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14 Jan 2008 : Column GC387
14 Jan 2008 : Column GC387
14 Jan 2008 : Column GC387
Monday, 14 January 2008.
The Committee met at half-past three.
[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (BARONESS McINTOSH OF HUDNALL) in the Chair.]
Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]
(Second Day)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall): I remind the Committee that if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, which is not unlikely, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bell sounds and will resume after 10 minutes.
[Amendment No. 13 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Lord Judd had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 14:
“Welfare for child immigrantsAfter section 11(1)(m) of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) (arrangements to safeguard and promote welfare) insert—
The noble Lord said: The passage of the UK Borders Bill into an Act has meant that the wording for this amendment should be different.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: With the leave of the Committee, there seems to be some confusion about which amendment we are now engaged on. My understanding is that we are beginning with Amendment No. 14.
Baroness Morris of Bolton: Amendment No. 14 is replaced by Amendment No. 22A, which has the correct wording.
Lord Judd: But it is still on the Marshalled List in my name. I thank the noble Baroness for her request for guidance. I intended to speak to the spirit of the amendment and explain that, because of the nature of the change in legislation, I was not going to press it to a Division at any stage. It would be ridiculous to do so because the wording has changed, but perhaps I will reserve my remarks until later in our proceedings. Therefore, at this stage, I do not intend to move Amendment No. 14.
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Baroness Morris of Bolton moved Amendment No. 15:
“Local care commitments(1) Local authorities must prepare a charter of aims, standards and practices for child care services in their area.
(2) In preparing the charter the local authority must consult with children in care and care-leavers.
(3) The local authority must publish the charter and take all reasonable steps to ensure its wide availability to the public.”
The noble Baroness said: This amendment would place a duty on local authorities to produce a charter of aims, standards and practices that constituted their particular approach to the care of looked-after children in their area. We developed the amendment following discussions with the What Makes the Difference project, which has been supporting Warwickshire County Council in developing a pledge to all the children and young people in the county who are in care or are care leavers. This has formed part of the partnership between What Makes the Difference and Warwickshire in taking forward a corporate parenting agenda. The development of the pledge was a joint venture between elected members, officers and children and young people. Particular consideration was given to how all parties could work together on an equal footing and without children and young people being disempowered in the process. This is an excellent example of good practice and should, we feel, be extended to all children in the care of the state.
Among the benefits of this proposal is increased transparency. The idea is to promote a wider understanding of what children and young people who are in care or who are care leavers can expect from their local authority and to detail services and support that meet their specific needs, rather than an unspecified statement of values and principles. Local authority charters could also have the knock-on effect of raising awareness of a social service that is often not understood or is neglected in the wider community.
Local authority charters institutionalise good practice, and successful authorities can draw on their experience to set standards to ensure that that continues. Similarly, the process of developing a charter forces those local authorities that are underperforming to identify priorities. It makes it easier to see what is going wrong and what needs to be done to deliver effective outcomes.
I want to take a moment to underscore the importance of the local aspect of these charters. This is not a top-down mandate. The idea is that these are developed locally and with sensitivity to the priorities of particular areas. The needs of local authorities and the challenges that they face vary, because of a multitude of factors, from demography to geography. Thus it is important that charters are developed locally and by those who best understand the priorities of looked-after children in the area and their specific requirements and goals. Highlighting the local aspect of the development of these charters is not an attempt to shirk national minimum
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Another point that needs to be mentioned is that the amendment would require local authorities in preparing the charter to,
That would lend the charter an added sense of legitimacy. Not only would the charter arise from the professionals engaged in providing care but it would come out of those with the experience of being in care.
Essentially, this is a way of giving more power, freedom and flexibility to local authorities while maintaining an emphasis on robust standards of care. I beg to move.
Lord Judd: In the spirit of constructive dialogue that I am sure the Minister would agree has characterised this Committee stage, I hope that my noble friend will take the opportunity to look seriously at this amendment with his colleagues. All my experience in community work, both in this country and abroad, has demonstrated to me beyond doubt that where aspirations and intentions are to be fulfilled—where goals are to be achieved—it is essential for those involved and affected to identify with the task in hand and with the arrangements that have been made to fulfil that task. The wider the internalisation of the commitment, the greater the success.
Legislation is sometimes not as effective as it might be because of the feeling that, once you have it on the statute book, it is the law and everybody will work to it. In a sense that is true, but the spirit of the law is very much more important. As I was saying over lunch to some of those outside Parliament who are working with us on the Bill, we all need to remember that legislation and institutions are inanimate; they provide frameworks and opportunities and underline what is appropriate, but effectiveness in policy depends on identification and commitment to that policy. I think that the amendment is sensible and I hope that my noble friend will assure us that he will consider it seriously.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Amendment No. 52 is part of this group. Its aim, like that of the noble Baroness’s amendment, is to ensure that there is a body to take responsibility for a number of things, perhaps the most important of which is that the child is involved in all the processes. That applies to the individual child’s involvement in their particular circumstances—accommodation or whatever—in the care of the local authority and to the services generally that the local authority provides. There must visibly be a body with responsibility for those things.
We shall have to wait and see whether that makes sense in the long term, given the way in which everything is being reframed. However, my impression is that
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Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child gives children the right to be consulted. However, as I understand it, our Government are not one of those who are regarded as having consulted children sufficiently.
Baroness Walmsley: I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. Care Matters, both the Green and White Papers, had some encouraging references to the participation of children in care and included an expectation that every local authority would develop, if they had not already done so, the opportunity for children to have their voices heard and to influence the work of the authority at a high strategic level through a new children in care council. The idea is that not only are children’s voices heard about decisions relating to their own care but the voices of a range of children in care are heard in policy making, assessing the quality of the services that the local authority is delivering and putting forward ideas about how that service could be improved.
We are disappointed that that provision has not been put in the Bill, despite the fact that Care Matters specifically said that every local authority would be expected to set up a children in care council in its area. If that is really to happen in every local authority, as children rightly expect it to, the legislation should make provision for it. In a recent consultation with 300 children living away from home, the Children’s Rights Director found that they thought that their right to have their say about things that mattered to them, and for that to be taken seriously at the highest level, was just about okay. That was as good as it got.
The Bill is a perfect opportunity to strengthen children’s influence in strategic decision-making and service delivery. The amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, would substantially strengthen the accountability of the corporate parent to children in care and ensure that the views of children were heard at the highest level.
Let me say a word of support to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. One of the most attractive elements of her amendment is transparency. Its third subsection says that the policy has to be published.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: I want to make two points in support of both amendments. I recognise that local authorities have to produce children’s plans that will contain many of these elements. If the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, is not to be included in the Bill, it would be valuable if it were enshrined somewhere in the form of guidance, simply because it gives a specific way of looking at standards. I am always encouraged when there is a good example of practice to give direction, and that is what she is giving.
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I hope that we can get something into the Bill about the voice of the child being heard. I say that because I have been somewhat disappointed, in talking with a variety of people in social work, about the continued difficulty that people have in hearing children. They may think that they are listening, but the Children’s Rights Director will tell you time and again that children say that they do not feel that they are being heard. The idea for children in care councils came out of Care Matters and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I expected that something would appear in the Bill. Some reference to them would be extremely helpful in order to ensure that councils have to set up such bodies and listen to children. That would mean that they had to set up mechanisms for children who are in their care and accommodated by them to be encompassed in those bodies and therefore heard.
Lord Ramsbotham: I shall follow on by speaking to Amendment No. 88 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. We must listen to the experience of those who have been in care, because lessons learnt are hugely important. It would be good if that were included in the Bill as a reminder to people not to leave out that particular constituent in thinking about what needs to be done.
3.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Lord Adonis): The Government are deeply committed to ensuring that looked-after children and care leavers are properly consulted on the services that they receive and are involved in helping to shape and improve them. That is a major theme of the Care Matters White Paper. A set of proposals is set out on page 22 of that document.
I am responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, on the basis that I assume from her remarks that Amendment No. 15 intends to enshrine in legislation the proposal set out in the White Paper for every local authority to develop a pledge to the children in its care. The intention behind the White Paper’s proposal is that looked-after children should be made aware of the services that are available to them. The pledge proposal is a central part of our overall strategy for improving corporate parenting and it has been widely welcomed, particularly by young people. However, we do not consider that further primary legislation is required to achieve these aims. We have provided local authorities with funding to help them to develop pledges and we will, in the revised Children Act 1989 statutory guidance, set out our expectation that all authorities should have developed a pledge by the end of 2009.
As the noble Baroness said, many local areas are already developing pledges, working in some cases with voluntary sector partners. Others are working collaboratively across regions to ensure a consistent approach. We intend to provide some good practice examples in the Care Matters implementation plan, which we are due to publish shortly and which we hope will encourage all local authorities to aspire rapidly to best practice in this area. However, I stress, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that these
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Amendment No. 52, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and Amendment No. 88, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, are concerned with establishing a collective mechanism to ensure that children and young people who are looked after are able to put their experiences of the care system directly to those responsible for service delivery. This important priority is already enshrined in legislation. For example, there are requirements under the Children Act 2004 to consult children and young people generally, which includes looked-after children and care leavers, about service provision in their area. The Children and Young People’s Plan (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2007 also include a specific requirement to consult children and young persons when the plan is developed and a more general duty to consult when the plan is reviewed. Local authorities are, of course, already required to take account of the wishes and feelings of looked-after children when planning for their care at an individual level.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we are building on these requirements by taking forward the proposal in the Care Matters White Paper to spell out in statutory guidance our expectation that every local authority should have a children in care council or equivalent structure. We intend to set out the requirements in guidance that representation on children in care councils will not be limited to looked-after children but will also include care leavers, who of course have an enormous contribution to make from their own experience to the shaping of services for looked-after children. In this respect, our requirements will go wider than the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, contemplates in Amendment No. 52.
While we believe that it is right to focus on ensuring that children in care councils are representative of the children who are currently looked after, we also believe that it is right to consult those young adults who have left care about the services that they received while they were looked after, as their contribution will help to improve the experience of those who come after them. I hope that in all these respects we are meeting the ambitions set out by the noble Baronesses.
Baroness Morris of Bolton: I thank the Minister for his reply. I am in no doubt that the Government are deeply committed to these issues. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for his support for the amendments, as well as all other noble Lords for their constructive comments and support. I acknowledge the rolling-out of the pledge; we just felt that we needed to build more on this. Will the pledge have to be published? Will people be aware of it?
Lord Adonis: Yes. I cannot conceive how it could have a beneficial effect locally if it were not published, so it will certainly be published.
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Baroness Morris of Bolton: So people beyond those involved in the care will know what is going on. This service is not understood; people really do not know what wonderful work is going on in their areas and how they could be involved. If people were more aware of it, that might bring in volunteers to help with all sorts of other things. That is very important. I thank the Minister for his reply. I will take the matter away and think about it and I will read again what he said in Hansard. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Morris of Bolton moved Amendment No. 16:
A local authority must conduct a review of a child’s experience of care if, during a child’s time in care, he or she has been looked after by three or more different social workers during the course of one single year.”
The noble Baroness said: The amendment was inspired by the Minister’s speech at Second Reading. He noted that some children see as many as 30 different social workers and go through nine or 10 care placements within a few years. The amendment places a cap on the number of social workers who may look after a child in a year. If the child has more than three social workers, the local authority is obliged to review the situation.
This amendment would create a mechanism by which a disproportionately high rate of turnover could be checked, investigated and, I hope, stopped. The rate of turnover might be perfectly explicable, but it might be a symptom of a yet unidentified problem with a child or, indeed, the local authority’s provision of service.
[The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 3.51 to 4.01 pm.]
Baroness Morris of Bolton: As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted by the Climate Change Bill, the rate of turnover might be perfectly explicable, but it might be a symptom of a yet unidentified problem with the child or with the local authority’s service provision. Elsewhere in the Bill are provisions for more regular independent reviews of care. This is much more straightforward. Does the Minister think appropriate this kind of trigger for an internal review of a child’s experience of care? It is essential to a child’s experience of care to be able to forge meaningful relationships without fear of having them repeatedly broken off. This is the underlying motivation of the amendment. The number we have chosen may be impractical, but I hope that the Minister will be willing to work with us on the amendment to stem the tide of constant turnover. I beg to move.
The Earl of Listowel: I offer my strongest support to the amendment and have attached my name to it. I was grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling it. It goes to the heart of the concerns of the Government and of us all about ensuring continuity of care, which
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