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Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 26:

After Clause 6, insert the following new clause—

"FUNDING OF COURTS AND CAFCASS: SECRETARY OF STATE'S DUTY
In order to enable the courts and CAFCASS to fulfil their responsibilities under Part 1 of this Act and, in particular, to reach informed judgments on—
(a) the circumstances of the child, and
(b) the order most likely to be in the child's best interests,
the Secretary of State shall provide the courts and CAFCASS with adequate funding and other resources."

 
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The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Government's case for arguing that we do not need to amend this Bill rests on Clause 1 of the Children Act 1989 relating to the paramountcy of the welfare of the child. If the courts require that the child's welfare should be the court's paramount consideration, should not the Government also be required to be concerned to ensure that the child's welfare is their paramount consideration? Such inquiries as I have been able to make have convinced me that at present that is not the case.

The report Domestic Violence, Safety and Family Proceedings quotes criticisms of CAFCASS which clearly relate to inadequately trained staff and pressure of work on staff. CAFCASS is, I believe, struggling manfully to build a team of able, well-qualified officers and to reform the way that it works. To do this job properly over time will involve more resources, not just a few million pounds found from some other budget, but a reliable and consistent funding stream adequate to do the job and to do it to a standard that will, where necessary, ensure the paramount importance of the welfare of each child, not forgetting that there are, alas, an ever increasing number of such children.

At least five Members of the House—the noble Baronesses, Lady Pitkeathley, Lady Howarth, Lady Morris and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—referred in this debate to the problems of funding and staffing of CAFCASS in developing its new role. Children have only one chance to grow up. We should not short-change this chance by prejudicing the ability of CAFCASS to fund its activities. In addition, the evidence seems also to indicate that the courts are underfunded and understaffed, causing substantial delays—one of the most serious problems to the effective functioning of the present system. To resolve this problem will need more specialist judicial capacity and a management organisation and ethos that recognises the importance of early intervention and avoidance of delay in proceedings. That, too, will cost money. It will also need a committed and prioritised source of dedicated Treasury funding.

This is a probing amendment to give the Government an opportunity to tell the House what their funding plans are. It will also give noble Lords more expert than I a chance to tell the House whether and to what extent CAFCASS and the family courts are adequately funded or underfunded today. If the Government argue that this is a money matter which should be reserved to another place, I will explain that I do not intend to place a money issue in the Bill. However, this House has the right to be satisfied that the resources will be available for the additional loads that this Bill will place on the courts and CAFCASS. I beg to move.

8.45 pm

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I added my name to this amendment not because I do not accept that it may be on the edge of the competency of this House in relation to financial matters, but in order to give general support to the spirit of the amendment that the Government should put their money where their
 
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intentions are. I welcomed the statement made by the Minister earlier this evening in relation to Amendment No. 22, when he made it quite clear that the Government will ensure that the resources are available to do the risk assessments that we have now included in the Bill. It is a great shame that we are now in a situation whereby, on average, there is about 16 weeks' waiting time up to the first appointment in most areas. I heard from a district judge only a few days ago that in some areas it is 20 weeks. That is four or five months out of a child's life before even the first appointment for the report to be written, which really is an unacceptable delay.

I also had great difficulty believing my ears when I heard the Minister suggest in Committee that CAFCASS does not require any further resources to be available to implement the various measures in the Bill because of savings that will be made in other areas of its work. I would be very surprised if the workload in any of its areas of responsibility were reduced, or if the need were reduced, in order to take account of the various measures that we are putting in place in this Bill.

In addition, the voice of the child is missing from the Bill. I am aware from talking to practitioners that it takes quite a long time to listen to children; you usually have to do it in the home, take time over it and be extremely sensitive about it. It is something that takes practitioners quite a long time. If we are to do more of that, as we all agree we should, there will be an even greater workload on the CAFCASS officials.

Therefore it is in agreeing with the spirit of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, rather than making any particular manifesto commitments from these Benches, that I support him. I hope that the Minister will be able to extend the undertaking that he gave us in relation to Amendment No. 27 and reassure us that the resources will be available for pay, for the amount of hours needed to do the job well and for training and recruiting the very best social workers to CAFCASS.

Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, I ask the leave of the House in speaking to this amendment, as I clearly have a vested interest in it. I thank the noble Lord for moving it—and your Lordships will not be surprised to know that I do not oppose it. I very much welcome the fact that it mentions both the courts and CAFCASS, because it is important for proper resources to be made available for all contact activities in the court, whether they are mediation services, contact centres, parenting education or other input such as perpetrator programmes and so on.

I am too experienced a campaigner and chair of non-departmental bodies to ask for unlimited or even adequate funds, or even for very limited funds, without making a proper case. I am only too ready to admit the faults and shortcomings of CAFCASS in its early years. But I emphasise now that the CAFCASS board is committed to reforming and improving CAFCASS, and we do not want that aim to be jeopardised by a lack of small amounts, in the scheme of things, of extra money.
 
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We have not hesitated, even with major budget difficulties, to drive through a range of practice and productivity improvements that have included a drastic reduction in national office staffing levels, devolving more budgets to frontline services, controlling public law backlogs, despite increasing demand of up to 20 per cent in some regions. But that has been at the cost of being able to give the pay rises that our hard-worked staff deserved and at the cost, too, of seriously putting a brake on much-needed training programmes and upgrading of vital IT systems. So we are already at the limit and could not possibly deliver on the extra responsibilities placed on us without extra resources, unless the expectations of other organisations in the system change as we have always maintained that they must for us to deliver within existing resources. Our staff are ready and willing to change their private law practice—for example, on early intervention models instead of long reports; but we can do that only if the culture surrounding some courts changes. If resources are released in that way, we can redirect them. That requires a major culture change, however, and a change in the trend of cases to become ever more complex. That is a worry to us.

We also face great competition for our workforce. As we heard today, local authorities are increasing their rates of pay, and we cannot compete with those. We are attempting to strengthen our infrastructure, which has always been needed, but it is a constant struggle, and the demands that we make of our staff endanger morale.

The proposals in the Bill offer huge opportunities for a new way of working with children and families, but we cannot do that justice without proper resources. Moreover, I remind your Lordships that investment in families at a time of such great difficulties saves vast amounts of money later on, by lessening the impact of family breakdown on the children's ability to achieve in later life. We must always bear that in mind whenever there is any discussion of resources.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, my honourable friend Tim Lawton put down a Written Question in another place on Friday 14 October—I am very impressed that it was answered by Monday 17 October—asking the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what funding had been given to CAFCASS in each of the past five years and how much was planned for 2005–06 and 2006–07. Although this rose considerably from 2001–02, from £80.8 million to £107 million in 2004–05, in 2005–06 it is £101 million because £6 million was transferred to Wales. It looks as if it is frozen for 2006–07 at £101 million. At a time when CAFCASS is going to be required to do more, it seems that its budget is frozen. Will the Minister comment on that?

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