My Lords, I very much support the spirit of this group of amendments, but not necessarily the wording. I also very much agree with the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay,
about being very clear and crisp about the responsibilities and principles that we require the corporate parent—the local authority—to adhere to. That is absolutely right. I say to the Minister in a spirit of helpfulness that in other legislation such as the Care Act 2014 we have joined other agencies and given them a duty to co-operate with a primary agency with regard to that primary agency’s responsibility to discharge a set of obligations placed in legislation. We had many debates similar to this one as the then Care Bill went through Parliament. The Bill had to deal with the issue of the primary responsibility on the local authority in relation to adult social care, but, at the same time, required other people to help discharge those obligations.
5 pm
It should not be beyond the wit, if I may so, of parliamentary draftsmen and the department to construct a clause that identifies those particular service areas that need to be under a duty to co-operate with the responsible local authorities in discharging the principles in whatever version of Clause 1 that we settle on. I have to say to the Minister that this Government are very keen to emphasise that we are all in this together. It would be very nice to apply that principle in discharging the obligation on local authorities in Clause 1.
I go back to what I said earlier about my six years as a corporate parent. I spent a lot of my time working with the chief officers of these other agencies to get them to do their stuff. But this was at a time when money was much more easily available within local authorities. It was not in a period of really tough financial circumstances.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, described a silo mentality. That silo mentality is alive and well. People have to protect their budgets and they look at ways of doing so. If we do not place these other agencies under some obligation and duty to co-operate in protecting these children and working with the local authority, we will find in some parts of the country that people take a narrow interest point of view of what their obligations are, because the financial circumstances in which they are placed as a local authority are too tough to do otherwise.
We have seen what has happened where local authorities have had their budgets cut for adult social care. They have reduced their eligibility criteria. We will see some of the same patterns of behaviour in these other authorities if we do not take the opportunity in this legislation to require the other agencies—and I suggest to the Minister that we should name them in the Bill—to have a duty to co-operate with the responsible local authority in discharging their obligations.