My Lords, these amendments, in the name of myself and my noble friend Lord Hunt, are to the clause relating to educational achievement. It is surely self-evident that educational achievement is absolutely crucial to the hopes of young people in or leaving care in building a life that offers opportunities to raise their own family and pursue a career. So everything that can be done should be done to maximise those educational opportunities.
Amendment 77 would expand the provision that states that the advice and information should be available to the child’s parents for the purpose of promoting the child’s educational achievements. The term “parent” is unnecessarily narrow because, by definition, many of the young people we are talking about will not have parents. Perhaps the Minister will come back and say that it is a legal term and it is not necessary, but children could be with foster carers, they could be under special guardianship orders or they could be in care homes. The main point is to make sure that they are provided with the necessary advice that they need and to which they are entitled.
Could the Minister clarify whether the provision of information about education is to be provided to the child’s parents alone? It is obvious, as I have said before, that it has to be broader than that. There is not a lot more to say on that amendment, and I hope that I can get a fairly straight response.
On Amendment 79, there is an issue here with simply saying that a local authority,
“must appoint at least one person for the purpose of discharging the duty imposed by subsection (1)”.
I hope that it would be more than one person—but even if it is only one person it is important to ensure that that person, whoever he or she may be, allocates not just the resources but the time to do the job properly. There are many examples in schools, obviously at a more local level—for instance, the special educational needs co-ordinator. In my experience, that person is in some cases just the person who is willing to come forward and take it on; they may or may not have the training initially—they may be the only person willing to do it, on top of his or her other duties. On a bigger scale, within a local authority, it is important that the person who is appointed to look after the educational achievements of children in care is not just given another duty to add to his or her job description and is expected to do that within the time available to them. Can the Minister clarify that the people given the job will be able to do that?
It has already emerged as a recurring theme, even in the two Committee days that we have had on this Bill, that more and more duties are being given to local authorities. In some cases, that is quite appropriate, if they have been properly resourced. I shall not rehearse the arguments about the stresses and strains on the finances of local authorities, because everyone is only too well aware of that but if more and more duties are laid on them, local authorities must have commensurate resources transferred to them to enable them to carry out the duties properly. I accept that that is a small aspect, but it is an important part of the Bill. As I said earlier, the educational achievements of looked-after children and children leaving care is crucial to their
adult lives. I ask the Minister for those kinds of assurances and whether we can look with confidence at this part of the Bill, so that the person appointed to fill the post will have the ability, time and resources to do the job properly. I beg to move.