My Lords, I would like to speak at some length to Amendments 113 to 120, and I will include Amendments 133 and 134 as they are related but purely technical amendments.
Amendment 113 is central to the new arrangements. It requires the safeguarding partners, namely the local authority, chief officer of police and clinical commissioning groups to work together, along with the agencies they consider to be appropriate, to make arrangements to exercise their functions to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the area. These safeguarding partners must also make arrangements to identify and respond to the needs of children in the area.
In May this year, the Government published the Wood review into the role and functions of LSCBs. This review, through extensive consultation, identified the key role of local authorities, police and health services in the safeguarding and welfare of children. The review found that without the agreement and full collaboration of these three bodies, the strategic decisions necessary to underpin effective practice cannot be taken. The new clause gives these key safeguarding partners the flexibility to determine which other relevant agencies they need to work with, and to decide how they can work together most effectively to identify and respond to the needs of children in their local area.
The new clause will allow the Secretary of State to specify in regulations the agencies which exercise functions in relation to children. This will, of course, include relevant agencies such as schools, youth offending and justice agencies and a range of others which exercise functions in relation to the welfare of children. The key change here compared with existing arrangements is that local areas would decide which agencies to involve and in what ways, rather than having a list imposed on them by central government. We intend that statutory guidance will specify that the safeguarding partners will be expected to consult locally before making the arrangements.
Evidence suggests that too many local safeguarding children boards are currently ineffectual and that significant reform is required. The Wood review found that the organisational boundaries between local authorities, police and health services too often act as a barrier to effective multiagency working. This provision would place upon these three key safeguarding partners an equal responsibility to work together. It will enable their vital contributions towards the safeguarding and promotion of the welfare of children to be better co-ordinated and deployed, and reduce the duplication of existing work. It will provide greater flexibility for local areas to arrange their services according to local assessment and agreement.
Amendment 114 sets out the requirement on safeguarding partners within a local authority area to carry out local child safeguarding practice reviews. This proposed new clause links closely to Clauses 11 to 14, which set up the independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and a system of national reviews, and sets out a requirement for the safeguarding partners to make arrangements for local reviews. Most reviews into serious cases will take place at local level. Safeguarding partners will identify serious child safeguarding cases which raise issues of importance for that area and supervise the review of the cases as they so determine. The primary focus of such reviews will be on how practice by local authorities or other local bodies can
be improved as a result of the case. If the safeguarding partners identify a serious child safeguarding case which they think may raise issues that are complex or of national importance, or where it becomes apparent that a case raises such issues, they will be free to refer it to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.
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With regard to the panel, I would like to pick up on the concerns raised in Committee last week by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the panel removing local responsibility and accountability—the noble Baroness raised it again today. I offer my reassurance that this is not about removing local responsibility for these cases, nor is it about national reviews being more important than local reviews. Some cases that are particularly complex or that raise issues of national importance will benefit from being managed centrally. Where the panel decides to review a case, practice improvement in the context of any local learning will remain a key aim of the review.
I cannot emphasise enough that reviews will not be about blame or public censure of individuals, as I have already said. The safeguarding partners must ensure that reviews are carried out within a satisfactory timescale and are of satisfactory quality. We have already discussed timeliness in relation to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. The new system will lead to greater consistency in both the speed and quality of reviews at local as well as national level.
The safeguarding partners must publish reports, unless they consider it inappropriate to do so. As with the current serious case review, there is a presumption that reports commissioned by the safeguarding partners will be published. In exceptional circumstances, for example, where publication of a full report is not in the best interests of the child or family members concerned, the safeguarding partners must publish any information they consider it appropriate to publish.
New Section 16F(6) sets out a list of provisions on which the Secretary of State may make regulations. It includes the criteria to be taken into account by the safeguarding partners in determining which cases raise issues of importance in relation to the area. Paragraph (b) of new Section 16F(6) refers to arrangements regarding the appointment or removal of a reviewer. While such arrangements are yet to be finalised, it is expected that a training and accreditation process will be established to provide a skilled cohort of reviewers. The safeguarding partners will be responsible for selecting the reviewer or reviewers for each case they commission, either from a list provided by the Secretary of State or through other arrangements. If in the course of supervising a review safeguarding partners find that the reviewer is not making satisfactory progress or produces a report that is not of satisfactory quality, it will be the responsibility of the safeguarding partners to address this as appropriate. Regulations may specify when a report should be provided to the Secretary of State or the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel or published. In receiving copies of all local reviews, the panel will be in an ideal position both to review the quality and timeliness of reports and the learning that is emerging from them.
New Section 16(6)(d) refers to the procedure for a review, which may include the establishment of terms of reference as suggested at Second Reading by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, and any specific methodology which may be used. Consideration may also need to be given to other potentially overlapping reviews which are taking place: for example, a domestic homicide review or safeguarding adult review. The safeguarding partners may also wish to consider, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Suri at Second Reading, whether cases that involve institutional abuse should be referred to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse led by Dame Lowell Goddard. Finally, paragraph (e) of new Section 16F(6) allows regulations to make provision about the form and content of the reports.
Amendment 115 requires the safeguarding partners to publish details of the multiagency working arrangements, which must include arrangements for robust scrutiny by an independent person. Research, including the extensive consultation carried out as part of the recent Wood review, has found weaknesses in the existing system around the accountability and authority of LSCBs. This new clause addresses both of those issues, by strengthening the accountability of the safeguarding partners and relevant agencies and by requiring them to comply with the arrangements. Safeguarding partners and relevant agencies must act in accordance with the arrangements which they have, by agreement, set up. The strengthened co-operation and collaboration of these agencies will enable improved assurances that the arrangements for joint working are effective.
Accountability, independent scrutiny and public confidence are critical factors in effective multiagency work to improve the outcomes for children and young people. Requiring the safeguarding partners to make public their arrangements for the multiagency working set out in Amendments 113 and 114, and the independent scrutiny of their work, will significantly strengthen the accountability for that work. Accountability will be further strengthened by requiring the safeguarding partners to report at least annually on the work resulting from the arrangements, and the effectiveness of the multiagency arrangements in practice.
The requirement for independent scrutiny allows for stronger provisions than those currently in existence for LSCBs while allowing a greater degree of local flexibility than is permitted by the current system of independent chairs. In addition, this clause contains a delegated power to make provision for enforcement if there are no other appropriate means of enforcement powers to be filled in regulations. The Secretary of State has statutory enforcement powers against local authorities and maintained schools, and is likely to be able to enforce other requirements through contractual or grant conditions. Indeed, local authorities may be able to enforce some requirements through contractual or grant-funding relationships with agencies with which they work.
Amendment 116 enables the partners to request information in pursuance of their statutory functions. It also enables the partners to enforce compliance with such a request through the courts. I emphasise, as
discussed previously, that this provision does not apply to the judiciary whose independence is a constitutional matter. It is essential that the safeguarding partners can request information to enable or assist them in performing their functions. This may also include normally privileged information.
Subsection (3) of new Section 16H inserted by Amendment 116 provides for the application of court orders where necessary. This clause creates a new power for the relevant person or body to share information. This is likely to be sensitive information so that under data protection law it should not normally be shared unless the relevant person is under a legal requirement to do so. This creates the legal requirement to help satisfy data protection requirements. The information transfer, however, still needs to be justified under the Data Protection Act and those dealing with the information are still bound by data protection requirements as to how they deal with the information.
The Wood review highlighted the critical importance of effective and speedy sharing of information and data in relation to protecting and safeguarding children. We also know that failure to share information all too often features as a key factor in serious case reviews. This clause will underline the importance of sharing relevant information, backed up with the power of enforcement.
Amendment 117 enables the safeguarding partners and relevant agencies to make payments to support the joint working arrangements which they are establishing. Part of the decision-making processes that partners will make in respect of their functions under Amendments 113 and 114 will be to determine what funding they require to support their functions and to agree how the funding needs will be met. This will be similar to the way in which local safeguarding children boards currently operate. The provision also allows relevant agencies to contribute to a fund out of which payments may be made or to make payments directly if they should wish to do so. This clause does not require any partner or agency to contribute funding. It is a purely permissive provision.
It is important to allow partners freedom to make decisions on finance. This is part of their freedom to make decisions on how they organise themselves and operate in their local area. As at present with LSCBs, the Government will not fund these arrangements directly. The permissive provisions in this clause would allow payments to be made to reviewers or to an independent person. The provision to enable payments to be made to an independent person simply clarifies that such payments may be made. In addition, it may be necessary for staff, goods, services, accommodation or other resources to be made available to any person for the purposes connected with the arrangements, and for this to be funded by the partners. This clause allows for this to take place.
Amendment 118 sets out that, in a local authority area, under these arrangements, such an area can include more than one local authority, clinical commissioning group or chief officer of police as safeguarding partners. This provision is part of the more flexible statutory framework for multiagency working that we have been discussing. This amendment
allows for two or more local authorities to agree that their areas are to be treated as a single area for the purposes of these arrangements.
The Wood review noted that organisational boundaries can get in the way of multiagency operational working. It is of course true that the geographical boundaries of local authorities, police authorities and clinical commissioning groups are often very different. The local authority boundary will be the basis for arrangements but local areas may determine what is best for their area, taking into account the three key safeguarding partners’ considerations. Where more than one local authority is involved in these safeguarding arrangements, the amendment enables those authorities to delegate the safeguarding partner functions under these new provisions to one authority.
Subsections (4) and (5) of new Section 16J apply to clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police respectively in a similar way. Their boundaries may be very different, and even where only a single local authority is involved, this may nevertheless encompass more than one of the other safeguarding partners. These practical provisions enable streamlined arrangements to operate where the safeguarding partners concerned have formed a view as to what works best for their area.
This new section does not change the responsibilities specific to each safeguarding partner to exercise their functions with regard to the safeguarding and welfare of children. Nor does it remove the responsibility of each local authority, chief constable and CCG to comply with the new safeguarding provisions. Instead, it enables the safeguarding partner functions to be carried out in the most streamlined way.
Amendment 119 requires safeguarding partners and relevant agencies for a local authority area in England to have regard to any guidance given by the Secretary of State in connection with their functions. This may include guidance about the circumstances in which it may be appropriate for a serious child safeguarding case to be reviewed locally and for matters to be taken into account by safeguarding partners in deciding whether a review is making satisfactory progress and whether a report is of satisfactory quality. I believe that safeguarding partners will find guidance on these points helpful in aiding their decision-making.
Amendment 120 is purely technical and sets out the interpretation of key terms. Amendments 133 and 134 are also purely technical and are required for the purposes of updating the relevant clauses to reflect the abolition of LSCBs in relation to the power to innovate in Clauses 15 to 19. Specifically, whereas a local authority had been required to consult its LSCB partners before requesting a power to innovate, it is now required to consult its safeguarding partners and the relevant agencies. I beg to move.