Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
MONDAY 24 JANUARY 2005
MS BRIDGET
LINDLEY AND
DR DEBORAH
GHATE
Q300 Valerie Davey: You have done
some research on some of this work, I think, and also, how does
the parent perceive this? Is the parent going to know that there
is a different gradation or are they just going to feel threatened
by it?
Dr Ghate: In respect of child
protection services?
Q301 Valerie Davey: No, in respect
of the recognised need of help at some stage.
Dr Ghate: I think there is not
a culture of expecting help with parenting as a right in this
country and as a result there is still in the minds of many parents
a slight sense of stigma. We have a culture which still tends
to say that you should know how to be a parent naturally; it just
comes with the birth of your first child, whereas most parents
know very well that that is not necessarily true. There is still
a sense, I think, for many parents that asking for help may be
revealing that you do not feel you are coping or that you are
inadequate or deficient in some way. We still need to work on
that perception and to keep saying that it is normal to need help.
Most parents need help at some point with some issue. To follow
that up we ought to have some access to services where people
know that if they have a need they know where to go and they can
guarantee that they will get some input. Often it is very low
level; it is just a need for a particular piece of information
about a particular issue at a particular point in the child's
life. Transition points for children's lives often seem to trigger
that, for instance, when children move between starting school
or going to secondary school and so forth.
Q302 Valerie Davey: We had what we
called, I am glad to say, an Oxfam coffee morning and in meeting
with other parents what we learned from each other was brilliant.
No-one told us but we were a parent support mechanism in that
informal way, voluntary in the broadest sense. Should we be encouraging
that or do mums not have the time these days?
Dr Ghate: There have been some
projects recently developing fairly low level parent support and
guidance and information sessions which are attached to schools
and which are hosted by schools and facilitated by schools, and
the evidence from the evaluation of the pilot was very positive.
Schools seem to be a very appropriate place from which to access
parents but they will not reach all parents. They do not reach
dads as effectively as they reach mothers and they will not reach
the families whose children are not attending school or who have
very extreme needs. Other approaches will be necessary for those
groups but they seem to have been extremely well received and
in the parents' own report effective at helping them feel more
confident and know where to go for help in their local area should
they have need of it. That was a very promising intervention.
Q303 Helen Jones: Bridget, I understand
that the organisations that you represent have some concerns about
the DfES proposals for information recording and sharing. Would
you first of all like to tell us what those concerns are and what
changes you would like to see?
Ms Lindley: The starting point
is that anything that will facilitate sharing of relevant information
where appropriate permissions have been given is to be welcomed,
obviously, because it leads to greater efficiency, but (I am afraid
there are some "buts") we are aware that it is not likely
to be a national database and I think probably the most vulnerable
families are in that transient population that may move quite
frequently, in which case a local based database is not going
to be any help at all in terms of sharing information. Unless
somebody has been able to track exactly which authorities that
family has been in that is not going to be very helpful, so I
think it is national or nothing.
Q304 Jonathan Shaw: They are not
likely to leave a message, are they, at social services?
Ms Lindley: The second point is
that there is a huge danger that the information that it contains
will not be kept up to date. We have concerns about who is going
to keep it up to date and it could become very misleading very
quickly unless information is kept up to date. The third thing
is around the Data Protection Act. If partnership, going back
to the earlier discussion, is really going to be a core part of
the policy in order to really engage parents because they are
the main carers for children, there has to be a strong presumption
that parents' consent will be asked for unless the section 47
threshold has been met, which raises the question of what happens
with the logging, flagging, whatever one calls it, for cause for
concern. As you know, it is not defined, nor is it linked to any
duty in the Children Act to provide any services, so there is
a danger that it is going to be free-floating, not necessarily
a trigger to anyone to do anything but will nevertheless create
a sort of professionals' comfort zone that they have done something,
but nobody else has necessarily picked it up, at the same time
as undermining the family's trust in the system because things
are going on behind their back and things are logged and they
are not quite sure why and what is going to happen. There are
huge dangers and, being a lawyer by training, I put it all in
the scales and see which way it tips and I am afraid it seems
to tip against the massive investment that is involved to set
it up in favour of other things. I am afraid therefore that the
message, not just from our three organisations but at least 30
others who came to a seminar that we had last week to discuss
this, all said very definitely that they would not support it
and if it did go ahead then the cause for concern bit must be
defined and must be linked into existing child care legislation
because otherwise it is just operating on its own and it does
not necessarily lead to service provision in any way at all.
Q305 Helen Jones: That is very helpful,
but there is a tension in all of this, is there not, between getting
permission, getting things sent from parents, and the problems
of families where there is cause for concern about the children
who are the least likely to give consent to that information and
share it. How are you going to resolve that because all of us,
everyone who has worked in any social policy or legal area, is
well aware of a small minority of families who hide things? That
is the area where the most damage is likely to result to children,
so how are we going to resolve that tension?
Ms Lindley: Whenever we have tried
to think about this in our discussions we have tried to find cases
where there is cause for concern that addresses that issue where
things may be hidden or there is a worry about asking for consent
to disclosure that does not meet the section 47 threshold of suspicion
of harm. We cannot find any where you will be saying, "No,
we have not hit section 47. We do not suspect harm but we are
too worried to ask for consent". This is a question to you.
Can you describe the kind of case to me that would not have hit
section 47? If you cannot then I think it is fair enough to say
that there is a presumption that you ask for consent unless you
suspect harm, in which case it is taken out of their hands anyway.
Helen Jones: Generally we do not answer
the questions from this side of the table.
Chairman: But it was a good question.
Q306 Helen Jones: Let me describe
one to you. We have already objects set up to try to divert young
people who may be at risk of getting involved with the criminal
justice system, for example. It may well be, and we are theorising
here, that some of those young people come from a home background
which leads them into trouble. It is not harm but it could lead
to harm in the future. Do either of you have suggestions for how
we would deal with something like that which clearly would be
a cause for concern if you were looking at those young people?
Dr Ghate: This is not particularly
my area and I think there are colleagues coming later who know
relatively more about this. My sense is that it is already happening
in any case from the work that we do on youth justice issues;
from the research we have done on young offenders and young people
at risk of offending. My sense is that the worst possible thing
that can happen is that yet another system will be introduced
half-heartedly and it will become then yet another way of assessing,
recording, tracking and so forth alongside the various other things
which areas and agencies are using. My experience as a researcher
for many years now is that record keeping is appalling in most
agencies, though it is worse in some than in others. Even in agencies
where they have had for quite a long time computerised record
keeping and clear instructions about what they should be doing,
when you actually go through the information that should be recorded
it is not there or it is out of date or it is missing. This new
system is only going to work if it is really given a lot of support
and a push from behind. To introduce it half-heartedly and see
how it goes I think is a recipe for disaster.
Helen Jones: I think I would agree. Speaking
as somebody who once wrote to the health visitors to tell them
I was moving and they took absolutely no notice until they turned
up on my doorstep a couple of years later and said, "We have
got no record of this child", I can quite see that. What
happened in the trailblazer areas? Did we learn any lessons from
those about how valuable the databases were, whether they could
be used properly and whether they led to improvements in services,
because that is the key, is it not? Are they going to lead to
improvements in the delivery of services where they are needed
for all children and particularly for the most vulnerable children?
Q307 Chairman: I think we have got
the evaluator of the trailblazers coming in the next session.
Deborah Ghate, do not hold back if you want to answer that.
Dr Ghate: I was going to say it
is probably worth looking at what happened in the youth justice
system with the introduction of things like Asset, which I think
did improve record keeping to some extent. I do not think they
completely solved all the problems but it has been relatively
easier to find out what is happening to particular children in
the system as a result of those having been introduced, but again
it is very patchy.
Q308 Helen Jones: What would you
say to us as a Committee? Would you want to get rid of the information
sharing arrangements altogether, would you argue that resources
would be best used elsewhere or would you simply want to modify
them?
Dr Ghate: As a researcher I have
to say that I think it is critical that we have a good system
and there is a lot of evidence that children do fall through the
cracks if we do not have it, and it is exactly the children who
most need help who somehow do not appear on anybody's system.
I think the problem is that ideas are introduced and then watered
down and watered down in response to a whole set of concerns and
then we get some hybrid that really does not fulfil any need.
Q309 Chairman: I get the feeling
from the evidence we have taken so far that on the one hand out
of the Victoria Climbié inquiry there is the view that
you have got to have a totally new, all-encompassing system that
replaces what we have got rather than very good discrete services
across the patch. It does seem to me that there is a bit of Laming,
when we interviewed him, that wanted this big new system that
every child was on, whereas, as I have heard you giving answers,
there are lots of policies that support children that are new.
In some areas it is SureStart, in others it is the new right to
nursery education. There are an awful lot of services that are
being provided for children that are discrete services and we
want all of those to be of high quality and value. Is it some
sort of looking for something too ambitious to have an all-embracing
system or service?
Dr Ghate: At this point in time
it may be very ambitious considering that we are still working
at getting agencies to work together across more basic functions.
If the proposals in Every Child Matters are implemented
and carried forward and in a few years' time we see much more
effective integrated working through children's trusts, for example,
then I would say the ground may be more fertile for developing
shared information systems, for example, but I think probably
we are trying to do everything simultaneously and my hunch would
be that that is relatively more difficult.
Q310 Helen Jones: My last question
is about this business of correcting information in one sense
when the children are very young, but what happens with older
children if parents and children disagree about the nature of
the information that is held on them? We understand what you are
telling us, Bridget, about the need to involve families but there
are occasions when there are disputes within families about what
is correct and what is not. How would you deal with situations
like that?
Ms Lindley: It is the age-old
problem of almost Gillick-competent children and Gillick-competent
children, and I think probably once Gillick competence is clear
then the child is going to be the main informant. Nevertheless,
the parents do have parental responsibility and if there are big
issues I think perhaps it is something that needs to be assessed
as to why the parents and the child are disagreeing and it is
an issue that should not just be swept under the carpet. What
is a bit less clear is when children are not quite Gillick-competent
but are giving other messages and that can happen really quite
young. It is another tricky problem if professionals are going
to spend hours trying to resolve who is the main informant for
the information that goes on the database and time is not spent
assessing the need of the family.
Q311 Helen Jones: But it is one they
have to resolve in many other areas, is it not? In mental health,
for instance, there is quite often a tension between what the
client, who in this case is the person with the mental health
problem, and what their carers and family want. It has to be resolved
by deciding who the main client is. It is much more difficult
in the situation you are talking about but surely it is a key
to getting this right.
Ms Lindley: Are you talking about
the database? I am sorry; I am a bit unclear.
Q312 Helen Jones: For example, general
decisions in mental health are quite common on how someone should
be dealt with, whether they should be in hospital, whether they
should be in the community and quite frequently you find different
points of view. That is true within families too, is it not? You
are talking about how to resolve this but it is quite difficult
to decide in this case who the client is. Is that the child or
the family?
Ms Lindley: I think we are moving
away from the discussion around the database to assessment generally
and how one identifies a child's needs.
Q313 Helen Jones: No. It comes back
to the database. If parents and the children are giving different
information or have different views on the information which is
on the database how would you resolve that tension?
Ms Lindley: As I understand the
database it is a directory of information about agencies that
are involved with the family and basic details about people who
have parental responsibility and it is flagging up a cause for
concern but not holding any case data. Those are the latest proposals
that I think are coming out of DfES. I may be wrong but I think
that is right, so I think the issues you are talking about are
much more around assessment and it begs the need for a really
thorough assessment according to the assessment framework which
already exists.
Q314 Chairman: Just to push you a
little bit further down the road of information sharing, coming
out of this tragedy and the Laming inquiry was there not a strong
recommendation that ran right through that, that it is not a better
information; it is a high quality group of people working across
departments, talking to each other, particularly social work departments
and people in the health sector? We have talked informally, although
he has not given formal evidence to this Committee to the Children's
Health Commissioner. He is still very worried and concerned about
how much quality of information will be shared under the new arrangements
between the health sector and other sectors. Do you share that
concern?
Dr Ghate: Worried in what sense?
Q315 Chairman: Concerned that there
is every sign that there is a deep reluctance of professionals
in the health sector to share the information that they have.
Dr Ghate: Yes. I think one comes
across that in many different ways and there is a reluctance on
their side. On the other side social services staff are often
very poor at keeping records at all. One does not even get to
the question of whether they should share the information with
anybody.
Q316 Jonathan Shaw: That is a sweeping
statement, is it not—social services are very poor at keeping
records at all?
Dr Ghate: I think they can be.
Q317 Jonathan Shaw: Some social service
departments in some cases have poor record-keeping. That is a
bit more accurate, is it not, rather than condemning the whole
lot?
Dr Ghate: That is not what I am
saying.
Jonathan Shaw: You did.
Chairman: Jonathan is a former social
worker.
Q318 Jonathan Shaw: You would not
want to make sweeping statements as a highly regarded researcher
who looks at information and detail, would you?
Dr Ghate: Absolutely not.
Jonathan Shaw: I thought not.
Q319 Chairman: Bridget, do you want
to come in?
Ms Lindley: Just to say around
the issue of health professionals being worried about how much
information will be shared, I think it goes back to the point
about the consent of the person whose information it is. If that
issue is not such a hot potato in the sense that consent has been
asked for then there will not be the fear, and if the consent
has not been asked for then it must be a section 47. Then it is
clear because the threshold is there. I do not see it as such
a problem if there was a presumption of getting parental consent,
or the child's consent if they are Gillick-competent, as part
and parcel of the information sharing process if it does go ahead.
I also understand that the database index, or whatever the latest
term for it is, does not hold case information, so there is perhaps
an excessive worry about what they might have to share about the
database which does not really exist. What it means is that this
professional is willing to be rung; that is the latest that we
have heard. It does not record the case information on the database.
What they then divulge will depend on whether or not we are into
child protection because those are the basic medical codes of
practice.
Chairman: Okay; I think you have put
our minds at rest. Can I thank Bridget and Deborah very much for
the information you have given orally and in writing but will
you stay in touch with the Committee because as we are continuing
this inquiry and writing it up we are going to need your help
and assistance? Thank you very much.
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