Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support these amendments. My Amendment No. 38 would place a duty on children’s homes and fostering agencies to provide access to independent advocacy. The first two amendments, to which the noble Baroness spoke, focus on the decision-making process and on ensuring that there is an advocate available in that process. I declare an interest as a patron of Voice, formerly Voice for the Child in Care, which is a widely used advocacy service. In Grand Committee I tabled this amendment and I do so a second time because of a recent meeting held by the All-Party Group for Children on the social care workforce as it affects children. That highlighted to me again how vulnerable these children are. The Government are doing much commendable work in building up the workforce, but unfortunately we start from an extremely low level. For example, we have a great shortage of foster carers, as we have discussed already, and inevitably that means that occasionally the quality of foster care is not as good as we would want it to be—occasionally research points to that—and in children’s homes there is a great shortage of residential care workers. Over the years, it has become unattractive employment, which has implications on quality. The Government set a target for residential childcare workers in children’s homes to attain a national vocational level 3 qualification in childcare, which is approximately equivalent to O-level, but they did not manage to reach it. There is still much to do to ensure adequate quality in the training of and equipment for staff in these settings who work with the most vulnerable children. In many areas, particularly London, there is a shortage of social workers. That again has implications for quality because it is difficult to obtain the highest quality when one is just seeking to fill places. If one does not pay people well and does not provide them with the right professional framework, one has to recognise that one is not likely to attract the highest quality. That is no reflection on those who do the work. I take my hat off to the Government for recently increasing funding to social work, but we still have a long way to go and these vulnerable children are in the hands of people who have been neglected themselves. It is important that there is someone there just for the child, just to hear the child’s voice, just to be their champion when things do not go right—when they do not necessarily have the right social worker or the right foster carer or the right children’s home. Under the amendment, there would be visiting advocates in children’s homes and fostering agencies. That is very important, which is why I bring it back again. I recall various visits that I have made to a children’s home: I spoke to young man about the draughts he experienced in the children’s home; another child spoke of one of the showers constantly not working; and another one told of a table that needed to be replaced but it was not seen to. An inspector might pick up such matters, but an advocate will know the child. I ask the Minister how much of an opportunity the independent reviewing officer will have to get to know the children with whom he deals. I know that they are supposed to see them before the review, but can he remind me how often reviews take place and what real opportunity there is for a relationship to be formed? On best practice, Shaftesbury Homes and Aresthusa have a visiting advocate once a fortnight so that they get to know the children. I look forward to the Minister’s response.