Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, to the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and to their senior management team at CAFCASS for the remarkable work that they have done in the past year in turning round the organisation. The figures given by my noble friend on the efficiencies that have been procured and the redeployment of resources to the front line speak for themselves in the effect that they are making on the organisation. We greatly appreciate the work that they have been doing. We recognise the pressure under which their staff work, and we are committed to seeing that they are properly resourced. All the way through the passage of the Bill, concerns have been expressed that the resourcing should be adequate to the tasks that Parliament wants to impose on various departments and agencies concerned with taking forward the agenda. I shall repeat what I have said at every stage of the debates: we are mindful of those new responsibilities, and we regard it as a duty on us to see that the resourcing is adequate. However, I cannot enter into spending commitments for future years because I am simply not in a position to do so, although I can say to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that funding decisions for CAFCASS for next year, 2006–07, have not yet been made. My department is monitoring the current financial position of CAFCASS, and there are ongoing discussions about budget pressures with the chair, the chief executive and my department. I thought that she was very fair-minded in her comments, and she pointed out, in a remarkable display of efficiency by the DfES, that she received a written reply through her honourable friend in three days—that must be almost without precedent in the history of the DfES. The figures for investment in CAFCASS over the past four years have risen significantly, as the noble Baroness said. They rose from £80.8 million in 2001 to £95 million in 2003–04 up to £107 million in 2004–05, which included £12 million extra to improve training and to remove the backlog of cases. We have sustained that funding for this year, which needs to be seen against the backdrop of the significant increase in funding over the previous three years. I know that my noble friend will immediately say that further resources are needed, so I shall not push the point too far, but I believe that our good faith has been demonstrated, as it has in the funding of mediation services, to which my noble friend Lady Ashton referred, where again there was a significant increase in funding. On the funding for supervised contact centres, which is a cause dear to the heart of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, we have had significant increases—£3.5 million for contact centres next year, rising to £4.5 million in 2007–08. However, I appreciate the additional pressures and burdens that will be imposed on the various services and the increased demands that there will be in future years. All I can say, as I say on every occasion that we debate the matter, is that we are mindful of the pressures when we allocate funding in future years. We would not be before the House today proposing this legislation if we did not regard it as important that those additional services were provided. I hope that we can meet the concerns that have been expressed in the House to the satisfaction of noble Lords when we announce funding settlements for future years.