Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to place in the Bill an explicit requirement that whenever the local authority has a duty to ascertain the wishes and feelings of the child under Part 3 the Children Act 1989 a written record must be made of those wishes and feelings. There is no disagreement of principle here at all, but it is the Government’s view that such a requirement is implicit in the statutory duty which already exists to ascertain the child’s wishes and feelings when taking decisions that affect the child. The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families in 2000 and related government circulars about the implementation of the Integrated Children’s System were issued under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. Local authorities must act under the provisions of Section 7. The legal basis is already clear. Recording all important information on which decisions are based, including the child’s views, is central to good professional practice, as set out by the Integrated Children’s System. As I said in Grand Committee, where a child is looked after, their social worker must record on the ICS form, which I read out in Grand Committee, the views of the child about their care plan; and if it has not been possible to ascertain those views, the social worker would need to record the reason for this. The social worker must also record—I stress ““record””, because it is a requirement of the ICS—whether or not it is possible to act on the child’s views. Each child’s care plan is a living record and the child must be closely involved in planning their own care. However, we intend to do more. Our Care Matters White Paper outlined our intention to bring together into one set of regulations, with accompanying statutory guidance, all requirements for care planning and reviewing of cases. This will set out in one coherent set of care planning and reviewing regulations all requirements for practitioners and managers in relation to these core processes. The regulations will be linked to the full implementation of the ICS. The new regulations will incorporate most of the requirements in the current regulations, but will also provide the opportunity to address a number of additional issues set out in the Care Matters White Paper, increase the level of scrutiny and oversight of the care plan and improve the participation of children in planning for their own care. These regulations will provide an opportunity to impose a legal requirement that social workers record the views of children about their care. We believe that this detail is more appropriate for secondary legislation but we intend to set out the new requirements in the regulations that follow the Care Matters White Paper. As the House is aware, Clause 9 strengthens the functions of independent reviewing officers, who are responsible for scrutinising each looked-after child’s care plan. Clause 9 amends the Children Act 1989 to impose a new duty on the IRO to ensure that any ascertained wishes and feelings of the child are given due consideration by the local authority. We envisage that implementing this requirement will involve the IRO meeting the child personally before the review meeting to discuss the care plan. This requirement will also involve scrutiny of the authority’s performance of its care planning duties. Any authority would be unable to discharge these duties competently unless it had a robust approach that ensured that its officers ascertained and recorded children’s views about the care plan. To summarise, the current framework of legislation and statutory guidance already requires the local authority to involve children and to record children’s views, or where necessary, record why it has not been possible to establish these. However, future regulatory change will enhance this framework and reinforce the responsibility of the child’s social worker for establishing and recording the child’s views. I hope that, on that basis, the noble Baroness will not feel it necessary to press the amendment.