be some more complexities
there in terms of just the sheer number of young people in England
and Wales, so mapping out what already exists and building on
that is going to be very important.
Mr Clarke: I think it is important
four years in still to always be aware that you have got to earn
the right to be children's champion. It is not something you can
ever assume you have earned. I have this post for seven years,
I have done four and I have got three left, and I hope I go out
still remembering that because I think it really informs every
single thing that you do.
Q264 Paul Holmes: I think that leads
on to my final question. I was taken with Nigel's example of upsetting
the politicians by saying, "We will have a judicial review
on the introduction of ASBOs". If the English Commissioner
is not supposed to get bogged down in individual cases but is
supposed to be taking a strategic advocacy role and listening
to children, what do you think is the most important single strategic
issue that the Children's Commissioner might perhaps look at and
upset Ministers by saying, "You should change your policy
on this"?
Mr Clarke: For me, the most radical
agenda item is to require the UK Government to involve children
much more in decision making and to express their rights as defined
in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I think that would immediately bring all sorts of conflicts with
school management systems, with all sorts of government policies
on everything really.
Mr Williams: In terms of an issue
that is outside of my control, I would love the English Commissioner
to look at the way children of asylum seekers are currently dealt
with. That may not be the issue that affects the most number of
children but it is an issue outside my own powers that I would
be concerned to see addressed.
Professor Marshall: I have been
very involved in the asylum seeker issue as well but I think some
of the most fundamental issues just now are about how we support
families generally, for example. We heard from Mary Marsh and
Peter earlier on about that and about the balance between a universal
service and child protection and I agreed a lot with what they
said. There is a huge agenda there and sometimes I think people
tend to come up with simple solutions that are going to give a
quick hit, but we have to be confident enough to take the long-term
view and to have a programmed approach to something that is not
going to be resolved in a very short period and, unfortunately,
accepting some of that but working towards a proper resolution
and not looking for very quick evaluations that are going to provide
very quick successes to show that you have done something that
is good because that is unlikely to happen.
Q265 Chairman: It could be said that
some of us might be a little jealous of your role. We are elected
politicians and I suppose I have always thought of myself as the
children's champion in my constituency as well, and I am sure
all of us have, that we are pensioners' champions and all sorts
of people's champions because we are the elected Members. Do you
work well with local Members of Parliament? Sometimes at my Friday
night advice service I would be very happy if you would take some
of my asylum seeker cases off me. Working in harmony is much better
than working against each other.
Mr Clarke: Absolutely, yes. Often
I say that my post was launched in Wales on the back of the most
durable political consensus that there has been in Wales. Every
political party wanted a Children's Commissioner, every professional
organisation, every children's charity, and why would I want to
spoil that? Therefore, I have sought to work collaboratively and
do take referrals from MPs. We see them as allies. From my point
of view, if I am there to be a champion for children I am looking
for powerful allies for children and often those will be elected
Members, be it of the Assembly, the Council or, indeed, the House.
Yes, very much so, and I suspect my colleagues feel exactly the
same.
Mr Williams: Yes, I could not
agree more. In my case, the consensus was even more remarkable
across all of the political parties in Northern Ireland in agreement
about the need for a Children's Commissioner. It is very important
for me to be able to work with and seek to co-operate with the
parties as a whole and the individuals representing those parties
in the different fora at different levels. That is the way it
has worked out. They see the Commissioner as an additional avenue
that may be appropriate in a number of circumstances that they
have concerns about to help raise those concerns, whether they
are general concerns about children as a whole or specific concerns
about individual cases. In practice, that has worked very well.
Professor Marshall: There was
a consensus in Scotland as well. We had cross-party support and
I have not seen that breaking yet and certainly I plan to make
sure that consensus remains.
Chairman: I am conscious that Andrew
has been extremely patient. I am going to give him the opportunity
to ask the last questions.
Q266 Mr Turner: Thank you very much.
I must say, I am always most suspicious when there is cross-party
support, especially when there is cross-front bench support for
something. Could I start by asking about the involvement of children
in the appointment of you, Mr Williams, and how that compares
with the other Commissioners. Can I say how disappointed I was
that there is not more involvement written on to the face of the
Act for the Children's Commissioner.
Mr Williams: The candidates who
applied for the position in Northern Ireland were subject to quite
a lengthy process. A forum of children and young people that was
representative of all of Northern Ireland was put together and
those young people chose a number from their number to be involved
in the recruitment process. They were involved in the short listing
and they then sat on two preliminary groups that were part of
the interview process that all candidates had to go through. One
of those was a straight interview panel, like many of you will
be familiar with, but was entirely made up of children and young
people aged between 12 and 18. The second was a role play where
the candidates had two or three minutes to prepare to come in
and then lead a discussion amongst the young people. A representative
of each of those panels, the role play panel and the interview
panel, then went on to the final interview panel and they brought
their scores and views from the two subsidiary panels to the final
panel that took the final decision that was chaired by a senior
civil servant. We have sought to follow a similar process, although
simplified, for all the appointments within the office with young
people sitting as equals, having been appropriately trained, of
course, because there is nothing worse than asking a young person
to do something but not giving them the tools and the assistance
that they need to do it, but having been appropriately trained
they are involved in every selection process now for the staff
of my own office, and there is no question that it has produced
better recruitment because young people do not mess around and
are not as correct as we adults sometimes are in being very gentle
in our views or in the way we put things. They cut to the chase
is perhaps a good way of putting it.
Q267 Mr Turner: How does this apply
in Scotland and Wales?
Professor Marshall: With me it
was slightly different because technically I was appointed by
the Queen on the nomination of the Scottish Parliament and because
it was a parliamentary committee that was doing it they felt they
could not have the young people on the committee. What they did
was have the young people recruited from various backgrounds and
all the candidates had to go through two different interviews,
one with a group of primary school children and one with a group
of older young people who then wrote a report, with adult help,
for the selection panel of Members of the Scottish Parliament.
When we are recruiting our own staff, of course, we do not have
that difficulty about the parliamentary committee so we have had
a young person's group interacting with them and also we have
had two of the young people on the interview panel. With the new
round—I have only recruited three staff so far—we
are looking for ever more inventive ways to include them and to
make it a meaningful experience for them.
Mr Clarke: For Wales, I was interviewed,
as were six short listed candidates, by a panel of 12 young people
aged 10-19 for about an hour. We were then given a break and ushered
into a room where there was a further group of eight young people
where we had to do a role play in front of them and they put on
various plays and described various scenarios and then questioned
us very directly and very clearly eliciting our fundamental attitudes
to young people really. Likewise, we now have two young people
on every panel for our own staff. In Southern Ireland I believe
they actually got them involved in drafting the advert in the
paper as well and the second characteristic of the person they
were seeking that they listed was humility. My sons tell me I
would have failed.
Q268 Mr Turner: I am sure you would
not be alone.
Mr Clarke: They were considering
a dancing test for Nigel's post.
Mr Williams: They were, they thought
the Commissioner should be able to dance, but I would have failed
completely.
Q269 Mr Turner: What about when you
are listening to young people yourselves? Forgive me if I quote
you out of context, Professor Marshall, but you said you wanted
to build on what is there for the mainstream and work from the
outside in.
Professor Marshall: Yes.
Q270 Mr Turner: I did not understand
that.
Professor Marshall: Let me explain.
In terms of participation, there are already a number of good
initiatives in Scotland, for example there is the Young Scot Network
which has invested a huge amount of money in an interactive website
to ascertain the views of young people, and what is being developed
at local level are what are called mostly dialogue youth projects
to try to involve young people at a more local level expressing
their views. Some of these projects are more developed than others.
Given that all this investment has been put into them, it would
not seem right for us to try to set up something in parallel,
so what we are doing just now in developing our participation
strategy is looking at the scope for using what exists for the
mainstream and those who can access that kind of thing, because
not every young person can or would want to access a website,
for example. We are looking at the scope for that and also hoping
to develop by using them so, for example, perhaps for those more
local projects that are not very active, if we give them a task
to do we can help develop them by doing it. There are other groups
that are going to be more difficult to access. We have got a lot
of contact already with groups of children and young people with
different kinds of disabilities. Our website has got the initial
introduction in British Sign Language and we contact lots of wheelchair
users and children with learning difficulties. At the moment we
are trying to set up a meeting of people who work on the streets
with young people to work out how we can use their services and
their expertise to get to those who are socially excluded and
who, by definition, are not going to join a focus group for the
socially excluded young. They are going to be the most challenging
group because some of the others are issues about how you communicate,
but with the socially excluded you have to put a lot of effort
into trying to find out how we can get their interest and how
we can somehow engage their interest in what we are doing and
show them we are taking it seriously and we are giving them a
voice. Most of our resources will be put on the fringes, people
who have the difficulties, and we will be using and hoping to
develop the central mechanisms that already exist.
Mr Williams: I agree very much
with Kathleen that you have got to build on what is already there
and not disturb things that are really working to try and seek
children's views, but seek to use those avenues as well. On Saturday,
I was with the Fermanagh Shadow Youth Council, which is a remoter
part of Northern Ireland, where they have a youth council that
shadows the local authority and their elected members. I spent
some time with them talking about my own priorities and what do
they think and doing various exercises with them to see what their
views were. I think there is no single way of hearing children's
views, the important thing is to use all the different avenues.
We have had major pieces of research where over a thousand children
and young people have been involved. We have commissioned special
work with pre-school children to establish their views on particular
issues with help from those who are experienced in doing that
work with younger children. I have established a youth panel as
my own set of private advisers, if you like, that I can go to
about anything. I was with them yesterday, in fact, and said to
them, "You have got to keep me honest. If you see anything
in the news about the Commissioner and my work", we call
ourselves NICCY rather than Commissioner for Children and Young
People in Northern Ireland, which is such a mouthful, "if
you see anything that NICCY is doing that you are not happy with
then do fire off a quick e-mail to me or let me know". I
think they are in a special position but going and listening in
schools, working with the voluntary organisations that have specialised
in working with particular groups of children, who have access
to those children, is very important, and getting past those young
people who have taken the opportunity to be politically active,
with a small `p', and get their views across, to listen to all
those who do not take those opportunities, that is where you have
got to find additional mechanisms to do that.
Chairman: Can I thank you. I am sorry,
I did promise my colleagues a 17:45 finish and we are just slightly
over time. Can I say what a pleasure it has been to have the three
Commissioners before us. I think we have learned more in this
session than we have learned for a very long time. I thought the
two sessions complemented each other brilliantly. If you remain
in communication with the Committee we would be most grateful.
Thank you very much.
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