My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 10, I, like other noble Lords this afternoon, place on record how grateful I am for the help of the Minister and his officials in trying to get to grips with this issue of access to records for care leavers, especially as it was not originally part of the Bill. I understand why we needed some considered negotiations around the subject. I found those very useful, as did my colleagues from the access to records campaign group, which comprises professionals from the Care Leavers’ Association, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, the Child Care History Network, the Post Care Forum and Barnardo’s. It is also supported by the fostering and adoption charity, TACT.
Some of the key issues that this amendment seeks to address are the lack of consistency across the country’s local authorities in the way they deal with giving access to records to care leavers, and also, importantly, how they deal with the issue of redaction of those records. A number of care leavers gave us evidence of how they received notes from their past which were essentially incomprehensible because of the amount of redaction that had taken place. Again,
that seems to depend on whereabouts you live in the country. That should obviously not be the case. In the amendment, we call for clear, effective statutory guidance and the opportunity for care leavers to access support once they have accessed their records.
That is another important point. I am not sure that all noble Lords are aware how difficult that experience can sometimes be for people. It does not matter what age you are. This is not just for young people who have recently left care. Many older people also have that experience. At the moment, no kind of support is necessarily offered to them. Of course, care records must be properly maintained and every effort made to trace records from decades ago as well as more recent ones. That ties in to my earlier point about the ages of people seeking their records. In fact, colleagues at the Care Leavers’ Association say that the average age of those seeking its help in looking for their records is around 35 and goes up to a 90 year-old—who found her records, triumphantly. Whatever age you are when you eventually get your records, if you are fortunate enough to do so, the experience can be difficult.
During meetings with officials, it emerged that both the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Nash—and the Minister for Children and Families agreed that the current wording on access to records in the care planning statutory guidance could be strengthened. Colleagues from the access to records campaign and I have worked with officials on that particular subject. It is also my understanding that Ministers have agreed to work with us on a programme to ensure that front-line managers and staff are aware of the new guidance. Again, that was raised earlier this afternoon in relation to how statutory guidance is used and the extent to which people take it seriously. We need to ensure that they do—once we have, as I hope, developed some new guidance in this area.
That activity will include supporting a round table for local authorities and voluntary sector organisations, and sending messages via the department’s various communication routes to relevant bodies which can raise that issue with their local authorities and make sure it is firmly on the agenda. We also understand that officials have spoken to the National Care Advisory Service, which runs the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum for managers. It said that it would be happy to run a session where the managers talk about how to improve their local practice, based on the proposed revised guidance and best practice. Could the Minister confirm my understanding of that? Also, would he be prepared to ensure that the voice of older adult care leavers is heard during all consultation processes and that an assessment of the effectiveness of strengthened statutory guidelines is carried out?