My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 129, 130, 131, 131A, 131B and 132, in this group regarding the power to test new ways of working. I thank noble Lords for tabling these amendments to the clause, providing me with an opportunity to explain its purpose and operation in more detail. In short, this is purely to improve the provision of services to children.
Before I go into detail, I would like to return quickly to our discussion about profit of last week. I could not help reflecting that I might be the only noble Lord present who has spent most of his life, until recently, proudly in pursuit of profit. That fact may itself raise wider issues, but I say again that we have no intention of revisiting the settled position on profit-making in children’s social care or of using Clause 15 to circumvent that position. I gave that assurance at Second Reading and do so again now. The policy paper Putting Children First, published last week, makes the same commitment and the Minister for Children and Families reiterated the point in his speech to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services last week. I hope that that makes things absolutely clear.
At the heart of this power to test new ways of working is the intention to achieve better outcomes for children and young people. This unwavering focus is at the very core of the department’s agenda to drive innovation and improvement. More significantly, the push to remove procedural barriers to better ways of working is in direct response to what local authorities are telling us young people are saying to them. They want things done differently.
The Government’s £200 million children’s social care innovation programme has enabled local authorities to develop and test new ways of working, but in some aspects of provision this has reached the limits of what is possible under current children’s social care legislation. This power responds to the sector’s appetite to go further by allowing it greater flexibility to support young people in the most effective way. A number of noble Lords referred to examples of good innovation, some of which have been pointed out by Ofsted. They referred particularly to Leeds, one of our partner in practice local authorities, which has told us that it is proud of the innovation it has achieved so far within the current framework—but it is also keen to go further for children and families in its area. It cannot do that without this provision.
This power is about creating a safe mechanism to test new ways of working to improve outcomes for children.