My Lords, it is a privilege to open the Second Reading debate on the Children and Social Work Bill. I was delighted to see such a good turnout at the briefing held on Tuesday by the Minister for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, and me and to hear such positive comments from across the House. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who found the time to attend that meeting and who are present today. I should add that, in order to assist noble Lords, I have written to all those who attended that meeting and all noble Lords whose names are down to speak today detailing a further opportunity to meet officials from my department in order to discuss any aspect of this Bill. The meeting will take place tomorrow between 11.30 am and 1 pm in room W2 in Westminster Hall.
It goes without saying that this Bill is a high priority for the Government and reflects our firm commitment to offer the promise of a better future to children who have endured experiences and faced the kinds of challenges that most of us will never encounter. In fulfilling that commitment, it is important to note that the Bill before us is only part of a wider programme of measures to strengthen children’s services and improve the life chances of all children, especially the most vulnerable.
First, the Bill will ensure that the right practice systems are in place for making sure that children’s needs and interests are at the heart of local decision-making. It has a particular focus on those children who, for whatever reason and through no fault of their
own, can no longer remain in their family home and need to be taken into the care of the state. While remaining true to the principles laid out in the Children Act 1989, the Bill will promote greater stability in those children’s upbringing and better support to improve their opportunities and outcomes.
Secondly, the Bill will strengthen local governance and accountability arrangements to help us understand the factors leading up to serious cases and inform policy and practice nationally, and so that local agencies can learn from this and improve the quality of the services that they provide to vulnerable children and families. The Bill will give local authorities an opportunity to test new ways of working in a safe and managed environment so that they can tailor their services specifically to the needs of children rather than slavishly following a set of one-size-fits-all rules.
Finally, and of course, any services are only as good as the people who work in them. Therefore, we are undertaking a series of reforms to the social work profession, building on the excellent practice that we know already takes place in some parts of the country. The Bill will strengthen training, promote higher standards and raise the status of the social work profession. The new regulatory system will apply across the whole of the social work profession, whether it is those working with children and families or those working with adults and their families, supporting improvements in the standard services across the board. Social workers perform one of the most important jobs in the world. It is essential that they have the right knowledge and skills to carry out that role to a high professional standard. That is why we must work with the profession to raise both the status and the quality.
I hope that participants in this debate will want to support our intentions. However, I recognise that there will be considerable interest in the specific measures and how they will work in practice, so I would like to take a few moments to set them out in more detail, along with the rationale behind them.
I will deal first with children in care and care leavers. Clauses 1 to 3 are designed to strengthen the support that is available to the approximately 10,000 young people aged 16 to 19 who leave care each year. All the evidence shows that care leavers are among the most vulnerable young people in our society. Many are still struggling to overcome the impact of the trauma they faced in childhood and, in most cases, they are expected to make the transition into adulthood without the unconditional love and support of a family or close circle of friends. As a consequence, they are far more likely to end up NEET, more likely to experience homelessness or mental health issues, and more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. However, with good, stable care and a more personalised and supported transition into adulthood, those stark facts need not be the culmination of their time in and leaving care.
I am delighted to be bringing forward these provisions because one of my first engagements with policy in this area was around a decade ago, when, having become aware of some of the issues facing children in and leaving care, as a director of the Centre for Policy Studies I commissioned a report on the life chances of children in care and the support for children leaving
care. The results of the excellent Handle with Care study, by Harriet Sergeant, were shocking. Improvements have been made, but it is still unquestionably the case that, without the right support at the right time, many children will leave care without the right foundations or stability in their lives to go on and make a success of their adult lives. All too often, the system is failing them as individuals, and the cost to the public purse of this failure in later years is enormous. Acting in this area is not just the right thing to do—which it most certainly is—it is also the financially sensible thing to do.
The Bill will address this by clarifying and strengthening the role of local authorities in promoting and defending the interests of care leavers in key decisions that affect their lives. Clause 1 will establish a set of principles that set out what it means for a local authority to act as a good “corporate parent”, and that applies to the whole local authority, including housing, health and well-being, and other local amenities, not just children’s services. The principles will not just be transformative for care leavers but also apply to any children who are looked after by the state and who need someone to champion their interests in the same way as birth parents do, because these children deserve the same opportunities as any other.
The principles do not place any new duties on local authorities but provide a clear definition of expectations about how the local authority should fulfil this role based on what any good parent would do for their own children. It articulates for the first time, in one place, what support these children can expect. At the same time as introducing the principles in the Bill, the Government will also promote a care leaver covenant in which we will encourage other local agencies and organisations to come together and pledge their support for care leavers.
Many of the ideas are the result of listening to the views of children in care and care leavers. Yesterday, for instance, Edward Timpson, I and the Children’s Commissioner met a group of children in care and young people who have left care here in Parliament and listened to their ideas about how their lives could be improved. It was inspirational, and I was very impressed by the young people. However, it was also deeply concerning as there were many similar stories about how they had had many different social workers in a short space of time, and there was inconsistency in the different people—social workers and advisers—with whom they were working. If anyone was in any doubt about the importance of this legislation and the actions that will flow from it, that meeting made it clear that we are definitely on the right road with our plans. This kind of engagement needs to be part of an ongoing process at national and local level and is a key element of the corporate parenting principles, because this Bill is about giving these children a voice and making sure that their voices are heard.
The Bill will reinforce the principles in practice by requiring local authorities to consult on and publish details of their offer to care leavers, setting out the support available for areas such as education, health, employment and accommodation. It will also extend the support that care leavers can expect to receive
individually. Currently, all care leavers are supported by the local authority up to the age of 21, but only those who remain in education and training beyond the age of 21 have the benefit of additional support from a personal adviser up to the age of 25. That seems the wrong way round, because those who have left education and training often live in less stable arrangements or do not have the same support networks to rely on. The Bill will extend the personal adviser service to any care leaver who requests it up to the age of 25. Alongside the Bill, we will also be reviewing the quality and remit of personal advisers so that we can make sure that the support they offer and the relationships they build are of a consistently high standard.
I turn to adoption and long-term care. In March this year, the Government published a new policy statement, Adoption: A Vision for Change, which set out our plans to strengthen arrangements for adoption, including the factors that are taken into account when decisions on permanence are made. The Government are strongly pro-adoption because we believe that it offers a critical opportunity for children to move into a long-term placement where they can build a loving relationship with their adoptive parents in a stable and supportive home environment. However, we recognise that this option is still open to only a small percentage of children who can no longer live with their birth parents. The provisions in the Bill will ensure that the factors which evidence shows have most impact on children’s long-term outcomes will be given due weight when decisions about adoption and other permanent arrangements are made. The changes will require decision-makers to take proper account of the quality of support a child will need in light of the harm they have suffered or the risk they have been exposed to, and the child’s current and potential future needs up until the age of 18. They will also ensure that the relationship between the child and their prospective adopters is considered.
The Bill includes two additional provisions to ensure that adopted children and those in other long-term placements receive ongoing help to improve their educational outcomes. The role of virtual school heads, who currently act as champions for the interests of looked-after children across local authorities, and the role of designated teachers, who hold a similar role in schools, will be extended to adopted children and children who are in long-term placements with other members of their family or special guardianship orders. This does not mean that the same support has to be offered to every child. We will expect the virtual school heads and designated teachers to use their professional judgement to decide on the most appropriate form and level of help to provide.
I turn now to children and safeguarding. Nothing can be more important than the safeguarding and protection of children, especially those who are at greatest risk or the most vulnerable. Sadly, we hear too often of terrible cases where children have suffered unimaginable neglect or abuse. We all agree that this should never happen and that we should take every step possible to reduce the risk of it happening again; yet, sadly, the same issues arise over and over again, including failure by agencies to share information and, all too often, the needs of adults being considered
before those of children. Clauses 11 to 14 are designed to establish a new Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to oversee the review of the most serious and complex cases and, with the support of the planned What Works centre for children’s social care, make sure that the lessons from them are no longer locked at the local level, but provide a stronger national evidence base to inform practice across the country. We estimate that the number of cases to be reviewed by the panel will be around 20 to 30 a year, with the remainder being reviewed, as at present, at local level.
Some noble Lords may have seen that on 26 May the Government also issued a Written Ministerial Statement on the Wood review. As well as looking at serious case reviews, it considered the co-ordination of local safeguarding arrangements more generally. The overall conclusion is that the current system of local safeguarding children boards is too inflexible, too variable and too frequently ineffective. Indeed, Ofsted reviews show that of the 94 LSCBs which have been reviewed, nearly 70% were rated as either inadequate or requiring improvement. We are therefore proposing to introduce a new, more robust statutory framework around multi-agency working that places a greater onus on the three main local partners involved in children’s safeguarding: the local authority, the police and health. We believe that these changes need to happen quickly and we will therefore be tabling government amendments in advance of the Committee stage so that the House can consider them at the earliest opportunity.
The Bill also includes measures which are intended to lead to lasting improvements in children’s social care services. Clause 10 is largely a technical amendment designed to put beyond doubt that the Secretary of State’s power to intervene in local authorities whose services are inadequate will also apply where two or more local authorities have combined those services. Clauses 15 to 19 will allow local authorities and agencies discharging care functions on their behalf to explore and develop more effective ways of working in children’s social care. The use of this provision will be entirely voluntary and locally led. It will allow a local authority to apply to the Secretary of State for a disapplication of its statutory responsibilities in respect of children’s services for a specified period so that it can test out better ways of working, either more efficiently or to improve the quality of support and raise children’s outcomes. The new arrangements will give high-performing local authorities an opportunity to operate more flexibly and trial more effective ways of delivering children’s services.
There is a consensus stemming back to the landmark Munro Review of Child Protection that over-regulation gets in the way of good social work practice. Addressing this is central to our strategy to reform children’s social care and this new power to innovate will enable us to carefully pilot and evaluate deregulatory measures. It mirrors a similar existing power for schools. We recognise that any relaxation of statutory requirements should not be undertaken lightly. We have therefore built in a number of significant safeguards into the application process to make sure that the use of the new power is properly scrutinised and that the safety of children is always ensured. These include time-limiting
the length of the pilots and making their approval subject to regulation using affirmative procedures wherever the proposal is to change the application of primary legislation. We have also included requirements to consult on the proposals with Ofsted and the Children’s Commissioner. These plans sit alongside our £200 million extension to the children’s social care innovation programme—a hugely successful programme involving partnerships between local authorities and charities, which, like the Pause projects, have already had life-transforming effects.
The second part of the Bill sets out our programme of reform for social work. Social work is a vital profession in our society, but one that is often not understood or valued sufficiently. Social workers have the ability to change lives—to enable people, whatever their circumstances or age, to have the best possible chance in life and achieve the outcomes they want for themselves, whether it is ensuring a child is protected or supporting an adult to live as independent a life as possible.
While there are examples of great practice and positive impact, I think we can all agree that there is more that can be done. We want professional practice and judgments to be focused on well-being and led by evidence of what works, not bureaucracy, process and procedure. We want social workers to be recognised and trusted, skilled professionals. The Bill provides for a new bespoke regulatory body dedicated to social work, with the ambition and vision to develop and regulate the workforce across the profession—across a whole career, different specialisms and different levels of seniority. This will represent a much more substantial approach to supporting the social work profession, focusing beyond entry-level qualifications on a whole lifetime career to embrace even the most senior social workers in the country—those leading social care services across England.
The new body will replace the current role of the Health and Care Professions Council in respect of the 93,000 social workers currently registered in England. The change to the system of regulation of social workers is in no sense a criticism of the HCPC. I commend the work that it has carried out since taking on the regulation of social workers in August 2012. Rather, it is a reflection of the unique position of social workers and of the uniquely difficult role they perform in supporting those people and children in society who are the most vulnerable or who have the greatest need. It is the Government’s belief that the interests of the people supported by social workers and the interests of the social work profession will be best served by a specialist regulator with a single focus on this profession.
The key objective of the new body will be to establish a robust regulatory system that will raise standards across the whole profession, while also taking effective action to tackle poor performance. It will: establish the knowledge and skills needed by social workers to practise effectively, both in front-line practice and in leadership roles; maintain a register of professionals that will fully reflect the range, skills and experience of individual social workers; oversee a mechanism for assessing the ability of training and education courses to produce graduates who meet these standards; oversee
the rollout of the Government’s plans to assess and accredit child and family social workers; and place a strong emphasis on continuous professional development so that all social workers have the up-to-date and high-quality skills they need to deal with the issues they will encounter. The Bill will also introduce parallel changes in respect of the approval of courses for mental health professionals and best interests assessors in England.
Before I conclude, I shall address the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. I do not doubt the importance of the topic raised by the noble Lord. However, I hope the following debate will focus on the content of the Bill and the important role it will play in the lives of children and those who support them. I am sure the noble Lord’s intention is not to shift focus away from such a laudable aim, so perhaps he will forgive me if I do not enter into an extensive discussion on the use of secondary legislation. However, I will make three further points on the noble Lord’s Motion.
First, the substance of the Motion is factually incorrect. The clauses referenced, Clauses 20 to 40, actually contain only two new delegated powers and one extension of an existing power proposed. This is vastly different from the suggestion by the noble Lord that the clauses contain “only delegations of power”. Furthermore, the provisions we are putting forward are far narrower than the existing regime of delegated legislation flowing from Section 60 of the Health Act 1999, which was introduced under the last Labour Government. Rather than re-enact that power in its existing form, we have deliberately chosen to propose in the Bill a new power which only covers social workers in England. This new power, unlike the one it replaces, is focused, bespoke and specific to the regulation of social work.
Secondly, the Government are firmly of the view that delegated legislation is the most appropriate vehicle to set out the role and operations of the new regulator, along with the relevant establishment and transfer arrangements, as this will allow us to update the legal framework more easily to reflect changing professional standards and improvements in working practices. This is in line with recent advice from the Law Commission on regulatory reform, which emphasised the need for this type of flexibility in the exercise of a regulator’s functions, within the context of clear powers. After all, we must be flexible in responding to the needs of the profession.
Thirdly, I should like to assure all noble Lords that I fully recognise the importance of this House having all the relevant details before it is able to carry out appropriate scrutiny of draft legislation. The Government have always intended to publish indicative draft regulations and policy statements before the relevant clauses are debated in Committee, and I am happy to confirm that that remains our intention.
I conclude by re-emphasising that the Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to making sure no child is left behind. I am confident that we all share the same desire to improve the life chances of the most vulnerable children and that this Bill represents an
opportunity to dramatically improve the way this support is offered, after years of these children being often left behind.
The Bill will make broad-ranging and far-reaching reforms to the children’s social care system: an ambition that has been welcomed by the charity sector, local authorities and previously by the opposition parties. It will make a substantial difference to the lives and life chances of the children, families and adults who rely on those services. This is an important Bill that is unashamedly about putting children first. I therefore welcome the level of scrutiny that Members of this House will give it. I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ comments and questions over the next few hours. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion