New Clause
27Parental
complaints: arrangements etc. to be made by
Commission ‘(1) The
Commission for Local Administration in England (“the
Commission”)
must— (a) divide the
matters which may be investigated under this Chapter into such
categories as it considers appropriate;
and (b) allocate, or make
arrangements for allocating, responsibility for each category of matter
to one or more of the Local
Commissioners. (2) The
Commission— (a) must
make arrangements for Local Commissioners to deal with matters for
which they do not have responsibility pursuant to subsection (1);
and
(b) must publish information about the procedures
for making complaints under this Chapter.’.—(Jim
Knight.) This
new clause provides that the Commission may divide matters which may be
investigated into appropriate categories and allocate responsibility
for each category between the Local Commissioners. The Commission must
also publish information about the procedures for making complaints
under Chapter 2 of Part
10. Brought
up, read the First and Second time, and added to the
Bill.
New
Clause
21Children
to be seen separately ‘After
section 16 of the Children Act 2004
insert— “16A
Children to be seen
separately (1) The
children’s services authority shall secure that, when any child
who is the subject
of— (a) an investigation
under section 47 of the Children Act 1989,
or (b) a child protection plan
agreed by the Local Safeguarding Children
Board is visited by his or her
key worker, the child shall if practicable and reasonable in the
circumstances, be seen separately from his or her parent or
care-giver. (2) Where the child
is not seen separately from his or her parent or care-giver under
subsection (1) the reasons for not doing so shall be recorded by the
key worker. (3) The key worker
referred to in subsections (1) and (2)
is— (a) in the case of
subsection (1)(a) the lead social worker appointed by the
children’s services authority;
and (b) in the case of
subsection (1)(b), the key worker appointed by the Local Safeguarding
Children Board.”’.—(Mr.
Laws.) Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Mr.
Laws: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time. It
is me
again.
Mr.
Simon: The hon. Gentleman said around four hours ago that
he was speaking for the last
time.
Mr.
Laws: No, what I very carefully said was that it was my
last major speech, not the last time that I would speak. Having said
that, I apologise to the Committee, because we have been sitting for a
very long period. Members of staff and others, including Labour
Members, have been patient and the Ministers have moved into their
finishing-straight
positions. I
had assumed that the new clauses were not of crucial importance and
that we could discuss them at a later stage, but this morning, when I
looked at new clause 21, which is inspired by the National Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and my hon. Friend the Member for
Mid-Dorset and North Poole, I saw that it is actually rather important.
Despite the fact that the Committee has been sitting for a long period,
it would be unsatisfactory if we did not discuss the new clause,
because it relates to the concerns highlighted by the baby P case and
Lord Laming’s report. The new clause contains an important
suggestion for Ministers, and I would appreciate a response from them.
I therefore ask for some tolerance from the Committee while I
outline some of the new clause’s key elements. After the Minister
responds, I promise that I will not detain the Committee
longer. 12
noon As
I have said, the new clause is inspired, and was drafted, by the NSPCC
and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, who has
considerable expertise on the issue. The new clause would introduce a
statutory duty to ensure that a key worker sees a child separately from
his or her parents. Some members of the Committee will probably know
why the new clause is important and
topical. Section
47 of the Children Act 1989 requires a local authority to make
inquiries when a child is suspected to be suffering or likely to suffer
from significant harm. A child protection plan is drawn up when the
local safeguarding children board decides that a child is at
significant risk of harm. Examples of when seeing a child separately
might not be practicable or reasonable are when parents refuse consent,
when the child refuses to be seen alone or is plainly distressed at the
prospect, when the child has recently been seen separately, or if the
child is asleep during the visit. It is not envisaged that the key
worker would necessarily see the child for long or that the child would
be subjected to any medical or forensic examination or interrogation.
The purpose of recording the reasons for the inability to see the child
is to allow for persistent obstruction by parents to be highlighted.
Even sensible reasons, such as the child being asleep, might become of
concern if
persistent. Currently,
there is no law on seeing children separately, but both legislation and
guidance note the importance of obtaining children’s views and
perspectives. Section 53 of the Children Act 2004 placed a new duty on
local authorities to ascertain and give due consideration to the wishes
and feelings of children before providing services under section 17.
The statutory guidance on child protection, “Working Together to
Safeguard Children”, emphasises the central importance of the
child in safeguarding procedures, and we have seen that in the baby P
case and some of the other cases highlighted recently. That document
states: “Some
of the worst failures of the system have occurred when professionals
have lost sight of the child and concentrated instead on their
relationship with the adults. The child should be seen by the
practitioner and kept in focus throughout the work with the child and
family. The child’s voice should be heard and account taken of
their” perspectives
and
views. The
guidance emphasises that assessing the risk of significant harm depends
on effectively communicating with children and young people, including
those who find it difficult to do so because of their age, an
impairment, or their psychological or social situation. The local
authority children’s social care has legal responsibility for
section 47 investigations, which it says should always involve separate
interviews with the child who is the subject of concern. The key worker
appointed at the child protection conference should regularly ascertain
the child’s wishes and feelings in relation to that
situation. Ministers
might well ask why those obligations should be in the law rather than
in statutory guidance. The NSPCC, my hon. Friend the Member for
Mid-Dorset
and North Poole and I believe that they should be a legal duty for two
reasons. Firstly, seeing the child separately from the parents is the
only way in which the key worker can reliably fulfil their duties under
section 53 of the 2004 Act. Seeing the child separately is
also central to the effective protection of children. On reading the
serious case review of the tragic baby P case earlier this year and
last year, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
noted in his press conference statement
that: “The
Inspectors also highlight a failure to talk directly to the children at
risk; and where children were not seen alone, it worries me greatly
that the Inspectors find little evidence of management follow-up to
ensure that children suspected of being abused were properly heard and
able to speak up without
fear.” As
one of the few, sadly, who has been able to read the baby P serious
case review, I can confirm that that is one of the major
considerations, and one of the major concerns that anyone looking at
the detail of how that case was handled would have. It is clear from
the three official overviews of child serious case reviews that the
guidance on the need to see children is not sufficient. The overviews
all note that there is little to no evidence that children subsequently
murdered or injured were ever seen or talked to directly. They stress
the importance of that point. The overview relating to the earlier
period—the 2001-03 documents—deals with the failure to
protect vulnerable children because of the loss of focus on the child
or their circumstances. That issue came up in Lord Laming’s
recent
review. Such
a provision would help key workers in their extremely difficult task of
simultaneously supporting and policing parents. It would allow the key
worker to explain that they are simply following the law when
requesting to see a child alone, and that that does not imply a lack of
trust in the parents. That is an extremely important point, given that
many parents about whose children there are protection concerns will be
quite sensitive about the circumstances in which those key workers see
the child alone. A strong parent-child attachment is critical to the
child’s healthy development, and it is essential that key
workers can nurture proper relationships with parents, which can be
done only if there is
transparency. I
hope that you understand, Mr. Chope, why I felt it necessary
to give a proper airing to this important and substantive new clause. I
do not necessarily expect it to be included in the Bill immediately,
but I hope that the Minister will respond to it
positively.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: In what is probably our last exchange on
this Bill, I would like to thank the hon. Gentleman for his very
generous comments to me yesterday.
This is an
important new clause on a matter that we take very seriously. It is
essential that social workers can see a child alone when making section
47 inquiries or when the child is subject to a child protection plan.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the Government’s statutory guidance,
“Working Together to Safeguard Children”, makes it clear
that section 47 inquiries should always involve the allocated social
worker, who is also the key worker, undertaking separate interviews
with the child who is the subject of concern. “Working
Together” also addresses a situation in which a child cannot
take part in an interview, because of their age or level of
understanding. If the child is very young, and therefore
unable to communicate verbally, the social worker must carefully observe
the child with their family and, if appropriate, with other adults or
care givers. “Working Together” also states that the
child protection plan should be explained to, and agreed with, the
child in a manner appropriate to their age and understanding. Social
workers are expected to make all reasonable efforts to persuade parents
to co-operate with section 47 inquiries. However, if parents refuse
access to the child, or if the social worker is concerned that they
cannot see the child alone, the local authority has powers, under the
Children Act 1989, to apply for an appropriate court order. The local
authority may apply for a child assessment order, and the court may
direct the parents or care givers to co-operate with an assessment of
the child’s health and development. If there is a risk to the
child’s life or a likelihood of serious, immediate harm, the
local authority may apply for an emergency protection order, the making
of which will ensure that either the child remains in a safe place,
such as a hospital, or is removed to a safe place, for example with
foster carers. When the order is made, the local authority should
quickly commence section 47 inquiries. Following such inquiries, the
local authority must consider what action to take to protect the child.
That includes deciding whether to initiate care or other proceedings,
or to let the order lapse and the child return
home. Local
authorities and social worker are expected to record their work with a
child and family accurately and in a timely manner. Those records
should include whether the child is seen and who else is present. The
guidance states clearly that key records, such as section 47 inquiries
and child protection plans, should be recorded in a manner consistent
with the relevant exemplars in the integrated children’s system.
The social worker should also record the child’s wishes and
feelings. The child protection review record for the child who is the
subject of a child protection plan records the dates on which the child
was seen since the last review and whether they were seen alone. In the
planned revision of “Working Together,” we will ensure
that that same recording commitment is made explicit when a child is
the subject of section 47
inquiries. I
assure the hon. Gentleman that we take the matter seriously. We believe
that it is already embedded in statutory guidance and that the local
authority has the necessary powers to take appropriate action. On that
basis, I hope that he will withdraw the
motion.
Mr.
Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for her response. It
was important to air that issue; we will want to return to it on
another occasion, when we will have a full opportunity to expand on
some of the points. I thank her for the positive way in which she has
responded not only to the new clause but for the past 24 to
48 hours—I have lost track of how long it has been.
All the Ministers, to be fair, have been extremely constructive,
positive and helpful to the Committee, but I particularly appreciate
her response, given that she has had to deal with the Bill over such a
long period with so few breaks and with four Opposition spokesmen
against her.
If you will
allow me, Mr. Chope, I would also like to thank Government
Members for their involvement and Conservative Members for their
co-operation with us on many issues, although not all. I thank you and
Mrs. Humble for the way in which you have chaired our
proceedings over the past few weeks, particularly you for chairing our
proceedings and steering us over the rocks during the past 48 hours.
Finally, I thank all the others who have supported the Committee during
the past few weeks, and the past 48 hours in particular: the staff,
police, Clerks, Hansard reporters and officials from the
Department. They have done such a good job, particularly in the past 48
antisocial hours. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause,
by leave, withdrawn.
Question
proposed, That the Chairman do report the Bill, as amended, to the
House.
Jim
Knight: It is usual at this point in the Committee stage
of a Bill to extend the courtesy of thanking all the people whom the
hon. Gentleman just listed. In this case, there are exceptional reasons
why we should offer those courtesies, and with great feeling. I shall
not rehearse the sometimes tetchy exchanges that we have had in the
past hours; those are on the record anyway. I want to be much more
positive.
The Bill is
not an easy one—it is a long and complicated one. At times, it
more than tried the patience of all those involved. I am extremely
personally grateful to you and Mrs. Humble for your
forbearance, Mr. Chope, particularly your own forbearance
under the strains that you have had to bear during the past hours.
However difficult it may have been, hon. Members from both Front
Benches have demonstrated extreme competence and professionalism in
scrutinising the Bill. At times, they may have felt that they were not
given as much opportunity to prepare as they could have been given,
because of the number of amendments and so on, but they have gone about
their business in an extremely constructive way, and the Bill benefits
from that level of scrutiny.
The
progressive hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has been
exemplary in that regard. It is unkind that the hon. Member for Yeovil
has been labelled Johnny No-mates; I am sure that he has some.
Similarly, I feel that it is equally unfair for people to suggest that
the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings might be verbose and
regressive in contrast with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton. I thank the other members of the Committee, especially
the Whips, and am particularly grateful for the interest shown in this
Committee at the most senior level by the Whips Office.
I thank my
officials, from John the apprentice in the Bill team all the way
through to the lawyers, the policy officials and the rest of the Bill
team; the Hansard Reporters and Badge Messengers; the police and
security staff; the refreshment staff and other staff of the House who
have sustained us over the past 27 hours; and particularly the Clerks,
who I know bear a great strain in keeping us on the straight and narrow
and advising all of us, and especially you, Mr. Chope. This
is a good Bill, and I am proud to propose that we should report it to
the
House. 12.15
pm
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