Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Earl of Listowel

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 98A in this group in my name. This is about the universal credit standard allowance for single claimants under the age of 25, for care leavers and lone parents. It ties in with much of what my noble friend has just said.

I thank the Family Rights Group for its advice on this amendment, which is rather complex, but clear. Under the current system of income support and income-based jobseeker’s allowance, the rate of personal allowance payable to a claimant depends on the claimant’s age and whether the claimant has children. Those under 25 year-olds who are not parents receive a lower rate of personal allowance than those aged over 25. A lone parent aged 18 or over will receive the same higher rate of personal allowance that those aged over 25 are entitled to. Lone parents receive a sum of £73.10 per week, which equates to £316.77 a month.

Under universal credit, the Government have introduced different rates of standard allowance for single claimants regardless of whether they are a parent, depending on whether the claimant is aged under or over 25. Therefore, in universal credit, the standard allowance for a single parent under 25 years of age is £251.77 per month, almost £65 less per month or nearly £780 less over the course of a year than lone parents of that age receive under the current regime.

Many young parents under the age of 25 who are care leavers are entirely reliant on welfare benefits and tax credits to support themselves and their children. The reduced rate of universal credit is likely to push this group of parents, who are already vulnerable, into severe financial hardship and debt. That may result in their having to move home, away from the formal support networks and services that are an integral part of their own pathway plans as well as the plans in place to support them in caring safely for their children. If their ability to meet their children’s needs is compromised, that risks children being denied the chance of being raised by their parents, thus impacting on the child and the parent’s right to respect for family life. It could also increase the number of children in care, which would not be in the best interests of children and would lead to a considerably greater cost to the Government.

The payment of a lower personal allowance undermines those provisions that aim to support care leavers, including those provided for in the Bill. It undermines the Government’s commitment under the leaving care strategy to ensure,

“that care leavers are adequately supported financially in their transition from care to adulthood to enable young people leaving care to have the same opportunities to fulfil their potential as their peers”.

These are important considerations and I hope that the Government will look on them favourably and give some explanation as to the discrepancies.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I will speak to Amendment 47 in this group. Many noble Lords will recognise that adolescence is a difficult time for many young people. Anna Freud, the founder of the Anna Freud Institute, wrote three times on adolescence. Her final paper was entitled Adolescence as a Developmental Disturbance. Adolescence—the transition from childhood to adulthood—can often be a difficult time, but if one is a child in care, has experienced trauma before entering care and then may well have experienced further trauma on entering care—the process of being taken into care is traumatic in itself—one may find oneself with a protracted adolescence. Anna Freud describes the process of adolescence as the detachment of a child from their parent and the gradual process of moving to become an independent adult individual. I paraphrase, but that is roughly how she would describe adolescence.

The important thing to keep in mind here is that adolescence is about the detachment from the parent. The child has a close attachment to the parent; adolescence sunders that relationship. When we talk about continuing support of such young people up to the age of 25 by local authorities, it is very important to recognise that the developmental drive for those young people is to push themselves away from their corporate parent, the local authority, particularly because of their early experience. Just like any other good parent, the corporate parent, the local authority, has to make very clear to their child or young person: “We are here for you. You may not like us—you may hate us or despise us; that is normal for adolescents—but we are still here for you, we still care for you and we still want to see you and support you. We are here for you when you need us”. That is what I hope the amendment covers. It puts more of an onus than the Bill currently does on local authorities to say to those young people: “We want to support you. This is the offer we have for you”, and, for instance, to send Christmas cards and postcards, to do everything in their power to keep in touch and to treat them, in this regard, just as they would younger people aged under 21.

I recall Ashley Williamson, a care leaver I have known for a while. He did not get back into contact with his personal adviser until he was perhaps 20. He was just on the edge of losing the right to a personal adviser, but very fortunately he got back in contact. It made a huge difference to his life, because he and his personal adviser clicked. She supported him to get stable housing for himself. Following that, his life improved and he became a very effective lobbyist in Parliament, coming to parliamentary groups to talk about what needs to be done for care leavers and expressing concerns about the sexual abuse and exploitation of young people in care.

We have heard eloquent words about the treatment of young mothers, in particular, coming out of care. I remind your Lordships that young people and teenagers in care are far more likely to become pregnant than those in the general population. Very sadly, the number of children taken away from young people who have grown up in care is also far higher as a proportion than in the general population. If anything can be done to ensure that the financial environment for those families is as beneficial and supportive as possible, that would be a very good thing, as I hope your Lordships will agree. We need to do all we can to support these families. We know from the statistics that they are highly vulnerable, so the measures described here are very welcome and I hope the Minister can give a positive response.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

I support Amendments 52, 53 and 74A. I was most grateful for the Minister’s encouraging reply on the previous group, which is relevant to this discussion, and for his sympathetic stance towards this. The current discussions about the pressures on local authorities, and the huge and diverse burdens they carry, might be one further reason why the onus should be put more firmly on them in primary legislation. Also, I am a little puzzled why one would wish to treat over-21 year-olds any differently to under-21 year-olds. My puzzlement is that if we are agreed that we should in this Bill make sure that over-21 year-olds receive the same entitlements that under-21 year-olds leaving care have had up till now, why should we not treat them in exactly the same way? I would appreciate some help with that question. If we can, and there is no legal impediment to do so, would we not want to give them exactly the same offer as that for under-21 year-olds?

On the personal adviser role, which was also discussed, I recognise absolutely the wisdom of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in talking about some flexibility in how that role is provided. One of the great successes in policy in this area in reason years has been the introduction by the coalition Government of Staying Put. More and more young people are now choosing to stay with their foster carers past the age of 18. We heard eloquently from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, about the importance of relationships and the continuity of them. Thanks to Staying Put and the Government’s work, more and more children are choosing to stay, from a position where in the past we were not able to encourage them to do that or make it possible. Enabling foster parents to become their young person’s personal adviser may be a very good and appropriate thing. This is someone they already have a relationship with.

My concern is that there also needs to be rigidity in certain ways. My concern about the whole issue of children found in social care is that we have allowed too much flexibility in the social work profession. Until very recently, it was not a requirement that social workers should have a degree to practise what they do. Indeed, later parts of the Bill address this very fact of the overflexibility and a lack of specification of what social workers should do. This personal adviser role is important as well. Reports from right-wing think tanks such as the Centre for Social Justice highlighted the failure to have a consistent personal adviser workforce. There needs to be both flexibility and rigidity in the system. I suggest that there can be assessments and processes to decide whether it is appropriate to devolve responsibility to a foster carer or some extended family, or whether to keep it with a personal adviser. However, we need some rigidity.

It is very much an Anglo-Saxon approach to have a flexible workforce and it has many advantages to it, while the continentals face great challenges because they have a rather rigid way of approaching their workforce. I would argue that for vulnerable children, there have been advantages in the continentals’ rigid approach. It is well documented that they have far higher requirements for social workers. In staff at children’s homes, they have pedagogues who normally have a degree-level qualification and have had very substantial training, which I would argue is very appropriate to working in residential care. I recognise the noble Baroness’s concerns but I share the concerns around the Committee that the personal adviser role needs to be more clearly spelt out and specified. I hope that the Minister can help us with that in his response.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I want to say a word about personal advisers. The first thing we have to look at is who these children are and what their needs are. I have heard recently in the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children and in the European Union sub-committee which is discussing a report on unaccompanied asylum seekers just how vulnerable these children are—and how, in that vulnerability, they may find it difficult to make decisions and have the confidence to choose or request a personal adviser. Their relationships have suffered so much by their experiences that they may not trust anybody. We need to look at the children first. They may of course not wish to have a personal adviser, while some of them may not know exactly what they want so might try out various support systems before they decide. Personal advisers should not be available on request but should be there automatically for those children who are so vulnerable.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment, I want to say how very pleased I was to hear that Dr Peter Fonagy, director of the Anna Freud Centre, an institution with such an illustrious history in the treatment of abused children, is being appointed to run a working group looking at how mental health professionals can better work with children in care. The Minister might consider taking to Dr Fonagy, at the beginning of his research, the concern about children’s homes. In his report in the 1990s, Choosing with Care, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, highlighted the fact that best and widespread practice on the continent had psychiatrists or relevant mental health professionals working in partnership with staff in children’s homes, as much to support staff as in meeting the mental health needs of these children. Only about half of our children’s homes have a connection with mental health professionals in that way.

This issue is so important. Although there has been progress in terms of the qualifications of staff in children’s homes, still we have a long way to go. They need the best mental health professionals supporting them. I would be most grateful if the Minister could flag that up to Dr Fonagy.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very complete response. This has been a varied group of amendments and the debate has raised issues that I know the Government will take on board.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, raised a very interesting issue about what goes into the Bill. I agree with her, of course. It seems to me that some of the issues raised today would be very easy to slot into the Bill. However, we need more discourse, perhaps with outside agencies, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, suggested, to condense other issues that might be reinforced in the Bill.

I am very glad to hear that there will be a review of mental health and looked-after children. The three issues that came out very strongly for me were mental health, prevention and assessment, the last of which was brought up by the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler, Lady Walmsley and Lady Benjamin.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, for his support. We have talked about this before. To respond very quickly to him, I think character education does link with personal, social and health education. I do not care what you call it but it is important, although I will not accept the name “grit” education, because it is very American and it sounds like a film. As far as I am concerned, that is out, but we can talk about that some other time. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, and others mentioned CAMHS. CAMHS has borne the brunt of funding cuts since 2010 and cannot be relied on to do all the work that we expect of it.

I return to the very interesting remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, on kinship care. I suggest to the Minister that this may be an area where we would benefit from a discussion with the Kinship Care Alliance because those of us who are old enough to have been here for a while—there are one or two familiar faces present—will remember that over the last 10 years, or possibly longer, the issue of kinship care has come up in three or four Bills but we have never resolved it. We have never resolved what kinship carers need or how they should be recompensed for the service they provide. They save the state millions of pounds but they still often live in poverty with no support. I hope we can crack this issue with this Bill and achieve some sensible way forward on this.

I hope the Minister accepts that this is an important issue. My comments are linked with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said because we tried with one such Bill to have a person appointed in every local authority who would support kinship carers and the relevant children. Sometimes children cannot be happy and healthy unless their carers are happy and healthy. Many kinship carers are not happy and healthy but are struggling under tremendous financial, physical and mental burdens. That is another issue to which we may well come back, but in the meantime I thank noble Lords for their contributions and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, Amendments 3, 5 and the remaining amendments are in my name. I will be brief. I begin by thanking the Minister for the helpful conversation we had around family homelessness and childcare on Monday evening. As a result of that conversation, I will not move the next group of amendments in my name, and will save the time of the House by that means.

I bring back Amendment 3 on the key person in the nursery. I remind your Lordships that each child in the nursery is assigned a key person whose role is to help ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs and to offer continuity of care and a settled relationship for the child. That is the offer. I was really grateful to the noble Baroness for her reassuring and robust reply at Committee on this matter. I bring this back briefly on Report because that key person role is so important, because it is notoriously difficult to do well, and because it is particularly the most vulnerable children—the children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds—who need the secure attachment in the nursery. It is particularly difficult to give that child that support in the nursery. I speak to the concerns so admirably expressed by the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare when I say that it is the most disadvantaged families that need the best quality support.

I spoke to a mother this weekend. She was heavily pregnant, with three sons, and just about to celebrate two of her sons’ birthdays. I was speaking to a small group of mothers—I do not often have a chance to do that—and talked to them about the key person in the nursery. This mother said, “Ah, yes. I remember that. In the first nursery my son went to, there was the key person role, and it worked excellently. I spoke with the child carer about my child—a very good model. In my new nursery, we don’t have it. I’ll have to speak to them about it”. So there is an issue. It is not present at all nurseries. Why is this so important? Just think about the care system. Across services for children—particularly vulnerable children—we employ this model of the key worker. In youth custody, there is a key officer working with particular children; in children’s homes there is a key worker for particular children; and in our debate on the education Bill, with regard to looked-after children staying with their foster carers to the age of 21, the principle was that they had made this relationship with an important person in their lives and it is this continuity of relationship that is so important to them. It is just as important, or even more important, for three year-olds and four year-olds to have this stable relationship with a particular person. If they do not have it, they risk being either just forgotten about if they are difficult children in favour of children who are easy to deal with, or they receive multiple indiscriminate care and are passed from pillar to post. It all looks very nurturing but they are not getting the secure attachment they need to thrive.

I give the example of a man born in the mid-19th century. It seems that his parents were not very interested in him and were much more interested in pursuing their love lives with other people. His father once said to him, “You will never amount to anything”. Fortunately for this child he had a loving nanny, Mrs Everest, and so, fortunately for us, he grew up to be most successful, most robust emotionally and, despite suffering problems with the “black dog” from time to time, was able to withstand many setbacks and be of great service to this nation. We have a great deal to thank Mrs Everest for. For children from struggling families whose parents may not be getting on that well or who are experiencing difficulties, that relationship with a key person in the nursery is absolutely vital.

I wish to make two further points. First, it might be helpful to advise parents more widely about the importance of the key person role. For example, an organisation such as Mumsnet could conduct regular surveys among its users on the quality of childcare and could ask specifically about the role of the key person in the nursery and how well that is being carried out. Secondly, will the Government communicate with parents to advise them how they can identify quality and on the importance of the key person role in the nursery?

To sum up, the most vulnerable children from disadvantaged backgrounds most need this key relationship with one person, or possibly one person and a supporter, in the nursery in the provision of flexible childcare hours. We must not do anything in this legislation to water that down. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 11, which is part of this important group of amendments relating to the quality of childcare.

In Committee, I tabled an amendment which proposed that in all dealings with children, the welfare of the child should be paramount, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Minister mentioned “paramount” earlier today. I do not recall the term coming up in any previous government document or discussions, but I stand to be corrected.

The amendment I am discussing is based on ensuring quality childcare, which means having good staff-to-child ratios, staff who are trained in childcare at level 3 or above, or who are in training for that, and a member of staff qualified to care for children with SEN or a disability. Funding, of course, affects all this and I share my noble friends’ concerns about funding expressed earlier.

I know that some of my dear friends round the Chamber are concerned about the qualifications issue. I am not knocking their comment that you do not necessarily need to have high-level qualifications to undertake childcare. However, I am not talking about having a PhD in physics; I am talking about people aspiring to better their childcare qualifications, thereby improving their ability to deal with child development. That is all I am saying.

The third point of the terms of reference for the Department for Education’s review of the cost of providing childcare in England does indeed speak of sufficient quality of childcare. The fifth point refers to,

“the need to secure value for money for the taxpayer, and for the entitlement to be affordable to the public purse”.

In my view, the quality of care for children far outweighs value for money for the taxpayer. I understand accountability but I maintain that the first duty of childcare is quality for the child. Without that quality, all efforts to provide childcare are useless. Quality also impinges on parents going to work. Quality impinges on social mobility. No parent is going to place a child into poor-quality early years care or education. Indeed, surveys show that the top two requirements for parents are, first, location and, second, quality.

I note that many organisations share my concern. The National Association of Head Teachers states that the failure to address funding—the important issue raised earlier today—will compromise quality and that early years education, not just childcare, is essential in order to have an impact on child development. The Local Government Association talks of the danger of an underfunded system. The National Day Nurseries Association in its excellent analysis of this Bill is concerned about the threat of low pay and about recruitment and retention of staff. It suggests looking over the long term in a cross-departmental way at childcare funding and the development of a workforce strategy to improve quality. I agree.

The Special Educational Consortium has pointed out that 60% of parents with disabled children do not believe that childcare providers can cater for their child’s disability. It proposes that the Childcare Bill be amended to require the largest childcare centres to have an early years special educational needs co-ordinator. The Association for Professional Development in Early Years states that in relation to sufficient provision, quality of staff and the development of the health care and education plan is vital.

The importance of staffing could not be clearer. Skill and confidence in caring for and educating children with special needs are vital for the confidence of parents and the well-being of the child. In small settings, area special educational needs co-ordinators could be in place to advise parents and plan for health and education needs.

I hope that the Government will respond sympathetically to this group of amendments and ensure that quality of childcare is reflected in all their deliberations.