My Lords, I had not intended to speak today. I support the amendment, but in a rather different context. I welcome the work that the Government have done on the safeguarding clauses. Those of us who work in this area find that extremely helpful. However, the tone of today’s discussion has been very negative about providers, so I am probably outside my comfort zone, even more than the noble Lord, as a provider. I declare my interest as the president of Livability; I chair both its providing committee and its safeguarding board.
Throughout the sector there are large numbers of organisations that run their own safeguarding boards within the organisation, where they review every single incident that occurs within it. Quite properly, they already refer to the local authority those cases where they think it should be informed, and indeed to the CQC. In the not-too-distant past I had conversations with the Charity Commission about its role in these areas as well as those of the providers and the regulators.
It would be a pity if we did not recognise the huge amount of work that was going on already on safeguarding, and that we can learn a great deal from it. I would be pleased to support the amendment that says the Secretary of State should collect any report, because we could then look at trends. There is not a single provider that would object to being controlled by the Human Rights Act; I think that we all see ourselves as already being controlled by that Act, because we work under contract to the local authorities and see that as a clear extension of it. If it were direct, we would not operate any differently from how we do already.
I apologise for taking the time of the Committee today because I have not intervened very often, but it needs to be on record that there are thousands of elderly people and disabled people being significantly cared for by very good providers in conjunction and partnership with their local authority.
One of the issues that I would really like to have supported is the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, saying that you have to change the
culture. What will make the difference—this has made a difference in the organisation where I work, where we extended our services—is a culture of no blame. The sense that I have had here today is rather one of blame, but having no blame brings people forward and makes them report incidents that you can then look at. In my role, I am really concerned when no one comes forward and reports an incident.
I welcome what the Government are doing, but I hope that whatever else comes is not so draconian that it actually prevents people coming forward and making it clear that they want to report incidents in their organisation.
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