My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for her amendments, which cover support and services for family and friends carers. I commend her for the motivation behind the amendments.
We fully recognise the valuable contribution made by family and friends in caring for children who cannot live with their parents. We owe them a great deal, as the noble Baroness so eloquently showed. We have heard a great deal about the potential benefits of family and friends carers not only from the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, but from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby.
I found myself thinking that sometimes women like me are described as the “sandwich generation”. We look after our children and our parents, but if our children then come back and bring their children for us to look after, that perhaps makes us a double-decker sandwich generation. I hope that my children do not do that.
Noble Lords will be aware that family and friends care, or kinship care, covers a wide range of legal arrangements and, where appropriate, as we have heard, assessments are already in place for putting in the appropriate financial or practical supports. The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 amended Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 so that local authorities could provide regular and long-term financial payments to families caring for children where they judged this to be appropriate. This provision, passed under the previous Government and made discretionary, came into force in April 2011.
In order to clarify the role of local authorities, the Government released statutory guidance on family and friends care, and this also came into force in April 2011. It aims to ensure that children and young people receive the support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare.
We are aware that family and friends carers often struggle, as we have heard, to obtain information that will assist them in their caring role, particularly when they have taken on the care of a child in an emergency. That is why the family and friends statutory guidance makes it clear that local authorities have a duty to ensure that their family and friends policy supports the promotion of good information about the full range of services for children, young people and families in the area and highlights the availability of advice from independent organisations.
However, we are aware that the quality and quantity of local authority policies in this area are not at the level they should be. That is why we currently have a programme of work to reduce the variation in practice within and across local authorities. This includes sector learning days for local authorities that will support the development of local policies and guidance as well as clarify the primary legislation and how it is being implemented.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for commending this Government and the previous Government for their support for the vital social work profession.
It is also very important that family and friends carers understand what support services they are entitled to, so the department will be developing an information resource containing the basic facts, entitlements, services and advice that are available to them. This resource will not only increase the knowledge base of carers but will raise awareness of front-line practitioners, such as GPs, and those in education and childcare settings, who are often the first point of contact for new family and friends carers.
5.45 pm
The new Ofsted framework, which I referred to in the last group of amendments, will include a new focus on family and friends carers. One of the criteria to be judged as good includes showing that the recruitment, assessment, training, support, supervision, review and retention of foster carers, including kinship carers, connected persons and, as appropriate, special guardians ensures that families approved are safe and sufficient in number to care for children and young people with a wide range of needs.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, asked if I would be happy to meet the Kinship Care Alliance. Certainly I or the relevant Minister within the department will be happy to do that. I would like to thank it, through the noble Baroness, because much of the revised statutory guidance on family and friends carers was based on its suggestions.
I hope that I have given noble Lords sufficient reassurance that the Government are committed to and working towards supporting family and friends carers to a greater extent than has been the case until now. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, will be willing to withdraw her amendment.