Children Act 1989 (Higher Education Bursary) (England) Regulations 2009

I am grateful to noble Lords for the enthusiasm that they have shown for this statutory instrument. I shall attempt to answer all the questions. If I fail to pick up on a point, I will be very happy to write further to noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, asserted that this is too little too late and represents a staggering failure. I should like to put on the record that this represents another step in a long list of extremely significant and important commitments that this Government have made to improving outcomes for looked-after children. For me, as a bit of a techie who is sometimes interested in numbers, it is quite remarkable that when the party opposite was in government it chose not even to measure the outcomes for looked-after children. Outcomes became measured only in 2000. I fully appreciate her interest and commitment to the well-being of looked-after children, but I would not take any lessons from the party opposite on how to promote improvements in outcomes. However, if we look at improving outcomes for looked-after children in comparison with the rest of the child population, I am certainly not satisfied that the outcomes are increasing quickly enough. I certainly do not want to see a situation where the number of young people going into higher education does not increase in the way that we hope to see. But I would look to the evidence so far, from which we know that in 2004 about 5 per cent of care leavers went on to higher education. Now, only a few years later, that has increased to 7 per cent, which must give us a great deal of encouragement. We will ensure that we are tireless in our work to drive up that statistic further. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, wanted to know whether the 13 weeks needed to be consecutive. We are talking about the definition of "looked-after child", which is clearly set out legally; it does not require consecutive weeks. The special guardianship entitlement is based on looked-after status. Special guardianships do not represent looked-after status, so unless young people subject to special guardianship formerly had looked-after status, that would not count towards their 13 weeks. We are talking about ensuring that a course must start before the young person reaches the age of 26. Care leavers might find that they do not necessarily follow the traditional path of going to school in the normal way, doing A-levels and going on to university. Sometimes they come in and out of education, so it is important that the age limit is there. A question was asked on the cost of marketing and the £1 million. Marketing would not be necessary. Care leavers are entitled to intensive and important support from the local authority care-leaving service. They have personal advisers whose job it is to help them; those advisers will ensure that they are aware of the bursaries. I have just been given some clarification. Sorry—the course must start on or before the 25th birthday, not the 26th birthday. The noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Garden, and my noble friend Lord Jones asked about the value of the £2,000. As I said and as noble Lords picked up, it was based on the outcome of research comparing the debt of care leavers when they finish higher education courses with that of the normal population. As the Committee knows, the extremely comprehensive reform programme for looked-after children, Care Matters, has an annual stocktake that Ministers are responsible for ensuring. The first will take place in October, and annually it will look at the programme of support and the promotion of improved outcomes for looked-after children. The £2,000 bursary and its effectiveness will form part of the Care Matters stocktake, so that will be an important review point. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, was concerned about the local authority method of payment. As I said, we need to be clear that former looked-after children can be some of the most vulnerable young people. It is important that the methods of payment are agreed with them—for example, whether it is their preference to have payment in one lump sum or spread over a period. The noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Garden, were concerned about additional support—whether the additional £2,000 bursary would be used in the place of other support. With regard to FE, for example, there are clear instruments that local authorities use, Section 23 being one of them. We have been clear in the guidance that this is in no way intended to replace any other duties that local authorities have to support care leavers. Local authorities support care leavers in a host of different ways; they provide accommodation for holidays and support for books, computers and other ancillary items that care leavers might need when going on to education. This is not meant to undermine that at all, so I can offer the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, in particular the assurance that she was asking for. What are the Government doing to promote improved educational opportunity for looked-after children? Noble Lords are right—it is not just about a bursary or whether or not young people consider that university is for them; it is also about whether they can achieve the academic qualifications necessary to take that step. For example, we have been working hard to test out the new role of a virtual head teacher, which has been piloted. Local authorities can appoint a virtual head who takes over the role of co-ordinating the educational support and service for looked-after children in an area and manages it like a school, ensuring that those children get the one-to-one tuition that they are entitled to and that each school that they attend has an appointed special teacher who is their point of contact. The virtual head teacher makes sure that all the good elements that exist are working in one direction towards driving up achievement in the interests of looked-after children. That is making a big difference. Then there are other issues such as promoting better attendance and making sure that young people who are in care have stability of placement. That is what the Care Matters programme is ultimately all about: promoting stability of placement so that young people do not move around or end up moving school just before their exams and so on. As the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, and other noble Lords are well aware, these are all part of an integrated approach—almost an holistic approach—to ensuring that we drive up educational standards for looked-after children. The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, talked about the small numbers and whether the impact of the £2,000 bursary was cost-effective. Any regulations that we bring forward need to be looked at in an impact assessment, and we have taken advice from our chief economist. This area is very new and it is difficult to assess the economic impact of something involving such small numbers, but we have every reason to believe that the bursary will help the small numbers involved. Because of that, we are committed to taking it forward. As I have said, in the annual stocktake we will look forensically at the impact that all these initiatives are having on the outcomes for looked-after children. My noble friend Lord Jones asked about the devolved Administrations. As I understand it, there are similar support packages in place for care leavers in Wales. Wales will choose to manage the support for looked-after children and care leavers in the way that is most suitable for young people in Wales, and I know that it works hard to ensure that care leavers get the best possible opportunities. There are real requirements on care-leaving services to ensure that young people have pathway plans and a personal adviser who will help them to enter education, training or work. As a corporate parent, the local authority makes a very important contribution in ensuring that the young people whom it parents have what we all want for our children—a decent future, a career or a job, a home, and opportunities for the future. That is what these pathway plans are all about. With those remarks and the promise to look carefully at Hansard to ensure that I have not missed any important points, I hope that the Committee will support these new regulations. Motion agreed.