My Lords, I intend to keep my remarks as brief as possible while aiming to respond effectively to the substance of the amendments.
Noble Lords will remember our discussions on this very important area of support for family and friends carers during Grand Committee. I welcome this debate and reaffirm our commitment to supporting kinship and friendship care. I appreciate the broad support for these measures from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and Members opposite. I commend the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Drake, on their tireless work in this area.
Where family and friends carer policies are applied effectively, the aims expressed in Amendments 58 and 59 will already be met. For this reason, the Government have in place a programme of work to improve the practice of professionals in this area. It is our belief that the key issue in this area is improving quality of practice on the ground rather than changing the legislation which already exists for this group of carers.
First, on Amendment 58, it is already a requirement of the Children Act 1989 that local authorities should support the upbringing of children by their families wherever possible if the child cannot return to live with the birth parents and if it is the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote their welfare. This legislative position is re-enforced by Volume 1 of the Children Act 1989 statutory guidance, which outlines that the local authority should have,
“considered family members and friends as potential carers at each stage of its decision making”.
That guidance is currently being revised to reflect the legislative changes in this Bill and to align it with the new Public Law Outline. The revised version will include strengthened content on good pre-proceedings practice and will re-emphasise the importance of early work with families. It will also provide information on the key elements of good pre-proceedings practice and the use of family group conferences.
I know that officials in the Department for Education have been in regular contact with interested parties, including the Family Rights Group, during the drafting of this guidance and have listened carefully to their concerns. A working group made up of expert practitioners, including directors of children’s services and social workers, has also been formed to act as a critical friend to the department and comment on early drafts. The guidance will be published for public consultation in mid-February and we would welcome any further views from noble Lords as part of that process.
The Government remain committed to the use of interventions at the pre-proceedings stage, which is why we are now funding the rollout of an accreditation scheme of family group conferences and the further use of this service at the pre-proceedings stage. Practice in this area will be monitored and inspected by Ofsted under the new single inspection framework for children’s services, which is designed to assess local authority practice and decision-making at all stages of a child’s journey.
On Amendment 59, we have discussed at length the valuable contribution of family and friends carers and it was with that in mind that in March 2011 we issued statutory guidance for local authorities on families and friends who are carers. That guidance makes it clear that wider family members should receive appropriate support to bring up a child in their care, regardless of whether those children are looked after by a local authority or not:
“The range and level of family support services which may be provided under section 17 is wide … As well as practical support, family and friends carers may need advice, guidance or counselling about how to manage issues such as those arising from contact or from caring for children with emotional or behavioural difficulties due to their earlier experiences. Such services may be provided by local authorities to support both formal and informal family and friends care arrangements”.
Therefore, non-looked-after children can already be included in such care arrangements under Section 17 of the 1989 Act. The 1989 Act does not impose a limit on the amount of support which may be provided under that section.
As I mentioned earlier, we are aware that the quality and quantity of local authority policies is not always at the level it should be. That is why we currently have
a programme of work to reduce the variation in practice within and across local authorities. The Department for Education will continue to look at the barriers to implementing the policies and will be looking to take forward work that clarifies the role of the local authority and the importance of good support systems for this group of carers.
We understand that many family and friends carers could do with extra help with the parenting of these children, particularly when dealing with children with behavioural problems. That is why the Department for Education continues to fund initiatives like the Keep programme, which is a group programme which provides family and friends carers and mainstream foster carers with specialist training and support.
While we agree that support and services are sometimes not of the quality that they should be for family and friends carers, we feel that improvements need to be made not by changing current legislation but, as I said earlier, by improving practice on the ground. We will improve the lives of these dedicated and inspirational carers by empowering them to have the information they need to ask for services when they need them and by ensuring that each local authority is aware of their responsibility and has the tools to deliver it. That is exactly what our current programme of work aims to accomplish.
Finally, on Amendment 63, I fully understand the sentiment behind what is proposed, but it is essential that we take the time fully to understand how becoming a kinship or friendship carer affects an individual’s labour market attachment before proposing policy interventions. For this reason, I announced in Grand Committee that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will lead a research project into those issues. Officials met recently with the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Drake, and representatives from a number of interested organisations such as Grandparents Plus and the Family Rights Group to discuss these issues, and I know that the officials found that very useful.
We will hold a further research scoping event for relevant stakeholders in the coming weeks to gain a fuller understanding of the issues and research challenges and to harness the extensive knowledge and expertise of these organisations. I hope that we will continue to build on these productive discussions and that noble Lords will encourage interested parties to attend the scoping event. It is essential that we properly understand the labour market issues faced by these individuals before deciding whether further policy interventions aimed at strengthening labour market attachment may be the most effective intervention. The research that I have outlined will help government to gain a better understanding of the evidence base, which is the important first step that is needed.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, raised at least three questions, and I will write to her to answer them. However, on the point about timing, this is a very urgent matter, but it will depend on the scoping nature of that research. I will write to her on that point, but I want to clarify that we on this side regard this as an urgent matter and will endeavour to move as fast as we possibly can.
In the mean time, I hope that I have given noble Lords sufficient reassurance that the Government are committed to supporting family and friends carers. I therefore urge the noble Baronesses to withdraw their amendments.