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It has been suggested that the best way to achieve this would be to make it a statutory requirement for CSOs to be trained on the Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children's Workforce developed by the DfES. As your Lordships know, this sets out the basic skills and knowledge needed by people, including volunteers, whose work brings them into regular contact with children, young people and families. As part of its Every Child Matters children's workforce development programme, the DfES has recommended that all relevant practitioners should undertake the Common Core of Skills and Knowledge, which consists of improving skills in the following six areas: effective communication and engagement with children; young people and families; child and young person development; safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child; supporting transitions; and multi-agency working and sharing information.
In Committee in the other place, the Minister gave an assurance that CSOs will,
- “receive proper and adequate training to deal with young people”.—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee D, 21/3/06; col. 126.]
However, she did not specify what this training would involve. I hope the Minister can confirm that this training will at the very least adhere to the Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children's Workforce, thereby enabling CSOs to be more equipped to communicate and work positively with the children and young people they come into contact with. In doing so, I hope that she can also clarify whether in line with Section 11 of the Children Act CSOs will receive training in child protection, safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. I beg to move.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I rise to support this amendment wholeheartedly. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if in some respects I echo what the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, has said. Although she is no longer in her place, I echo the very favourable remarks that the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, made about the development of CSOs, which is clearly very important, constructive and necessary.
We are all agreed that the presence of CSOs can make a very positive contribution to policing and potentially represents a bridge between disaffected young people and the police. We also know that a great deal of CSOs’ time is spent with young people. Over half do so daily and 81 per cent at least weekly. It follows therefore that it is vital that they are properly equipped for this role and for the appropriate exercise of their powers. The noble Viscount referred to their safeguarding duty. It is vital that that should be properly discharged and explicitly included under Section 11 of the Children Act 2004. We hope to get some reassurance on that.
Training is clearly central, as is consistency of approach. The Common Core of Skills and Knowledge, published by the DfES, is the obvious starting point. Indeed, without it, it is likely that many CSOs will be significantly
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The common core of skillsconsists of six basic areas. They are excellent areas. People have spent a lifetime doing PhDs on each one of those basic areas, which go to the heart of what is involved in dealing with young people. None of them can be acquired without considerable time and thought. That raises questions about the time, level and intensity that will be applied to the training of CSOs. We need reassurance from the Government that they will commit explicitly to a training programme for all CSOs and tell us what it will consist of.
It would also be helpful to know what plans are in place for training not only the current CSOs but the 24,000 new ones that are planned to be recruited. Does the Minister have a timescale for that? What is the figure for the financial resources that will have to be committed, as they will be quite considerable? What will the training programme be, and how long will it take? Without clarity for such plans, the expansion of the number of CSOs—on the face of it, a potentially very positive development—is likely to lead to serious problems.
The Earl of Listowel: I strongly support this amendment. If I may, I will speak from my script in the interests of brevity.
Given their close contact with children and young people, it seems vital that community support officers are equipped with the common core skills already described. I seek assurances from the Minister on the other elements of a community support officer’s development that will enable him to set good, clear boundaries for children and young people: mentoring for these officers; the initial training, which has been referred to; and good supervision.
I hope it will assist your Lordships if I give a little psychological and social background to the work of these officers. Speaking very simply, boys growing up without interested fathers or other important positive role models are particularly at risk of developing dissocial behaviour. The Commissioner for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, has spoken of his particular concerns that black boys lack sufficient positive male role models, and that not enough black fathers are involved with their sons. I acquainted myself with some young black men in such a position. I am concerned that some of these boys face uncertain futures for lack of such a positive male role model. I know this is also a problem among white families, but it seems particularly apparent in black communities. It seems most unfair that some of these children may grow to be lawless and be punished for that, when they have had no father to show them the right path.
The Home Office assessment report finds that CSOs have a greater ethnic mix than the police force. They tend to be older individuals with a wide range of experience. The report, as has been made clear around
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“I was thrown in at the deep end ... they didn’t know what I was supposed to do ... it was an absolute nightmare”.
I quote further from the report:
- “views in case study reports were mixed regarding the feasibility of mentoring large numbers of CSOs. One force thought formal mentoring would be useful with the imminent rise in CSO numbers, while another thought it would be unsustainable on a larger scale”.
In my view, that mentoring support for the first one or two months of a CSO’s placement in a community is vital, for this reason: if these men and women are to be successful at setting boundaries for children and young people, they must know their own professional boundaries. I quote:
“It was also felt that more clarification of the role in terms of what CSOs can and cannot do was required. For example, one officer said: ‘They need more training about boundaries ... they haven’t been given clear training.’ This view was reinforced by other force personnel (constables, duty inspectors and BCU commanders) during the fieldwork”.
Perhaps that reflects in part police officers’ understandable concerns at the undermining of their own professional status, but it also carries with it what would be my paramount concern in this matter: that CSOs properly inhabit their particular role and do not seek either to overreach themselves or to neglect their duty to provide discipline. Good initial training, adequate mentoring and good continual professional development, including expert supervision, are required to build on the initial success of this new role.
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I should be grateful if the Minister could say in her reply what the normal expectations will be of the amount of individual supervision a CSO should receive. The Home Office assessment reports that over 40 per cent of CSOs, many of them younger and male, had joined as a stepping stone to joining the police. The relatively high number of CSOs wishing to become sworn officers raises a number of issues for the stability, diversity and morale of the workforce.
It occurs to me that some development of career progression within the CSO force itself might be part of a response to concerns about the workforce. If there were a recognition of certain CSOs’ experience and expertise and their special role as supervisors and mentors, that might aid retention and morale and keep some of the young men in the force—these important role models, one would hope—rather than leaving the force consisting predominantly of elder women, those who currently seem most likely to be retained, according to the report.
If the Minister might consider it helpful to convene a meeting between interested Peers, herself, police commanders or their deputies, the relevant Minister with direct responsibility and civil servants to discuss the development of this CSO role at some time during
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In conclusion, I support the call for common core training for CSOs. I finish at this point, but I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I say again how pleased I am at the supportive comments that have been made from all around the Committee. I hope I will be able to reassure noble Lords about the benefit of the way we are dealing with this important issue.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, is right. A large number of our community support officers are doing sterling work with young people. Indeed, when I went to Oxford, I had the pleasure of seeing two CSOs riding around on their bicycles, with a number of children chasing them because they all knew their names and had something to tell them. They are certainly well integrated into the community, and one of the benefits is that they are not frightening figures. They become well known and accepted, and they have a huge opportunity to gather information. I will not say that the two ladies involved were Pied Pipers, but I saw the similarity.
It is important, if CSOs are going to continue to do this work, that they do it well. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that one of the important things is not to see the CSOs in isolation. They are going to be very much part of the neighbourhood policing team. If an officer graduates out of the CSO role into an officer role, that officer will not necessarily be lost from the team. I am sure the skills and the community approach will inure to the benefit of any police officer having gone through that.
There has been a lot of concern about the training, but I can reassure noble Lords. To make it clear, the community support officers in the survey—which a number of noble Lords have referred to, but the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, referred to them first—were those who had been trained prior to the national training package, first launched in 2004. Noble Lords will remember that when CSOs were introduced there was no standardised training, but that has now been brought in.
As we have said, the Police Reform Act 2002 already places a statutory duty on chief officers to ensure that all community support officers are adequately trained to perform the duties and exercise the powers that have been designated. There is already provision in the Police and Justice Bill at new Section 38A(6) to reaffirm this responsibility in relation to the standard powers and duties of community support officers.
I hope that it will please noble Lords to know that the Central Police Training and Development Authority has developed a national package that addresses every element of the Every Child Matters report. This will be available at the end of the month, and has been fully incorporated into both the regular police officer training package and the community support officer training package. Community support officers already receive training in youth and child
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There is nothing to suggest that community support officer training is in any way inadequate. To enshrine for police training such a specific project in primary legislation would be, we respectfully suggest, unnecessary and would in due course fall into obsolescence as we change and move forward—considerations that your Lordships rightly take into account when scrutinising Bills before the House.
I hear what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, says on mentoring and supervision. I have already said that the CSOs will be part of a team, and we will be able to look into those issues more closely. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, is right that we hope to increase the number of CSOs. We are committed to having 16,000 CSOs in place by April 2007, up from the current figure of 6,000. The Chancellor announced in his Budget a further £91 million to facilitate this improvement. The training—and the opportunity for us to get better and to deliver a high-quality service—is certainly there.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about line management roles. CSOs should always be tasked and debriefed in accordance with the national intelligence model, as part of a neighbourhood policing team. On a daily basis, they discuss with the team leader the issues and incidents that they come across. There is some evidence that young people relate better to the community support officers than to police officers, which may be due to the difference of the role. Community support officers tend to get to know their patch well. We hope that police officers will be better able to emulate that approach when neighbourhood policing teams, which we all encourage and endorse, come more on stream.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, raised a question on Section 11 of the Children Act. I confess that I do not have that with me. I could guess, but it is safer if I write to him on that particular point. With that, I hope that the noble Viscount will feel it appropriate to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Dholakia: The Minister has been positive. In relation to what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, are there systems for monitoring the training? I am not talking simply of HMI reporting regularly on its inspections. To make the system more effective, could the Children’s Commissioner look at the adequacy of the training and comment on what precisely happens when people are trained? That might be helpful to take this exercise forward, but I am grateful for the comments that the Minister has made.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: If the noble Lord is talking about training in relation to children, I will certainly take that matter back with me. Every Child Matters seeks to ensure that every discipline approaches
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Viscount Bridgeman: I am most grateful for the support that I have had from the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and I am grateful to the Minister for her full explanation of these training methods. The noble Earl remarked on possible progressions from CSOs to the police force. That needs to be encouraged. Being a CSO is in many ways a form of cadet training for some people, so I hope that this will be borne in mind. Certainly the integration of the training of police officers and CSOs is important. So that noble Lords are fully in the picture, I remind the Committee that the parliamentary bike ride last week was accompanied by two officers, both on bicycles. One was a sworn officer and the other a community support officer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone moved Amendment No. 84A:
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 84A in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia, I will also speak to Amendments Nos. 84B, 84C and 85A. These amendments relate to conditions of bail for children under 17 and to the amendments to the Police and Criminal EvidenceAct 1984 in part 2 of Schedule 4 and in Clause 8. It is proposed in the Bill that, where bail is granted not in a police station, the police will have the powers to impose conditions. These amendments exempt children under 17 from these provisions other than the condition to attend a police station.
This is an issue of the appropriate protection of children and young people. The Standing Committee for Youth Justice has clearly expressed concerns about how to guarantee their protection if they are granted bail on the street and not in a police station, and without the presence of an appropriate adult. Home Office guidance stipulates that the decision to grant street bail to a juvenile should be based on an assessment of the level of risk to the safety and welfare of the young person, and requires that contact should be made as soon as practicable with the parent, guardian or other carer. This is really not good enough; it is well known that a high proportion of young people who get caught up in offending
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The assessment of the level of risk to the safety and welfare of a young person on the street is extremely difficult, if not impossible. It may simply not be apparent in such a situation that a young person is, for example, on the autistic spectrum, has a learning difficulty or is mentally unwell. However well trained and experienced the policeman or CSO might be, to make a snap assessment of that kind is really asking too much.
Where street bail is the issue, where the police are concerned enough to be considering bail at all—and we are talking about situations that are of concern—appropriate assessments of that kind become even more difficult. Even where none of those difficult background issues applies, it is likely that a child—and we must remember that we are considering children—will simply not understand what is at stake, particularly the failure to comply with conditions. So the only possible appropriate condition should be that the child attends a police station.
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If conditions are attached to a bail decision, all those concerns are greatly increased. Even if there is the most scrupulous training and experience, the proper level of child protection requires that an appropriate adult, or, at the very least, a station sergeant with the necessary level of detachment, should be present. When a child is given the choice of bail, the fact that failure to meet its conditions could result in the child being taken into custody is reason enough for him or her to be taken to the police station.
I asked the Minister at Second Reading, and I ask her again: what is the Government’s position on the proposition that the current PACE protections be extended to 17 year-olds, as the Standing Committee for Youth Justice has been urging and which we heartily endorse? At every stage, we must do everything to ensure that custody is avoided for young people in our community, for we already have far too many vulnerable 17 year-olds in custody. They may seem large and grown-up on the streets, but they are still very young people. I beg to move.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, has done us a service in raising this issue, because it will be the first of a long series of debates that we will need to have on the implications of the Bill as regards younger people. I wish to put on record my gratitude to the Standing Committee for Youth Justice for its briefing on this and other matters and, in particular, for coming along as a group last week to brief noble Lords on a range of issues covered by the Bill.
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