Tim
Loughton: I am grateful for the Minister for her comments,
although she spent almost as much time knocking down the idea of a
chief social worker, as I spent trying to set it up. That was slightly
churlish, considering the positive way in which it was put forward. I
have been attending Association of Directors of Social Services
conferences for many years, making many positive and constructive
speeches about the role of social worker, often in contrast to
Secretaries of State, who have gone to ADSS and similar conference
pointing a finger of blame at social workers, which they have found
extremely demoralising.
This work on
the commission set up by the Conservative party was the culmination of
many years of wanting to do something more constructive and help the
whole role of social worker. We were able to attract a heavyweight
panel of experts, professionals and academics, some of them members of
the Labour party, who were prepared to come along and contribute
positively to what they saw as a very good cause. They have all engaged
in the process and our report has been greatly welcomed. I would be
delighted to make that report available, either in the hard copies that
remain in my office or by downloading it from the Conservative party
website, to the expert group to which the Minister referred.
I understand
the three reasons the Minister gave for why it is not suitable to take
on the post at this time, although I think that the long list of
various different structures that she trooped out indicates that that
is part of the problem. It is a crowded system and the line management
is confused, and I think that it causes confusion within the industry,
let alone the public. I would rather see a reorganisation and overhaul
of all the different bodies and posts to streamline them into a more
recognisable, appreciated and acknowledged group of posts, and the
chief social worker would make a major contribution to that
streamlining.
I hope that
the Minister will feed the discussion into the expert group she has set
up, which is due to report in the autumn, and that the outside world
will see that as a constructive suggestion. On the basis that she was
not overly churlish, has acknowledged the positive parts of the
proposal and said that the Government would not be prepared to take it
on “at this time”, which suggests that there might be
opportunities for it later, I am perfectly happy not to press the new
clause. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
motion. Motion
and clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
New
Clause
5Early
intervention ‘Before a child
is committed into care, the local authority must, where appropriate,
offer a family group conference and any other reasonable intervention
which may alleviate the need for a child to be put into
care.’.—[Tim Loughton.]
Brought up,
and read the First
time.
Tim
Loughton: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss new
clause 29— Family group
conference— ‘(1) The
1989 Act is amended as
follows. (2) In section 22 at
end insert— “(9)
Before making any decision with respect to a child whom they are
proposing to look after the local authority shall, unless it is not
reasonably practicable or consistent with the child’s welfare,
offer the child’s parents or those with parental responsibility
a family group conference to discuss the making of a plan for their
child.”’.
Tim
Loughton: New clause 5 deals with family conferencing and
overlaps to some degree with new clause 29, which has been tabled by
the hon. Member for Stafford and other hon. Members. Both new clauses
contain references to a family conference, and that relates to our
previous debate on the importance of early intervention and of being
able to keep vulnerable families together rather than having children
taken into the care system. The importance relates to both the value to
the families and the cost savings to society as a whole. The new clause
also refers back to the welfare checklist that I proposed as part of
new clause 1, which the Minister responded to positively. She did not
adopt it, but she is certainly prepared to consider it within
regulations.
I will not go
into great detail on family conferencing, as I am sure that many
members of the Committee, if not all, are familiar with it. Family
conferences are family-led, decision-making meetings at which parents,
relatives and friends, following significant preparation by an
independent co-ordinator, develop a plan for the child’s care
that addresses child welfare or protection concerns identified by the
local authority. The Family Rights Group’s briefing sets that
out well and gives evidence of how it is a proven mechanism. It claims
that family conferencing is:
“a means of
engaging the family to identify and support care arrangements for
vulnerable children and their
parents”; “a
way of identifying alternative care arrangements within the family when
the parent cannot continue to look after the child, including
identifying necessary support packages to avoid the child being
received into state
care”; “a
means of planning for the child to see members of their family and
return home to their family network from state care wherever
possible”;
It claims that such
conferencing should be used
prior “to
‘pathway’ planning for children leaving local authority
care.” I
mentioned some of the examples of best practice on the model of family
conferencing and family support run by certain children’s
organisations, not least of which is NCH, which has a good track record
of some impressive projects. I recently visited its Phoenix service in
Merton, which works intensively with families that are reaching crisis
point. It can take them on board quickly and provide them with
intensive, 24-hour support, seven days a week, whatever the crisis
might be. At the end of the period the family is linked into existing
local services. The intervention involves defusing the immediate,
precipitate crisis that led to the service referral, with support
workers engaging the family, children and/or
young people, liaising with other agencies, assessing the problems,
developing specific, measurable goals and helping everyone in the
family to acquire the skills to achieve them. That gets all gets all
the family members together around a table—literally or
metaphorically—to sort out what outside, holistic support will
be required to get the family back on its feet. Based on an average
placement time of three years for a child who is taken into the care
system, NCH estimates that such a family intervention service could
offer cost saving of £127,140 per intervention, which is
significant. That really is investing to save—there are
financial savings and it makes financial sense, but the family could
also be saved and kept together. The Government
are positive about such organisations and they are keen to disseminate
best practice, but not enough kinship placements are initiated by local
authority social workers. One good way of promoting that, other than
the through the measures that are already in the Bill, is to ensure
that family conferences take place as standard rather than as an
exception. There is a bit of postcode lottery regarding the
availability of family conferencing. If we were to put a measure in the
Bill that stresses the preventive attraction of family conferences so
that there would have to be good reasons why a family conference was
not attempted or viable, there might be many more kinship placements;
better still, many more families could be kept together, and fewer
children would have to be taken into care, with all the expense, angst
and trauma that that can bring about. New clause 5 is straightforward
and I am happy to recommend it to the
Committee.
Mr.
David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): It is a pleasure to see you
in the Chair again, Mr. Pope. I rise to speak to new clause
29, but it is similar to new clause 5, which is why they are grouped
together. In
the unrelenting positive mode that I have been in during our
proceedings, we should first acknowledge that the law will be
strengthened by clause 9, which we have dealt with, because it requires
local authorities to have regard to family placements with relatives
and friends and kinship care. We should recognise that part of the
battle has been won before we deal with the new clauses on family group
conferences. New
clause 29 is slightly more elegantly drafted than new clause 5, but I
would say that. I do not personally claim the credit for it; it is
entirely thanks to the work of the Family Rights Group. The hon. Member
for East Worthing and Shoreham referred to its briefing when discussing
new clause 5 and he stole the rest of my thunder by referring to the
National Children’s Home briefing, so there are no briefings
left that I can refer the Committee
to. New
clause 29 would amend section 22 of the Children Act 1989, which is the
section that clause 9 will amend to make references to kinship care in
a more prominent place. I am seeking in new clause 29 to complete a
movement that the Government have already begun in clause 9 by
requiring family group conferences to take place. To reiterate what the
hon. Gentleman said about the benefits of family group conferences,
they apply all through the journey that
leads—potentially—into and out of care. A family group
conference at the right time when a family crisis is building up could
help to identify the problems and solutions without care ever becoming
necessary, and the child involved could stay with its parents or close
family. If that is not possible—we still want to avoid care if
possible—we could look at whether the wider family could cope
with a package of support. A family group conference would be valuable
even if a child temporarily goes into care, because the problems that
caused that could be solved to enable a child to return home. When a
child comes to the end of period in care, when, for example, they
become an adult, there could be situations in which the wider family is
absolutely the right place to support a person who returns as a new
adult. A family group conference could still bring together family
members who could contribute to that successful transition from being
in care to becoming an independent
adult. 9.30
am At
every stage of the process, family group conferences are useful. The
hon. Gentleman did not mention today something from the Family Rights
Group briefing that he mentioned on the first day of our proceedings,
which is that recent research has found that only 4 per cent. of family
and friends placements are initiated by social workers. That is modern
research from 2008 so that is up-to-date information. It demonstrates
that a lot of social workers are not used to convening family group
conferences and are perhaps not convinced of their benefit. A little
tilt in the right direction in the Bill would help to make that more of
a routine
consideration. As
the hon. Gentleman said, the NCH briefing paper that hon. Members have
received is not about family group conferences, but about the success
of the NCH intensive family support service. As he says, it
demonstrates not just an effective outcome, but a cost-effective way of
dealing with problem cases. The quotation that he gave about cost
savings was related specifically to a study in Glamorgan, where there
were 15 cases of intensive support with NCH. Each of those
interventions produced a potential saving of £127,000.
Multiplied by 15, that is a saving of about £2 million for one
local authority in Wales. If that were scaled up to the rest of the UK,
we could be talking about a third of a billion pounds. That is how
exciting and important it is for us to give serious attention to this
proposal. On
the outcomes side of the NCH briefing, it reports success not just in
Merton, but in Plymouth, where 94 per cent. of young people referred
did not enter the care system and in Tower Hamlets, where 88 per cent.
of the young people remained with their families. There is potential
that alternative approaches, if used at the right time with the right
consideration and the right package of support, can avoid children
being taken into care unnecessarily or children being detained in care
for longer than is necessary for their
welfare. I
am pleased to support both new clauses. They push Ministers to finish
the job that was well started in clause 9. However, the end will not be
achieved unless we ensure that social workers routinely consider in
every case whether a family group conference would be of
assistance. Angela
Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): I rise to speak briefly in
support of new clause 5. When I was an Essex county councillor, I did
some research into family group
conferencing. It originated in the Maori community in New Zealand, where
it has been greatly beneficial in keeping children out of care. That
has also been seen in this country and elsewhere. It combines the good
will and effort, not just of the nuclear family and the extended
family, but of others who form part of the child’s social
network. I urge the Minister to give serious consideration to
supporting adding the new clause to the
Bill.
Annette
Brooke: I have signed up to elegance. Both new clauses are
important. Rather than repeat what has been in the numerous briefings
on this matter, I would just like to emphasise that early intervention
is all-important. I was reading about the “Public Law
Outline” the other day and consideration of family conferencing
is a requisite. However, I was concerned whether that was happening at
the point of crisis. It is not stated in the new clauses, but to my
mind, if possible, family conferencing should kick in at a much earlier
stage than I understood it would under the procedures of the
“Public Law Outline”. Intervening early to bring the
family together helps to deal with all of the points that we have made
about kinship care. It also highlights at that early stage whether
there is enough support for the family, financially or otherwise. We
have discussed that issue and the Minister has committed to a
consultation on appropriate
guidance. I
quoted various figures on Second Reading. It is clear just from looking
at the figures that the amount spent on family support has some
relation to the number of children being taken into care. There might
not be a direct one-to-one relationship, but the statistics are quite
clear. It is staggering that we spend three times as much on looking
after children in care as we do on family support as a whole. We are
talking about a whole package, but the family conferencing aspect is a
really important part of it. There clearly is that aspect of invest to
save. I,
too, was struck by the 4 per cent. figure that came in one of our
briefings: family and friends placements were initiated by social
workers in only 4 per cent. of cases. That is quite staggering and
shows what a long way we have to go along this route. These amendments
are important to break this pattern. To reiterate, the important point
for me is that family conferencing should ideally come much sooner than
a crisis point in the
family.
Beverley
Hughes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for
Stafford for recognising that one of the major thrusts of this
legislation and the wider package in the White Paper is to increase
substantially the number of children who can be cared for somewhere
within their birth families or with friends who are known to them. That
is an objective that we share. I certainly understand the reasons
behind this amendment, with its hope that an automatic consideration of
family group conferencing might be another catalyst for increasing the
number of children who can go into some form of kinship
care. I
hope that hon. Members will also recognise that in addition to this
Bill, we are trying to move forward with a whole range of options that
are specifically focused on supporting parents at an early stage when
they are getting into difficulties. That is not necessarily at the
stage at which family group conferencing would be considered now when
there is a question whether a child
can be accommodated within their own family or might need some
alternative accommodation. There is a wide range of parenting
interventions, including the piloting of new, intensive parenting
programmes, increased support for relative carers and some very
specific models, such as multi-systemic therapy for adolescents at high
risk of entering care or custody and intensive fostering. We are
promoting a whole range of options, which includes family group
conferences. The
problem with family group conferencing from the point of view of these
amendments is twofold. First, it is a complex service to administer. It
requires a high level of skill and confidence from the practitioners
who are organising it. That is why we have already started to promote
the development of expertise, knowledge and skills in family group
conferencing, commissioning a programme of regional training events,
for example, to equip managers and practitioners with the necessary
skills to develop the use of this model. That is very different from
putting a requirement in primary legislation for a family group
conference for every family. It goes completely against the spirit, the
letter and the culture that we have tried to inculcate and develop
since the Children Act 1989, which imposes a general duty on local
authorities to provide a range and level of support services that are
appropriate for children in need, including to promote their upbringing
in their family.
Generally
family group conferences are seen as a very valuable element in the
range of local services. We want to see them used more widely. We are
putting in the resources to promote the expertise that will enable that
to happen. To put a single method in the Bill above all others,
including some that are being developed, would be contrary to the
spirit of section 17 of the 1989 Act. It would limit the flexibility of
local authorities and would be quite prohibitive for them in their
attempts to meet children’s needs on an individual basis. That
is not to say that I do not think family group conferences are
important or that they should be used more often. I do. We have
highlighted that in “Care Matters” and have included
references to family group conferences in “Working Together to
Safeguard Children”, which we published in 2006. We have also
included references in the revised volume I of the Children Act
guidance that was published this
year.
| 
