Secure Training Centre (Amendment) Rules 2007

My Lords, I offer my support to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and join in paying tribute to the officers working in these settings with these vulnerable and most challenging young people. I have a specific question for the Minister. Will the review look at the professional framework within which officers in these settings work, which has been mentioned by several colleagues today? Before entering this work, many of them will have had no experience of working with children. After eight weeks of training, which will emphasise mostly physical restraint, they will be expected to work with, as my noble friend has said, some of our most vulnerable children and young people. We can move so far forward with this. In Denmark, 84 per cent of the staff in settings such as children’s homes have degree qualifications for that work, while in Germany the figure is 50 per cent. In this country, only one-fifth of such staff have those qualifications; the others are less well qualified than those in these other settings, but they are working with far less vulnerable young people. I am sure that we accept that many of these incidents could be avoided if staff were given the right professional framework. It is to do with managing relationships with the young people, the expertise of the staff and the way in which they are supported. We also know that, historically, the turnover of staff in secure training centres has been high. I hope that that is now beginning to improve, but what my noble friend Lady Stern said about Oakhill suggests that that is not the case. When there is a high turnover in those settings, expertise and experience cannot accrue and be passed on to enable officers to respond in the most constructive way. I draw the Minister’s attention to the welcome proposals in the White Paper, Care Matters: Time for Change, including those on residential care, which emphasise a more pedagogic approach and contain some thinking that would be relevant to any consideration of how the situation might be improved. For instance, will the Minister look at the supported supervision of officers in secure training centres, where they are given time on a regular basis to reflect on the work with their supervisor? He might wish to contact the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care, based at the National Children’s Bureau, where there is a great deal of expertise in terms of best practice in residential work with young people. I hope that we can move towards a far better professional framework for officers in these settings.