The
Chairman: Order. Before we go any further, I must say that
not for the first time in my inauspicious career as a Chairman of
Committees I have been too lax. I can see that hon. Members want to
point out that clause 1 is related to clauses 2 to 5. It is reasonable
to refer to that in passing, but in future we will have more tightly
drawn clause stand part
debates.
Annette
Brooke: I intend to be fairly brief so that I do not
repeat what has already been said. I may stray over all six clauses
because then those will be over and done with, but I promise not to
make the same points
again. We
must remember throughout this process to focus on the individual child.
We all get dragged into using generic terms such as looked-after
children for those who will be in the system for a long time, but we
must think about individual children and what they have told us over
and over again about the strengths and weaknesses of their
relationships with their social workers. It is important to appreciate
that there are many strong relationships, but a number children do not
feel that they have been supported sufficiently. Their views on this
matter are
all-important. As
I said on Second Reading, I have some reservations about social work
practices. I want to achieve the very best for our children so I do not
have any reservations about the pilots. They will help us to see
whether we can improve the relationships between children and their
social workers. As has been said, the key to that is a stable, highly
qualified work force that is responsive to the needs of children. That
needs working on across the
board. I
agree that it is important to look at local authorities and social work
practices together to ensure that we achieve an overall gain. It is
important that this is not a zero-sum game in which we lose in one
respect as we gain in another, hence my earlier intervention on the
Minister. Social work practices will be very focused on one objective.
It is an important objective, but we must be assured that the important
preventive work and family support work is being provided by highly
qualified social
workers. 11.15
am The
evaluations will be key in the pilots. Will the Minister consider
having independent annual evaluations in the same way as for academies?
Social work practices could be just as important as academies in giving
a
different approach. The evaluations should be independent and the
outcomes should be looked at by a multi-disciplinary group of
stakeholders. It is important that social work practices are keyed in
to all of the other services and the multi-disciplinary approach that
is worked towards in “Every Child Matters”. It would be
dreadful to achieve in one dimension while things slip through the net
in
another. It
is also important to not focus just on piloting social work practices.
I am sure that there will be many innovations within local authorities.
We should be looking at those to ensure that we are spreading good
practice. My colleague in the other place, Baroness Sharp, mentioned
that the Children’s Workforce Development Council is currently
seeking bids to trial new arrangements for social workers in 18 local
authorities. Those trials will remodel social work teams to improve the
recruitment and retention of social workers and other social care
staff. They will aim to increase early intervention work and tackle
bureaucracy. We need lots of innovative practice and we always need to
be
evaluating. Social
care practices are in the Bill so they have a high profile, but we
should evaluate them fully before extending the pilots. Most
importantly, we should look at the outcomes for all the services
dealing with looked-after children. We want the pilots to proceed, but
we are asking for a more holistic approach that will look at the whole
system in this
area.
Kevin
Brennan: I will attempt to respect your infallibility,
Mr. Pope. However, I think that it would be appropriate to
respond to the debate that we have had. We will then have to be very
tight in our debates on the following
clauses. Hon.
Members have raised a number of questions on the pilots of social work
practices. I welcome the tone of those questions in supporting the need
to innovate and try out new ideas where we know that the system has not
been serving vulnerable children as well as it should have been. We
have a moral obligation to try out good ideas when they come forward.
That is what we are doing in part 1 and in clause 1 in
particular. I
will deal first with the points raised by the hon. Member for East
Worthing and Shoreham. The Government recognise the need to support
social workers in doing their difficult and important jobs. We were
pleased that the commission that he chaired on behalf of his political
party supported many of the Government’s commitments,
innovations and approaches in this area. The Government is investing
over £73 million in “The Children’s Plan: Building
brighter futures”. We published the document earlier this year;
I have a copy with me, and members of the Committee are welcome to one.
The aim of that plan is to tackle recruitment and retention and improve
capacity and morale over the next three years in the social care work
force, including piloting newly qualified social worker status. It will
also look at workloads and at the bureaucracy surrounding social
workers, which are key issues, particularly against the background of
high vacancy rates and turnover in some areas.
For that
reason the Department has commissioned the Children’s Workforce
Development Council to pilot—as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset
and North Poole mentioned—other approaches with local
authorities, to
remodel the delivery of social work and understand how best to configure
roles, capacity and support, with the aim of improving the outcomes for
and the experiences of vulnerable children, young people and
families. Therefore,
it is not just about this pilot; there is a broader agenda as the hon.
Lady rightly pointed out. Local authorities involved in those pilots
are testing a wide range of approaches, including consideration of the
roles of admin staff in social work teams, and the roles of social
workers in multi-agency teams, as well as the newly qualified social
worker pilots, which will provide managed case-loads for new social
workers in their first year’s employment in children’s
settings. I have a copy of the information on the Children’s
Workforce Development Council pilot programmes, which gives an
additional flavour to our discussion about the piloting of social work
practices. Those pilots are in the Bill because we have to legislate in
order for them to be carried out, not because we seek to feature them
or put them above the other pilots and innovations in this
area. The
hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham also mentioned the
registration of social workers. Clause 2 will require the local
authority functions being discharged by a social work practice to be
discharged by or under the supervision of registered social workers.
There was also a query on how the pilots would be regulated and
scrutinised. Many people will pay close attention to the work of social
work practices in the pilot phase. As part of the contract management
process, the local authority will keep a close eye on the outcomes
delivered by the practices, and the independent reviewing officer will
review and challenge—that is the key point—their work in
relation to the individual children they serve. Ofsted will take a
broader look as part of the new inspection arrangements for local
areas, which include programmed inspections focusing on the quality of
services for looked-after children. In addition, we expect that there
will be regular scrutiny of the standards of practice in social work
practices, to support national monitoring and evaluation of the social
work practice
model. The
hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham also asked whether social
work practices will provide greater continuity of outcome. Our aim is
to find out whether they can. We believe that they have the potential
to bring greater continuity and stability for looked-after children,
and that there is sufficient evidence to legislate in this way.
However, we are not pre-judging that, because we need to ensure that
the pilot is genuine. That is why we are testing the model as outlined
in the
clauses. In
relation to finances and the overall effect of social work practices,
which hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Isle of Wight,
mentioned, it is absolutely clear that we must look at social work
practices on a level playing field. There is no point making this the
sort of pilot that is set up to succeed. We want to set up genuine
pilots that will be independently evaluated. The funding that we are
providing, £2 million per annum for the six to nine pilots
across the country, is intended only to support the initial set-up
costs.
Local
authorities receive £5 billion a year from the Government, of
which approximately £300 million is “Care Matters”
implementation plan funding. Of that, roughly £6 million will be
available for social work pilots over their period. In many ways, they
will be no
more generously funded than the other pilots that have been referred to,
such as the Children’s Workforce Development Council pilots,
which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned. There
is a level playing
field. On
a point that hon. Members are concerned about, we will ensure that the
impact on wider services and other children is an integrated part of
the evaluation of the pilots. We want to judge them not in isolation
from the rest of the social work world but in the context of any
potential impact or knock-on effects. As the hon. Member for East
Worthing and Shoreham said, if they are successful and work for social
workers as well as the young people with whom they deal, there is
long-term potential for them to act as a magnet to attract people into
the
profession.
Annette
Brooke: One comment that is often made by young people is
that they want potential 24-hour-a-day contact. Although that might
sound demanding, as a parent one is used to receiving phone calls at
all times of the day. Does the Minister feel that social work practices
will be able to give something extra to get closer to that parental
contact? Will there be in the contracts reasons for somebody to be on
tap for a longer
period?
Kevin
Brennan: The hon. Lady makes a valuable point. We have
already found in some of the expressions of interest from third sector
organisations that are interested in running social work practices that
they feel they will be able to be more flexible, providing not a
nine-to-five service but one that is available longer. In one case, I
believe that it was to be until 10pm, with special payments available
for people who were called out during later hours. That is perhaps a
more personal and individual service than there might be from the
emergency team in a local authority. There is potential for the
out-of-hours service that she refers to in the social work practice
model. Again, that is only potential, and we will we not prejudge
whether that will happen in practice. We shall ensure that the wider
impact of the practices is taken into account in the
evaluation. The
funding of social work practices will be set out in their contract with
the local authority, which will be crucial. Like any other contact, it
will set out the services to be provided, the standards to which they
will be provided and the payments that the local authority will make.
Crucially, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, an
element of the contract will be outcomes-based. It is important that we
ensure that social work practices have the incentive to
improve. 11.30
am Mr.
Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con): I hear what the
Minister says, but in many cases social workers are unable to perform
their statutory duties, whether health assessments or statutory visits,
purely because of the weight of bureaucracy hanging over them. I spoke
to a social worker only a few weeks ago who told me that the laptop
that used to be on the left of her desk is now in the middle, because
she spends most of her time on it. What assurances can the Minister
give that social workers will be involved in not only the evaluation
but the practice of the pilot scheme, and that they will be given the
freedom and authority to get on with their job rather than be faced
with the same bureaucracy as current social
workers?
Kevin
Brennan: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Committee
and, once again, to the House, and I thank him for his intervention. He
is right in the sense that one of the purposes of the social work
practices is to create a setting in which a group of professionals can
work together outwith the bureaucratic structures that they might face
working within a large social services department of a local authority,
where there may be 400 or more employees. The hon. Gentleman referred
to a GP’s practice as an analogy and that may be appropriate.
Working as a team of professionals, with the ability to employ their
own admin staff to help with the natural bureaucracy of running any
small operation, they would be free to engage more directly in their
social work with
children. In
evaluating the pilots, we will see whether social workers will be freed
from the bureaucracy of line management and of working in a large
organisation to be able to run with the ball a little more, with clear
direction set out by the contract and by the management of the social
work practice. It will be for the local authority to decide whether to
engage a social work practice and to negotiate a costed contract,
bearing in mind its internal costs and budgets.
We are
supporting local authorities to improve the recruitment and retention
of social workers through learning from good practice such as that in
Barnet, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned.
If we could reproduce the “Barnet formula”—to coin
a phrase—across the country, we would all think that we had
successfully implemented the care matters implementation plan. I
acknowledge the progress that has been made in
Barnet. I
mentioned the newly qualified social worker status programme, which
will be targeted, early on, in those areas where there are recruitment
difficulties—London and the west midlands—and will use a
major marketing campaign for social workers. Obviously, we are looking
at the recruitment and retention of social workers. Social work
practices are only one remodelling approach; approaches have been
mentioned.
Mr.
Turner: Would the hon. Gentleman see the new operation
describing how people are released from the local authority by freedom
or where they have an equivalent list of responsibilities, but are a
different
body?
Kevin
Brennan: I think that I understand what the hon. Gentleman
is driving at. Basically, the social work practice will be working to a
contract agreed with the local authority, which, in effect, is
delegating services that it would otherwise provide directly. The
social work practice will have the freedom to operate as an
organisation within the contract, which draws up the services that it
is expected to deliver. On that basis I will sit
down.
The
Chairman: I think that it is safe to say after that debate
that if I were a referee at a Euro 2008, I would be on my way home for
not giving out enough yellow cards.
Question
put and agreed to.
Clause 1
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
2Restrictions
on arrangements under section
1 Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
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