UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 379-i

HOUSE OF COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES COMMITTEE

 

THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN IN ENGLAND: LORD LAMING'S PROGRESS REPORT

WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH 2009

LORD LAMING

 

Evidence heard in Public

Questions 1 - 38

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

1.	This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Children, Schools and Families Committee

on Wednesday 25 March 2009

Members present:

Mr. Barry Sheerman (Chairman)

Annette Brooke

Mr. Douglas Carswell

Mr. David Chaytor

Fiona Mactaggart

Mr. Andrew Pelling

Mr. Edward Timpson

Derek Twigg

 

Examination of Witness

Witness: Lord Laming of Tewin CBE gave evidence.

 

Q1 Chairman: Lord Laming, I welcome you to this sitting of the Committee. We have been looking forward to seeing you for some time now. I suppose you were resigned to the inevitability of coming, although I believe that one of the privileges of being in the House of Lords is that you do not have to come-we cannot make you.

Lord Laming: It is a pleasure, Chairman. I would not have thought otherwise about being here. I appreciate the work that your Committee is doing on behalf of very vulnerable children. Anything that I might be able to contribute, I am happy to do so.

Chairman: Thank you. The normal way that we play these sessions is that we give our witnesses a chance to say something to open up or, if they prefer, we go straight into questions.

Lord Laming: I am in your hands. If you would like me to say a couple of words-

Chairman: We would love you to say a couple of words, but let me give you a starter, in a sense.

Lord Laming: Indeed.

 

Q2 Chairman: Some people are saying that it was a bit of a cop-out that the Secretary of State stood up and said that he accepts all the Laming inquiry recommendations. They think that the Government should have come back and said, "We prioritise things; this is what we go for first." What was your feeling about the Secretary of State's response, "It is wonderful across the piece, and yes, we shall accept everything."?

Lord Laming: The 58 recommendations in the report represent a considerable challenge to Government as a whole. I recognise that some of the recommendations will be quite difficult to follow. I accepted the Government response as being a sincere intention to do their very best to implement the recommendations. I am not sanguine about this. It is a fairly tough task that they have been presented with. I was encouraged by their response and by the speed with which the report was published-they only had it for a matter of days. I thought that the response from the Government was extremely encouraging. But I suppose that the truth of the matter is that I have been around this block before, as you will know. I would say that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, if I may put it like that. I shall watch with interest from the sidelines to see what progress has been made and how quickly it is made.

 

Q3 Chairman: Have you in your mind a time frame?

Lord Laming: There are some things that can be done quickly. I say that because I think that the Government deserve congratulations on their policy of "Every Child Matters". One of things that struck me very forcefully-I hope I managed to convey this in the report-is that, across the piece out there, there were people who were really impressing upon me that "Every Child Matters", and its five outcomes for all children, is a sound basis on which to take forward this agenda. Secondly, people were saying that the legislation is enabling, good legislation. Thirdly, they were saying that the practice guidance is good. Now, that seemed to me to be a remarkably solid foundation upon which to build the implementation of these matters. Some things can be done quickly; some things should be done quickly; and some things I recognise will take a bit longer.

 

Q4 Chairman: When we were considering the looked-after children report-which is as yet unpublished, although we have got it out of Committee and it is ready to be launched on the public-many of us were quite disturbed, in the wake of the Baby P case, that the more you looked at international comparisons there seemed to be a stubborn likelihood of a fair rate of child murder. Almost whatever system you introduced or how much money you poured into it, there was a stubborn likelihood of child murder, even in countries such as Denmark that put an enormous amount of money into aid, care and all the rest. Does that worry you? Does that concern you? I know that you address that partially in your report, but it is a depressing fact, is it not?

Lord Laming: The death of children in these circumstances is not unique to our society. When people put that to me-not in the terms that you have put it but in other terms, saying, "This is inevitable"-I regard that as a counsel of despair. I would not get out of bed in the morning if I thought we had to live with that, because I think that the death of any child is something that we should take very seriously.

But I do draw this distinction: I do not think the great British public expect the impossible of our key front-line services. They do not expect, when a child is killed or injured as the result of a sudden explosive anger by an adult, which is entirely out of character and unpredictable, that that can be prevented. But that is hugely different from protecting a child that has already been identified by the key services as being vulnerable to deliberate harm or neglect. I think that we can and must do better because, as you, I am sure, will have heard from others, almost all of these children that end up on child protection registers-lists of some kind or another that are subject to this kind of assessment-have all been known to the services, and the services know how vulnerable they are. That is what I think needs to be addressed, and that is why I say that, if we have got the policy in place, if we have got the legislation in place, and if we have got the practice guidance in place, now, for goodness' sake, let's get on and do it.

 

Q5 Chairman: Can I just press you a little further on that? The more this Committee looked at children in care, looked-after children, as we took evidence, the more I felt that two things were joined. The better the system you have on the ground and the higher the quality of the people working with children, the more likely you are to do two things: probably reduce the number of dreadful cases, but, perhaps also just as important in some ways, reduce the level of child misery. I think that what most of us who get into this field understand is that it is also unacceptable that children live in what is a difficult thing to describe with precision-but we know what child misery is, don't we?

Lord Laming: Very much so. You may have picked out of the report the fact that I am very committed to practice rather than theory. I am very committed to actually doing what I regard as simple but important things well, and I think that when any of the key services go into a home, they can immediately assess whether this home is a child-centred environment, whether it feels good for the child, whether it even smells good, and what the interaction is between the child and the adults in the child's life. I think it is on that basis that you begin to form a picture as to whether or not the child is having to adapt to the needs of the adults, because it has no choice, or whether the adults-however inadequate they may sometimes be-are actually trying to address the needs of the child. I think that sometimes the services travel too optimistically-they hope for the best-and sometimes I think that they get diverted. Their attention gets diverted on to the adult agenda and they forget that it is actually the child that is their client; it is the child that is their responsibility. I really think that we need to hold on to the fact these services should be judged primarily in some respects-I wanted to say "solely", but certainly primarily-on how well they actually look after children.

Q6 Chairman: But wouldn't the logical conclusion from that be that you take a child into care earlier rather than later? We made a point of meeting children during our inquiry, and much of the evidence suggests that many children go in quite late-at 12, 13 and 14. An enormous amount of damage is done by leaving a child in a situation, hoping it will get better. Whereas, when we went to Denmark, we found that children on the whole were taken in much earlier, much younger.

Lord Laming: Yes, I think that the worst thing that can happen to a child, from my perspective, is for them to be left drifting along in a damaging situation. It may not involve physical damage, but it will certainly involve emotional damage and impair the child's proper development. From the outset, when any of the key services are involved, they should not only be recording what they observe, but setting an open agenda with the adults to say, "These are the things that I am concerned about and these are the things that have got to change. We will help you change, but if those things don't change, it is our responsibility to take matters further." This is not to do with a threat; it is to do with openness about people's responsibilities.

I have been in situations where I have said, "You need to understand that my job is x, y and z; I am here to do whatever that may be." I think that people are far too hesitant and hopeful that things will just get better, then they drift on and, in time, there is a downward spiral into awful things happening to children. Such children are then damaged, and when they come into care they are often very damaged indeed. People give care a bad reputation, but I think that a lot of that is to do with the kind of damaged children that we place in care. If we intervened earlier and more effectively, we would do a great deal better by the child and their future life.

Chairman: I would like to call Douglas Carswell on that issue.

 

Q7 Mr. Carswell: You will need to forgive me as I have to leave early, but I mean no disrespect. Following the death of Victoria Climbié, you urged local government to do certain things, which it by and large did not. Following the death of Baby P, you identified that those things had not been done and urged, some might say with a note of desperation, "Now just do it."

The levers of central control are broken, aren't they? Whitehall fiats and decrees don't work, do they? You can issue recommendations for new strategies, priorities and procedures for as long as you like, but, like a Soviet official issuing decrees about tractor production, what you say looks good in the world of SW1, Westminster and Whitehall, but it bears no relation to what is happening in the real world. Surely what is missing is not bureaucratic decree and Executive fiat, but accountability. The upward, centralist, Whitehall-driven accountability is not working, so we need to look again at how to make those people accountable for what they are meant to be doing, and that does not mean more government.

Lord Laming: I think there is a huge amount in what you say, because I am fully aware of, and have been deeply concerned about, this for a number of years. Any document, like my report, can be produced with the very best intentions for children, but unless it is actually implemented at the front door of each of the key agencies-be they in Wigan, Torquay, Hampshire or elsewhere-it is not going to make a difference to children.

One of the things that exercised me very much during the production of my report was the need for Whitehall to set an example to local services. It is no use exhorting those services to work across organisational boundaries and see the child and the families in a situation as a whole unless Whitehall and the Government also do that. That is why I recommend that what is needed now is not more glossy brochures, inquiries or anything else-we know what the issues are-but a really energetic implementation programme that is driven through to the front door of every agency.

I recommend a national development unit, but not as a permanent feature, because my thinking is not very bureaucratic-bureaucracy stands or falls by what it delivers as far as I am concerned. But at this stage, it seems to me from the evidence that I received that there are too many people on the front line who work for organisations that do not have a clear vision, are not well equipped in relation to the legislative base or the policy and practice guidance, and are not well equipped to work across organisational boundaries. I say quite a lot-and I hope this meets with your approval-about the accountability of local managers. I very much believe that if you have the title and the salary that goes with it, you should be judged on what you produce and what is developed at the front door.

At this stage, it seems to me that the Government need to devise a really serious implementation programme accountable to Cabinet and to Parliament. I hope that this unit, in producing an annual report to yourselves, will give some degree of energy to all this. We have got to be more ambitious in what we want to do for children and families, but you are quite right that, at the end of the day, managers have got to deliver and, if they do not deliver, they should not be allowed to stand in the way of the well-being of children.

 

Q8 Fiona Mactaggart: In "Every Child Matters", we have had the merger of local education authorities and children's services. I wonder what the benefits of doing that have been in your view, and whether it has worked.

Lord Laming: It is early days yet. I was, as you know, a director of social services for 20 years and a chief inspector of social services, so I was responsible for all the services. That was easy to defend on the basis that anyone who had a social care problem of any kind-be it mental health or drugs, or whatever-and a responsibility for children was likely to have the same needs. On the other hand, throughout the whole of my time as a director of social services-despite my very good relationship with the director of education-I was very concerned about the children who were, at worst, excluded from school, but who often just went missing from school and nobody took any notice of them.

Schools are a universal service, so they have the opportunity to identify, at an early stage, when a child's behaviour suddenly changes; when they cannot concentrate or their behaviour is different from in the past. That seemed to me to be an important matter-to not just ignore or keep it within the confines of the school building, but to say that something is happening in this child's life and we need to do something about it. So I viewed the combination of children's services, as a whole, as an opportunity to look at the child, not just in different compartments, but within its family setting, because schools ought to have regular contact with parents. My own view is that that has enormous potential.

Of course, there are lots of Directors of Children's Services from an education background who are not, I think, quite comfortable with this agenda and those that came from this background are not quite comfortable with the education agenda. There is a lot to be done to realise its potential, and wherever you draw boundaries there are difficulties, but I am hoping that when it comes to its full potential, people will begin to see the well-being of children in a much broader way and will respond much earlier when there are indications that something may not be right.

 

Q9 Fiona Mactaggart: That is a key issue highlighted in your report. You have got lots of figures for children who live in households where there is a high risk of domestic violence and so on, yet if you look at the 161 serious case reviews that are evaluated, only 12% of the children concerned were subject to a child protection order. So, we are not doing that sort of early identification that you see as being possible. What, from your report, is going to mean that that does happen?

Lord Laming: I have got great hopes-and only time will tell-for the new Children's Trusts, because I believe that they ought to be a vehicle to bring all this together at a local level. My impression is that the Government are fairly determined to make these Children's Trusts work in practice for children.

You are absolutely right. I heard of a police force that would, whenever officers were called to a home because of alleged domestic violence, refer the matter to the local children's services if children were involved, irrespective of whether criminal action followed. When I inquired what happened in children's services I discovered that these pink forms were put in a ring binder. Frankly, that is not good enough. That is why I feel that this is the time and opportunity to inject some energy and determination. I want the development unit to be doing just that. What is happening around the country with this delivery? What is happening when the police are involved with these matters? What happens about drug abuse? We have to take these things seriously. The focus for this task, however, is about the well-being of children and achieving their full potential and proper development.

 

Q10 Fiona Mactaggart: Were you able to make a judgment about how many children there might be who are at risk but not on the radar?

Lord Laming: I was not able to make that judgment. I quoted those figures because I wanted to convey what I believe to be the case, that the children who become known to local authorities as children at risk of deliberate harm-according to section 47 of the Children Act-are only the tip of the iceberg. Underneath there is a volume of children who are living in circumstances that are not going to facilitate their proper development. I am very keen, as I say in the report, on local authorities producing a children's plan which is informed by the needs of children.

Let me give an example. I went a while ago to Hull-an authority about which there had been concerns for a number of years. They have taken their children's services very seriously and are now well up there. They decided that they would do an exercise to find out what it is like for all children and young people to live in Hull-what was their experience of Hull. They consulted young people, families and all the voluntary and other agencies. They discovered a range of information about children in Hull, from what percentage of children live in homes in which there is no central heating, to children who are not in school for any good reason every day of the week, right through to children for whom there were serious concerns about disability and health problems. That has produced a comprehensive approach to children and families in Hull. It is early days and I do not know how well it will work, but I do admire the ambition and the intention. That is what we have got to work towards.

 

Q11 Fiona Mactaggart: You talked about admiring the ambition. I was wondering whether you had talked to the Government-which, as the Chairman says, has accepted all your recommendations-about how much it costs and whether the money is there to deliver what they say.

Lord Laming: Ah, well. One of the, if you like, pleasures of doing a report of this kind-and there are not many, I have to say, so I am not volunteering for another-is that I have now passed the stage in life when I have to worry about budgets or matters of that kind. The reason I am anxious to have this central delivery unit is that, if it is going to report every year to Parliament as I hope it will, it will have to have something to say. I am well aware in my advanced years that it is very easy to knock things into the long grass and hope for the future. I am very anxious to get on with things now and hope that you parliamentarians will be monitoring progress.

 

Q12 Fiona Mactaggart: You do not have to worry about the budget, but the risk in all this is that early intervention, prevention and things that are designed to make rather unhappy children more happy and therefore less at risk might be sacrificed to do some of the more expensive things you have proposed. What have you done to try to stop that?

Lord Laming: Sorry, I have not come across this before so could you explain?

Fiona Mactaggart: I am suggesting that in a situation where there is a limited budget, the risk is that some of those early interventions and things that are quite a long way away from the child at risk might be sacrificed in order to invest in urgent measures.

Chairman: It is the tip of the iceberg.

Lord Laming: It is a real issue. Other people may take a different view, but I really believe that it is financially in the interests of the key public services to intervene early and prevent the downward spiral into really awful catastrophe. The most expensive thing for a local authority is to receive a child into care. It can be very expensive for up to 20 years, year on year. In my view, local authorities ought to be putting a lot of emphasis on preventing children from coming into care, but not because coming into care is a terrible thing of itself.

If we believe that for the most part parents are the best people to bring up their children and that children are best placed in families, given the right kind of help and support at critical times such as the break-up of relationships or the onset of illness, you can prevent this very serious end. I have seen so much of this in practice that I really do believe that it works. If you concentrate on the heavy or serious end, you are just dealing with crisis work all the time. The agenda drives you rather than you driving the agenda. I believe very strongly that we ought to be developing preventive work much more seriously in order to enable more parents to look after their children. I think that we can do it and that it can be done well.

 

Q13 Annette Brooke: This is just a brief point. Obviously, Fiona has touched on the merging of the two services for children. I wonder if you have any further comments on the separation of adult social services. To my mind we have a service that is really starved of funds. It always has been, but it is worse now because it has no way of poaching any money. That is good for children, but on the other hand, the vulnerable children who survive will grow up to be vulnerable adults. We then have a self-perpetuating circle. You wrote just a paragraph in your report on adult social services. Do you feel that there should be more work looking at how these services are all pulled together so that we have a whole family approach?

Lord Laming: That is an extremely good question. The report reflects the evidence and the submissions that were put to me. You will understand that because it was about children's services, most of the submissions were about people working with children. Nevertheless, the issue is not just that these young people will grow up and will quite often need continuous help and support. The needs of parents who have mental health, emotional and relationship problems must also be addressed, not only because those needs are real and it is right that they should be addressed, but because addressing them is in the interests of any children who are involved. There is a big agenda for the adult services. I was not able, because of the nature of the exercise, to spend much time on adult services. However, I absolutely take your point.

Chairman: Fiona, did you complete your questions? Right, then we will move on. Lord Laming, this is the fastest progress we have ever had in our Committee.

 

Q14 Mr. Pelling: Lord Laming, your report's recommendations suggest that the National Safeguarding Delivery Unit will work with the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Families, Children and Young People to set and publish challenging time scales for the implementation of the recommendations. Is there any other interaction with Ministers that the unit should have? Perhaps that is challenge enough in itself.

Lord Laming: The reason why I recommended that it be the Cabinet Sub-Committee is that I do not think that these issues are issues for the Department for Children, Schools and Families alone. They are issues for the Department of Health, the Home Office and even wider. In the time that was available, for example, I was not able to address issues about youth offenders institutions. I was not able to address issues in the Ministry of Defence where there are very young cadets and military families that need help and support. I thought it was important to get a cross-Government response to this. I would hope that it is not just the time scales, but what they are doing together so that their initiatives can present a coherent whole. I am concerned about initiatives from central Government that are very well intentioned but do not always hang together, to put it rather mildly. I would hope that the Cabinet Sub-Committee would be a vehicle where different Secretaries of State could come and put things on the table and talk about how they are going to work effectively together in the interests of children and families.

 

Q15 Mr. Pelling: Can you tell us a bit more about how this unit will operate? How will it relate to Children's Trusts? How might it relate to the Government regional offices?

Lord Laming: Surprisingly, this is a rather crowded field of organisations, ranging from Government offices through inspectorates and the staff development groups of one kind or another. All of these different organisations have a very partial view and, frankly, a very partial interest in the whole. I think that that partiality is a weakness. There is nobody looking at the whole picture and driving through. I am very keen that there is a more coherent response to this. It is not that I see the unit as having authority of itself-it only has the authority of the Cabinet and Parliament-but it has the authority because of that to ask questions. If I were driving this unit-I am not, and I can say that with a smile on my face-I would not be making statements, I would be asking questions. But I would be asking some pretty uncomfortable questions. Why? How? Show me. Those are the three things I would be saying and boy, would I need some convincing.

 

Q16 Mr. Pelling: So in summary, in terms of the difficult task of joined-up government, you are saying that the unit is primarily there to ask questions and to prompt discussion among Ministers. Is that the case?

Lord Laming: But then to make an assessment. The next stage of what I would do if I were leading the unit would be to say to the Cabinet, "These are the questions I have asked. This is the information that has come back to me and these are the actions which you, Secretaries of State, ought to be taking."

 

Q17 Chairman: May I interject here, Lord Laming? This Committee takes very seriously your suggestion that the advisory body reports to Parliament through this Committee. Would you affirm that that is your view?

Lord Laming: Without a doubt. For three reasons. First, Parliament passes the legislation. I regard the 1989 Act as a landmark Act. The fact that we are here in 2009 worrying about its implementation is a very serious matter. I think the 2004 Act is a very good Act also. Secondly, I think that children are our future. I think I say in the report that they are now a relatively small proportion of the population as a whole. We need to invest in children and make sure that they grow up to become fulfilled and useful citizens in society. But thirdly, I believe Parliament should hold Government to account. Sorry, maybe that is a wishful hope.

Chairman: That is our job, and our remit runs, of course, across everything that the Department for Children, Schools and Families has responsibility for.

 

Q18 Derek Twigg: On serious case reviews, 40% between April 2007 and February 2009 were deemed to be inaccurate. That is an astonishing figure in the context of your investigation. What strikes me, particularly in terms of Ofsted's role, is that you say that we should revise the framework for serious case reviews to ensure that the chair has access to all relevant documents to conduct a thorough and effective review. I find that astonishing.

Lord Laming: Chairman, will you allow me to enlarge on Mr. Twigg's very important question? I really think that there are some real issues about serious case reviews.

First, it seems that there has grown up a general misunderstanding about the purpose of serious case reviews. If a child might have been subject to deliberate harm or neglect, that is a matter for the police to investigate, and criminal action should follow. Any authority-a health or social services authority or the Government-can establish an inquiry at any stage. I chaired an inquiry that was sponsored by the local authority and the health authority when something went awfully wrong. So, authorities can have an inquiry. That is entirely different from a serious case review. A serious case review is exactly what it should be-a review. But more than that, it is a review in order to learn lessons; it is an educational process. It has no powers in itself; it is not a judicial task. It does not have powers to allot blame. It is an analysis of what went wrong.

The reason why that is so is that serious case reviews are not solely confined to when children die. I shall draw on the aviation industry, which is a very good model. That industry has a system in which what you might call near misses-or if anything goes wrong with an aeroplane-are reported as events that could have led to something absolutely awful and therefore from which we all ought to learn. There is no criticism intended. That is why there is a very large number of serious case reviews. At any one time, several hundred are under way: some just beginning, some in the process of being handled and some coming to an end.

We need to make sure that serious case reviews are, first of all, chaired by competent people. I do not mean that at all in a negative or critical way. It is a tough job doing a serious case review and that is why people who chair them need to be properly trained and supported. Secondly, they need to have access to all the relevant material, and the relevant people, who might be grandparents, good neighbours, well-intentioned people, volunteers from a voluntary organisation, the GP, or the health visitor. The way in which that needs to be handled is that people must have confidence in the process. I take very seriously indeed the point that Mr. Twigg raised about the inadequacy of some of the serious case reviews, because if they are going to be any good at all, they must not just go through the motions. If they do not tell us or teach us anything and if the lessons cannot be generalised across all the services, we need not do them. If I were in Ofsted's position-I am happily not-I would want to be saying that the inadequacy of these serious case reviews is wholly unacceptable. That is why I recommend that people should be properly selected. Every Government office should have a responsibility to have in place a range of suitable people, and those people should be properly trained to undertake the task. It is a very challenging task and I admire the people who take it on, but we must do a lot better.

 

Q19 Derek Twigg: Paragraph 6.11 on page 65 of the report states: "Many of those who contributed to this report felt unsure about how Ofsted were making judgements". I find that quite a remarkable statement. Can you enlarge on it?

Lord Laming: I can only say what has been said to me, because I am not sufficiently close to what Ofsted does. People have said to me that sometimes, the inadequacy of the report is based upon what might be called a tick-box approach, by which this matter or that is not addressed. Sometimes the inadequacy is because the report has not covered every possible avenue, or because some parts of the report are not sufficiently clearly written and things of that kind. We have got to get this right. Ofsted has a responsibility in my view to make absolutely clear where the inadequacy lies. If the inadequacy lies in the use of language or the mode of expression, that is one thing; if the inadequacy is because the job has been only half done, that is an entirely different thing.

I just took all of that information as an indication that a great deal more work needs to be done on serious case reviews. They have got to have credibility and they have got to command our confidence. Most of all, they have got to command the confidence of the people involved. I am thinking about the parents and grandparents and other people who need to know, such as members of the public. Serious case reviews are called "serious" because they are serious. We have got to do better.

 

Q20 Derek Twigg: Do you think that it is a case of getting things right in terms of those who will be reading the reviews and the people who are involved with them, and that it is not just a case of the Department sending out guidance notes? Do you think that some real, hands-on training needs to be done?

Lord Laming: Without a doubt: Government offices, in my view, are extremely well placed. I think every Government office ought to know about every serious case review that has been established, who is chairing it, who is recording it and so on, and the time scale of every serious case review. Every Government office ought to know exactly why any inadequate Ofsted report is inadequate, and what is being done to correct it.

There is too much acceptance of these things in my view. This is why I think the delivery unit ought to be framing a whole list of questions from this report and saying, "These are the things that I am going to find out about and on which I am going to report to Cabinet and Parliament annually, on whether or not things have improved." If in a year's time the position is exactly the same-frankly, I am out of it-I hope that you will take the matter very seriously.

 

Q21 Derek Twigg: Thank you very much for that. My final question is on the confidentiality of the reviews. I was a Defence Minister for a few years, and I have seen boards of inquiry, which is quite an interesting concept and procedure. There was always an issue about confidentiality. I completely accept the logic that some people will not be honest and open if they are published but, in a sense, that also says that there is not a culture of openness and honesty in the first place in organisations. Does that not therefore go back on itself? My second point is that even if you do not agree to publish-I am not convinced either way-maybe a part version could be published. I am interested in your views on that.

Lord Laming: I am grateful for the opportunity to make plain and clear where I stand on this. Keeping the main body of the report confidential is not in the least to protect professional staff or other agencies. In particular, it is not in the least to protect senior managers. I hold very strongly to the view that any failure of a national public agency ought to be exposed and we ought to take action on it.

My concern-I am sure members of this Committee are so experienced that they will understand-is that very often we are dealing with families who are extremely vulnerable. We are also dealing with families who will have a range of reactions to serious case reviews. Those reactions might be based on guilt. People could ask why members of the wider family did not intervene earlier. There may be antagonism between families. There may be degrees of vulnerability in families that they would not wish to be exposed, which I respect. I think that we ought to go some way to protect the vulnerable in our society. The families that often feature in serious case reviews are among the most vulnerable.

I often put myself in this position, and maybe it is presumptuous, but if I was a member of a family that was going to be the subject of a serious case review and the entrails of my behaviour and relationships were going to be exposed-as it were-then I would want certain protections. It is not an inquiry; you cannot compel these people to come with you. I believe that the chair of a serious case review has a big job to do to persuade people that they can safely come before it, give their evidence and tell their story, and receive proper protection. If the chair fails to do that, I think that you get a lop-sided view of what has happened in the life of the child.

That said, it seems to me that the chairman has an even bigger responsibility to make sure that the executive summary reflects the report and tells the story warts and all in respect of the public services. It is a learning experience for the public agencies, and the executive summary must be a genuine reflection of what is in the report. That is why Government offices, Ofsted and the others involved ought to ensure that that happens. If Ofsted said that a major reason why these reports are inadequate is that the executive summary is-to use a colloquial expression-a whitewash, I would absolutely support it 100%. That is why the Government offices have to make sure that this does not happen in future.

 

Q22 Annette Brooke: In some ways, this is taking a step towards more people knowing about the serious case reviews. At the moment, I presume that a serious case review is presented to every member of the Local Safeguarding Children Board. How much scrutiny takes place at that stage? After all, they have commissioned it and, in the past, we have had co-chairmanship. Is there not a role for a small panel of councillors? You recommend this being done nationally, but should we also have something parallel at a local level examining and seeing what the defects are?

Lord Laming: Chairman, I agree with that. In his response to me, Mr. Balls made clear that he was going to ensure that the local safeguarding boards would be chaired by an independent person and that the named councillor who has lead responsibility will be a member of the board. The involvement of members at a local level is absolutely right. Frankly, I do not understand why a local authority, taking these matters seriously, should not be informed whenever there is to be a serious case review and, further, when a decision is made that there should not be a serious case review but there is concern. Establishing a panel of members to look at those issues would be a very good thing. It would be an indication that local authorities were taking matters seriously.

 

Q23 Annette Brooke: Thank you. Something that I seem to be picking up is that there is a lack of engagement with members on these very serious issues.

Lord Laming: Yes.

 

Q24 Annette Brooke: Another point is that when Ofsted has looked at the serious case reviews, it has come to a different judgment from the local safeguarding boards about whether neglect or abuse was a factor. How are we going to get this working together to have thorough scrutiny? I am not convinced that the central delivery unit will be enough to adjust these issues, which are at local level.

Lord Laming: Chairman, I take very seriously the point about local members not being engaged in these matters. I believe very strongly that, actually, once the child has died all the other services that are created are no longer relevant to the needs of that child. So we cannot keep the child alive. You know, this is very basic stuff.

I believe that elected members and members of both health authorities and police authorities have a major responsibility to ask the questions about what is happening in this area of work. I regard this as a really very serious matter and I am sure that you are absolutely right in drawing attention to it. All I can say is that I wish they would take it more seriously. I certainly take it seriously, I know you do, so I wish everybody else would take it more seriously.

Frankly, I think that the death or injury of a child in these circumstances is, as I say in the report, a reproach to us all, and I just do not think that we should tolerate bad practice or some of the things that have been highly publicised. More than that, I think that all of us ought to have a great deal more ambition to do better.

 

Q25 Chairman: Lord Laming, just before we move on to the next topic, you will know very well that the Chief Inspector of Ofsted reports to Parliament through this Committee. I will not be unkind here-well, perhaps you will find this a little unkind. It seems to me that Ofsted got off rather lightly in your report. I say that because, certainly in the Baby P case and in the evidence that we have taken since then, it seemed to us that the inspection was light in the extreme and paper based.

When we put it to the Chief Inspector that there was some need to put the public's mind at rest about the rigour of the inspection process, we did not get quite the positive answer that we wanted. We said very clearly-certainly I did-that we wanted much more real inspectorates on the ground, talking to people, meeting them, looking at them face to face, and going out with social workers. We wanted a more hands-on inspection process. After all, as I pointed out to the Chief Inspector, there are only 150 local authorities, and Ofsted has a very large staff. Do you think that you let Ofsted off a little lightly?

Lord Laming: First, Chairman, may I make it plain-I know that you understand, but I want to say it for the record-that I have not been involved with Haringey or Baby P at all? So I know nothing about that.

Chairman: No, no-I am just giving you that as a general point.

Lord Laming: Indeed. Let me speak generally.

First, I think about inspection the way that I think about all other bureaucratic structures, which is that unless it produces better services at the front door of every agency, the inspection process is not worth having. Secondly, I think that inspection has got to command the confidence of Parliament and the general public, because a great deal of trust is placed upon the conclusions drawn by inspectors after an inspection.

I did not intend to let anybody off the hook. What I say about Ofsted is this: I do not believe that any inspection should be a one-off snapshot. I also do not believe in self-assessment-let me say that right away. I believe that the whole concept of inspection is external scrutiny. I also believe that the focus of inspection is not about the bureaucratic administrative arrangements within the organisation; it is about what the organisation produces. I am sorry to keep saying this, but I am very much a front-door kind of person. You know, does this work meet the needs of children, young people and families at the front door?

Ofsted is in a difficult position, it seems to me, because in the previous development section of inspectorates the organisation operated in two parts. One was the people who were there to do inspection and did so, hopefully, without fear or favour. They then produced a report that went to another section, which was a developmental wing of the organisation. When Ofsted assumed responsibility for children's inspection from the previous commission, it lost that development function, and I think that that is a very serious weakness, because inspection is only good if the recommendations are taken forward and actually bring about change within the organisation. It seems to me to place a particular responsibility on Government offices to make sure that that happens, because what is the point of producing a report that has X number of recommendations if everyone says, "Thanks very much, goodbye, we'll see you in three years' time." That is of no value.

I hope that I did not let anyone off the hook. I believe passionately in inspection and external evaluation, and I believe that it should be authoritative and without fear or favour, but it should be focused entirely on the end product-better outcomes for children. If it does not produce better outcomes for children, I am not very interested.

 

Q26 Mr. Chaytor: Lord Laming, your report is very critical of the extent to which the named Government Departments with responsibility for children do not yet have proper collaborative systems in place, and you refer repeatedly to weaknesses of different kinds in the Department of Health, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. Which Department has the most to do to get its performance up to the mark?

Lord Laming: That is a hostage to fortune, because I want them all to have a good go. Let me just single out one area we have not yet talked about. I was surprised and-I hope this is apparent-concerned about what has happened to the health visitor service. I am very committed to the universal service of health visiting, because I believe that becoming a parent is, even for the most capable of people, quite a challenging experience, and health visitors have the opportunity from day one to actually get in to support parents and assess parental skills and the child's development. Therefore, it seems to me that that is a vitally important service, and I was surprised that it has lost some of its focus, and certainly some of its work force.

I am very pleased that the Secretary of State for Health has already taken action on that and hope that the health visitor service will be restored and play its full part, because I believe that parenting is a very challenging task, and with it come not only rights, but responsibilities. The responsibility is to promote the well-being of the child, and I think that we all have an interest in that. I was also concerned about the understandable wariness of GPs, accident and emergency staff and paediatricians to become involved in child protection work. I think that that really does need to be addressed, because these people are very important in protecting children.

 

Q27 Mr. Chaytor: Whenever there is a move to greater co-operation the question of information sharing is extremely important, particularly when there is a gradual transition from paper-based record keeping to the electronic storage of information. Professionals often complain that they spend far too much time inputting data in front of computer screens. You mentioned some of those concerns in your report, but you did not necessarily state whether you think that those concerns are justified. Could you just say a little more about your assessment of the efficiency of the Common Assessment Framework and the need, or otherwise, for the national children's database?

Lord Laming: Having laboured long and hard over the years on paper case files, many of which were in less than adequate condition, I was very pleased when new technology gave everyone the opportunity to record, analyse and transfer data much more easily. That seemed to be a major step forward in the relevant transfer of information to key services at the right time. As you say, the information that was sent to me about some of it was that social workers, in particular, seemed to spend an awful lot of time in front of screens instead of being with families.

Inevitably, the picture that emerged in the evidence was very variable. I shall come to the Common Assessment Framework in a moment, but the root problem of the Integrated Children's System is that each authority is locked into a contract with a software computer supplier. Some suppliers have been better able than others to produce a system to meet the needs of children in this area of work. Something that is just bolted on will not meet those needs. We heard of a number of authorities that had got their supplier to sit down with front-line staff and tell them exactly what was needed. In those authorities, the front-line staff were saying good things about the system, while the picture was very different in other areas. Inevitably, the bit that was publicised were dramatic figures like 80% of time sitting in front of a screen. But other authorities are doing very well in utilising new information technology for good purposes.

However, the problem is that there are 150 local authorities-I cannot say how many PCTs there are, off the top of my head-and 47 police services. There is a case to be made for the Government to explore the possibility of having one system that is compatible. It is no use having a brilliant system here if you cannot communicate information to your adjacent authority. There are real issues. I find it quite surprising that, even though we know that people who deliberately harm children will go to different accident and emergency units, and different hospitals, it is worrying, as happened with Victoria Climbié, that a child can be presented to two hospitals, side by side-West Middlesex and North Middlesex-at different times and the hospitals not know that that child had been in the previous week with whatever it may have been.

Technology is a tool-nothing more than that. It is certainly not a manager. When people blame technology, it is because they have not got the technology right. They ought to get the technology right, and anybody who says that their social workers are spending 80% of their time sitting in front of the screen ought to be positively embarrassed that that is the situation, because their technology is a tool and they ought to shape the tool to do the job. I am not a technological whiz, but I would expect to employ somebody who is and to deliver the goods.

I have a different view about the Common Assessment Framework. It is well intentioned. It has the potential to be a very good tool. It is designed to help all the key people who have a part to play to use a tool that can be used by everybody. It is early days, but again we heard some encouraging evidence about it. I would give it more time and say, "Let's have a longer go at it." There is something that can be developed, as long as it is kept under review. We cannot be slaves to the systems. The systems have to deliver an end product and, if they do not deliver an end product, they have to go, but that one has the potential to develop a really good end product.

 

Q28 Mr. Chaytor: Coming back to the database, does it concern you that ContactPoint has taken so long to be developed? Do we understand, as of this morning, that it has been suspended for whatever reasons?

Lord Laming: Yes. In Victoria Climbié, I was concerned about-[Interruption.]

Chairman: Don't worry, it's only Prayers. Please carry on. Only prison governors get excited when the bell goes off.

Lord Laming: In Victoria Climbié-if you allow me to go back to that-I was concerned about the fact that so little use had been made of technology. There is so much evidence that-I mean, Victoria was eight or nine years old, and had never been on any school register, let alone attended a school. Ofsted had produced a very helpful report at that time-not to do with Victoria Climbié, but I just happened to have the chance to read it-about the number of children who were not on any school register at any time. I was told in the course of that evidence that a child can literally cross the road, say, in a London borough, and be in a different borough. Unless the parents are responsible enough to tell the school where the child is going next, and indeed, what their new address might be, the school has no means of passing on information about that child, and that child can just disappear from school registers. I was very keen that the Government explored the possibility of a basic system that was a contact point, to ensure that no child was deprived of universal services.

As I understand it-I was not involved with this-the Department did some feasibility and pilot studies, which did rather well. That led to the development of ContactPoint. I have no evidence on the latest problems, and I cannot answer about it, but it is a serious issue.

 

Q29 Mr. Chaytor: In terms of the children's work force, you make a large number of recommendations and point out, particularly, that child protection and safeguarding work have historically had a low status. What would you say are the most urgent changes that need to be made in respect of the status of social work and safeguarding work?

Lord Laming: You would understand, with my background, that I am very supportive of social work. I believe that it ought to be a very important and very satisfying occupation, because you are helping very vulnerable people at a difficult time in their lives. But it is only satisfying if you have been trained to do the job that you are required to do.

I believe that there is a big issue about the training of social workers. I am very practice orientated, as you have probably realised. I am not for all these theories. If people want to study sociology, let them go and study that; if they want to study philosophy, let them go and study that. But if they want to study social work, then let them learn the skills of doing social work. I think that social work training, the employment and managerial accountability all need to be looked at.

In so far as the safeguarding board is considered, I would like to think that that is considered to be one of the most important aspects of the work of all the key local agencies-not just local government, but the police and health services, domiciliary services and A and E; that ought to be one of their key functions. This is not something to deal with at the margin-it should be central to the functions of these key organisations. They need to demonstrate that to their work force-that this matters.

Let me just give an example. When I was a director of social services, the chief constable used to invite me to police functions from time to time, and he would sit me next to him and say to all his senior staff, "This is my friend Herbert. Whatever he thinks and does, we have to respond." We had an extremely good relationship with local child protection police teams, and they were extremely effective on the ground-they would turn up at kids' conferences. I think that the local safeguarding board has got to be seen to create that picture locally: "This really matters. We are taking it seriously. Now do the job."

 

Q30 Mr. Chaytor: What do you think is a reasonable work load for a typical children's social worker? In earlier sessions, on the matter of the children's work force, the question of overload came through time and again. Can you give us a figure: what should a social worker be carrying in terms of work load?

Lord Laming: This is a very important question. It relates to the points made earlier by members of the Committee about preventive work and getting involved early. Where a service is solely crisis driven and operates only on section 47 child protection work, every case that the social worker is likely to have is immensely demanding and potentially overwhelming. I say in the report that no social worker should have a case load of only those kinds of cases, because social workers will burn out very quickly if you give them only those kinds of cases.

Section 17 and preventive work is very rewarding because you are meeting families at a difficult time in their lives. You are helping families overcome their difficulties and seeing them prosper. You need to have a balance in those case loads. If you give a social worker only really difficult, crisis-driven child protection cases, you should not be talking about more than a handful of cases because they are immensely time consuming, anxiety provoking and emotionally draining. Sometimes they are physically frightening cases to deal with. You never know what is going to confront you when you knock on the door. Even at my advanced age, frankly, I still have the feeling of fear when I remember situations that I experienced at the time. You have got to give only a small number of those cases.

But if you have a mixed case load, with some cases that are moving forward and where you are steadily reducing the amount of contact necessary and where you may have involved a voluntary organisation-they are going to the children's centre, to Sure Start, the children are attending school regularly-if those safeguards are built in, then you can be talking about a case load of 20.

 

Q31 Mr. Chaytor: Finally, you talked earlier about the changes that you would like to see from the Department of Health and the need for more health visitors and a greater involvement by GPs. Does that involvement extend to GPs being required to attend children's case conferences?

Lord Laming: I think that it is terribly important that GPs are enabled by their PCTs to attend case conferences. I live in the real world, and it is clearly highly unlikely that you will get a GP's physical attendance at every case conference-that is unrealistic. I would like a written contribution from the GP and for that to be recorded in the minutes. But where there is a critically important case conference, where the issue is, "Has this gone too far? Do we now need to apply for a care order, an interim care order, or a child safety order?" then I would hope that the health authority-the PCT- would make it possible for a GP to attend. I regard GPs as very important in this matter and we ought not to create an environment in which people think, "That is a matter for the social care side of children's services." It is not; it is a matter for us all.

 

Q32 Mr. Timpson: Lord Laming, you touched on the issue of thresholds that local authorities have to consider-both section 17 and section 31-but you have also identified a number of inconsistencies across local authorities and how they trigger those thresholds. Are you concerned that the pressures that we have spoken about, in terms of financial and staffing constraints on local authorities, are playing a role in that inconsistency-particularly those local authorities that set the bar perhaps far too high, which means that the early intervention prevention work that we have been talking about gets missed?

Lord Laming: This is really important. The use of the word "threshold" has crept into the language without any substance to it. It might have substance in practice, but it does not have substance in law or in practice guidance. Thresholds that relate to a care order and the conditions that the court has to consider are real and important and that is right. But I regard thresholds from a local government point of view simply as a mechanism to limit access to services. They are absolutely nothing more. The worst element of that-the thing that I find wholly unacceptable-is that a decision is made about access to service without the child being seen. How you can know whether a child is in need of help, or is vulnerable to danger, without ever seeing the child, I frankly do not understand.

One of the things that I would like the delivery unit to get involved with at a very early stage is the use of these alleged thresholds. If they are there solely to limit access to service, in my view that is unacceptable. If decisions are made on the basis of paper, without ever seeing the child, then that is unacceptable. I would like to work towards the future with section 17, which you and other Members, Chairman, put into the legislation. Section 17 is really important. Section 17 is another pathway to help. Section 17 is on the statute book. Section 17 ought to be applied.

I am all against the use of the word "thresholds", and I believe that if a local authority does an assessment and says that we can arrange help in another way, through a local voluntary organisation or charity, or by involving the grandparents or the neighbours, then that is fine-they have assessed the needs of the child. Where it is simply used to say that you cannot cross the threshold of this building unless there is blood on the carpet-I put it colourfully-then that is unacceptable.

 

Q33 Mr. Timpson: Did you find in the evidence gathering for your report any examples of local authorities, formally or informally, setting thresholds within their departments? If so, can you give us some examples of the type of practice that you found going on?

Lord Laming: It is more to do with what local authorities say to other services. A good example is a school being very concerned about a child; the school taking quite a difficult decision to refer the child to the social care side; and the social care side simply saying, "Sorry, the situation that you have described is not bad enough, we do not get involved." What a deterrence that is for anybody. That school I suspect will think long and hard before going to the difficulty of referring a child again. We have heard about similar experiences from people in the health service. People are saying, "We actually don't know what are the conditions now that will lead a local authority to accept a referral." Well, that is not good enough.

 

Q34 Mr. Timpson: You spoke earlier about the huge expense for local authorities in receiving a child into care. One of the issues touched on in your report is the astronomical increase in court fees for care applications made by local authorities. My own view is that it is preposterous-a 2,500% increase for an application for a child to be taken into care by a local authority makes no sense at all.

I do not think that it would have been very hard to scratch beneath the surface when you spoke to social workers and those in the legal departments within local authorities' children's services-the cost is playing a role in their decision making as to when they should make an application. On the basis of the presumption in your report that, if there is one case, then that system should be abolished, I think that it is highly likely that we shall find one. Putting that to one side, what is your view about the principle of charging-that is what it is-local authorities £4,000-plus to apply to have a child potentially taken into care? We have to remember that not all such children are taken into care.

Lord Laming: I shall be very open with the Committee: I do not understand the purpose of the charges. If they were intended to be a deterrent to local authorities making applications for care, that cannot be substantiated, because the very act of a local authority making an application for care involves huge expense. The Public Law Outline requires a local authority to put its case together in a substantial way. I agree with that, because it is the right thing to do. It will not deter a frivolous application for care. Secondly, if a local authority is successful, just think of the expense that it is then committed to. The fees are of no significance against that bigger picture.

Two other things concern me. First, when the state makes an application for parental responsibility to be transferred from a parent to the state, it is a major issue. There ought to be nothing in that that is influenced by finance and particularly by the cost of keeping the child in care. The fees ought not to be a part of that. Finally, in a way, this is the state charging the state. Money is transferred from the state to local authorities, and local authorities pay it back to the Exchequer. I do not know the administrative cost, but it must be considerable.

As you have said, Mr. Timpson, this should be examined. I am glad that the Lord Chancellor has set that in motion. If it can be shown that it is a deterrent in any way, it ought to be removed.

Chairman: It seems daft, to use a northern expression.

Lord Laming: You have the privilege of using that kind of language.

 

Q35 Annette Brooke: May I ask one more question? Waltham Forest borough council recently decided that it should appoint an independent body to assess all decisions about taking children into care. Is that the effect of the tabloids frightening local authorities to the nth degree or is it desirable to have an audit on every single decision?

Lord Laming: I did not receive any evidence on that from Waltham Forest so I cannot speak about it. From the little that I have heard, if it is confined to care orders, that is the job of the courts. Courts make care orders, not local authorities. Local authorities make the applications; courts make the care orders; and an independent tribunal makes the decision. If it is really for some other purpose, I cannot comment.

One thing that I am clear on is managerial responsibility, which I hold very close to my heart. You cannot shift managerial accountability to somebody else. If you are accountable for the delivery of services, you are accountable. It does not matter how many other people are involved. If it is a learning experience, that is fine, but managerial accountability is absolutely central to the process.

 

Q36 Mr. Timpson: I have one last point.

Chairman: They always say that, Lord Laming.

Mr. Timpson: In paragraph 8.8 of your report, you talk about the length of court delays in care proceedings and call on the Ministry of Justice to take immediate action. I agree wholeheartedly with that, having worked within the family court system. You do not touch on the lack of judicial continuity in care cases and on how that impacts on the potential outcomes for children within care proceedings, whether they end up under a care order, a special guardianship order or whatever. Would you also like the Ministry of Justice to look at the issue of family law specialist judges and the continuity of judges for children?

Lord Laming: Yes and yes.

 

Q37 Chairman: Lord Laming, I get the privilege of asking the very last question. I know that we have kept you for a long time, but for us it has been a very informative session. We liked your penultimate answer when you said that you had no evidence. We like it when our witnesses say that they have nothing to say or that they do not have a strong opinion. We are delighted with that. We get very wary when professors have an answer for everything, although they have done no research. As we carried our research into looked-after children, I suppose the thing that worried me most was the birth to three period, where there is less contact with the child. Many of the unpleasant things that happen to children happen with no children's services involvement at all-the children are unknown. So the mechanisms for reaching out to families from nought to three are very important, aren't they?

Lord Laming: Absolutely.

 

Q38 Chairman: Dreadful tragedies happen in that period. In my constituency there have been cases resulting in a death where children's services have never been involved with the child. It seems to me, as you have already covered, that health visitors are crucial-health visitors who visit all families not just the ones that they think are in particular need-and that GPs are important. Are there any other ways? When we went to Denmark, it seemed to us that because they have such a tradition of children going into some looked-after environment educationally very early on, the hungry child, the unkempt child or the miserable child is identified quite early. We do not seem to have that capacity-the antennae-to identify the child and family in trouble early enough. Does that worry you?

Lord Laming: It worries me, Chairman. There needs to be a very strong commitment to the very early years, because they set a pattern for future development or lack of development of the child. You can observe quite easily the level of parental skill and the bonding that takes place between the adult and child from a very early stage, and you can do something positive to help that. I deliberately quoted in the report the work of two of your colleagues, Mr. Iain Duncan Smith and Mr. Graham Allen, because their document is extremely helpful and deserves proper recognition. These early years in my experience, for what it is worth, are the foundation of the future life. I attach a lot of importance to that. We should learn everything that we can from Denmark or anywhere else.

Chairman: It will cost money and resources.

Lord Laming: It will cost money, but the issue has to be put in the context of the value that we place on the life and future of every child and young person. When I say that children are our future, they are dramatically our future. Compared with the past, they are a relatively small percentage of the total population. They have got to grow up in a challenging world in order to become not only fulfilled, positive, creative citizens but constructive citizens. The future of our society depends a lot on what we invest in our children. I do not believe that that is idealistic; I believe that that is pragmatic. So when I say in the report, "Just do it", I think that we have the foundations in our society and a lot to be proud of, and I think that we can do it. We can do a lot better, but we need the vision, drive, values and determination. We are not going to be knocked off course on this, which is why I very much support the work of your Committee. I do not say that to ingratiate myself with you. This is a really important area of work, and if we get it right it will pay dividends in the long run.

Chairman: I think members of the Committee would agree with every word that you have said, Lord Laming. It has been a fantastic session. We are delighted with your evidence. Thank you very much. I hope you will keep in touch with the Committee.

Lord Laming: Thank you, Chairman. Any time.