My Lords, I was attracted to putting my name to Amendments 135B and 135C because of their cleanliness and simplicity, and the fact that they picked up all the points that had been made in the Government’s policy statement, Regulating Social Workers, which was published last month. There was nothing missing. Furthermore, what the amendments proposed was independent and objective, and therefore they were likely to attract the support of the profession.
I could not help reflecting on two things. One was that when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, when I inspected a prison that had an under-18 wing the social services were responsible for under-18s at that time, so I took a social services inspector with me. She said that if it had been a secure children’s home, it would have been closed because of the lack of facilities. Those facilities were then under the direction of the Home Office, which claimed to be responsible for young people in custody. That has always suggested to me that government should not get close to the delivery of these things.
The second thing, which I admit struck me as strange, was on page 19 of the Regulating Social Workers report. One paragraph says:
“Ministers will lead on issues such as setting standards and delivery of responsive improvement programmes to raise the calibre and status of the profession”.
The next paragraph says:
“While Ministers retain ultimate responsibility, decisions will be kept at arm’s length”.
How can you lead at arm’s length? It struck me that there was considerable confusion in all this and that therefore the Government can consider the clarity of Amendments 135B and 135C as helping them to deliver what they want. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, we all want improvement as quickly as possible, and I think that the profession does as well. We appear to be in the mire of confused thinking, which could be avoided by withdrawing from it.