My Lords, I lend my support to Amendments 34, 60 and 65 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to which I have added my name. I do so particularly in regard to the Bill’s effects on local authorities, having 28 years’ experience of having served on one.
Local authority officers, especially those working in social services, are the most collaborative people possible—they have multiagency working written into their DNA—but within proper professional limits, especially concerning the guardianship of personal information. Their focus is always first and foremost, properly, on the welfare of their client—in the case of serious violence, often young people living in the twilight zone between potential offender and, at the same time, potential victim. Of course, the risk in these provisions is that the disclosure of information provisions in Clause 15 changes the relationship between social worker and client so as to drive the latter away from services that could in fact divert them from serious violence.
What I do not fully understand and has not been made explicit is whether Clause 15 alters or expands the existing legal and professional constraints that social workers operate under in relation to the release of information to the police. If it does not, what is the point of it? If it does, will my noble friend say in what way and to what extent it does so, and what the rationale is? It may be that my noble friend can satisfy my concerns about this, but in the meantime the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, particularly Amendment 65 requiring depersonalisation of data, go some way to address those concerns, and I support them.