(4 days, 5 hours ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, we should pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, in his promotion of family hubs. They are places where families can be offered a range of services and integrated support and information. In my assessment, they have transformed the picture of family law and family practice. They are increasingly widespread and have an important role in the modern functioning of childcare. To that extent, I support the noble Lord’s amendments.
I have a boring technical legal point. A hub is a place, not a person, which uses volunteers and community workers, as well as professionals. If the noble Lord’s Amendment 21 were to be accepted, we would need some clarity on who exactly, under the legislation, would have responsibility on behalf of the hub.
My Lords, before addressing the amendments in my name in this group, I echo the appreciation expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for my noble friend Lord Farmer’s tireless work on family hubs. It is fantastic to hear that they are making a real difference on the ground.
My Amendment 26 seeks to find a way through the difficulty in the degree of statutory involvement—the noble Lord, Lord Meston, is not going to like my language—of education and childcare agencies in safeguarding. It requires the Secretary of State to produce a report to Parliament two years after the implementation of the clause which sets out the impact on the resources and costs for education and childcare agencies from their new duties. It could look more widely at the impact on safeguarding and whether there is a need to follow the recommendations of many of the children’s charities and the Children’s Commissioner in making it a full statutory safeguarding partner.
Page 34 of the Government’s impact assessment is studiously vague. It talks about
“possible costs and time implications on LAs to set up new infrastructure”
and
“time implications on some education leaders to engage with systems that they may not have previously been involved in”.
I am not sure how these impact assessments get written, but this feels like it is bordering on the naive. Of course, there will be direct costs for schools and childcare agencies, in both time and money, and we need to understand the extent of them. My amendment seeks to achieve this.
We need to know what this approach will mean in practice for education and childcare agencies, which already have considerable safeguarding duties. Presumably, they will need to put in additional processes and checks; if this is just making the status quo statutory, I do not really understand why it is necessary. Perhaps the Minister could explain in her closing remarks.
My Amendments 27 and 28 are probing amendments, again trying to find out the Government’s thinking on how this will work in practice. The hesitation on the part of the Government in this area, which I think is reasonable, reflects the difficulty in implementation, given the number of organisations involved in education and childcare. My amendment suggests that it would help to have a single point of contact both within the local authority and within the education and childcare sector. Can the Minister confirm whether the assumption is that education and childcare providers can all contact the LADO in their local authority with any safeguarding concerns, and is she confident that the LADOs around the country will have capacity for this? Similarly, is the local authority expected to contact every organisation directly, or is there a role for a single point of contact who could perhaps advise on general queries?
Finally, I have given notice that I intend to oppose the proposition that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill. To be clear, unlike some of my other clause stand part notices, this is purely probing. The policy summary produced by the DfE states:
“These arrangements enable education and childcare agencies to have representation”—
this is my emphasis, not that of the policy summary—
“at both the operational and strategic decision-making levels of these safeguarding arrangements”.
The summary continues:
“Practically, this may look like including the breadth of education settings: from early years and childcare to schools including academies, independent schools, alternative provision and further education in operational safeguarding boards, and”—
again, this is my emphasis—
“having representation for their views at executive boards so that they can influence decisions being made about safeguarding in their local area”.
Interestingly, there is no mention of special schools in that list. I am not clear why, because I would have thought that safeguarding would be a particular priority. I think we all have a sense of what this looks like at an operational level, but the policy summary talks about involvement at a strategic level. Will the Minister explain who is going to be able to represent all agencies in an area, what representation of their views at executive boards will look like in real life, and how this will be resourced? Clause 2 is an area where there is broad support for the Government’s approach, but we need more clarity on how they intend to implement these duties and how they will be funded.