Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Neill of Bexley and Lord Addington

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to support my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton on Amendment 134A. Noble Lords will not be surprised to know I shall be championing local authorities around the cost of children’s homes.

I want to give noble Lords a bit of a reality check, and to do so I am going to reference two examples. The first is about supported living for care leavers aged 21 to 25. They are nearly adults, need very little support and are very nearly independent. A semi-detached house is created that can take up to five young people with very little supervision. The cost for one young person in that provision is actually £500 per week. That is nearly as much as any landlord would get to rent out that property for a month: £2,000 a month. If you have got five young people in there, that is one hell of a profit margin. You can see why people go down that route and why we are having to grapple with the costs.

The second case is about a property that had been sought and used as secure accommodation with 24/7 support. It was another council that placed it in our borough. It was worth it getting the property and having 24/7 support for secure accommodation. Obviously, it had made the decision that either it could not afford to get that accommodation through normal routes or that this was good value. We first knew about it when we read police reports saying this young person, who is in 24/7 secure accommodation with two people, had gone missing. I was jumping up and down saying, “We’ve got a young child gone missing”. But it was not our child—we did not even know this young person was in our borough. That is expensive accommodation.

Earlier on, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said that you would know if people were placed in your borough—but you do not. I am sure the Minister will have something to say about that. In addition to the knowledge that this young person is placed in your borough, the cost of 24/7 care and accommodation for one person in your borough is phenomenal. Local authorities are not perfect, but we are grappling with some of these things on a daily basis, which push the costs up, and some of this transparency might deal with it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, for missing her first few seconds. When someone said, “I want a quick word with you”, I should have jumped around them as opposed to trying to politely brush them off.

All these amendments are looking at financial control. It is probably overdue, but it is extremely difficult. It is a case of transparency. We need something in here, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has just pointed out, the Government are actually dealing with it on a last-minute, we-must-do-something basis. Having some control over that is an extremely sensible idea, but they will not get rid of the fact that it will have to be done through emergency contingencies or whatever. It is still going to happen that way. We are trying to extract from the Government the limitations of what they are proposing and to get it more on the record.

On my own amendment—I probably should have slightly reworded it—of all the things accused of costing too much, special educational needs spending is probably right up there, and often it is the private sector. It depends on what you are dealing with, because there is not a right sum of money for that.

I am on a committee looking at the Autism Act at the moment. I just went to see a school that had one full-time member of staff for every two pupils and TAs on top of that, because it is needed. Usually, the private support comes in to support somebody who has struggled in the education system—it may not be autism and it may not be that severe, but they are usually playing catch up and repair, to put it bluntly. So, they are going to have high staffing needs and it is going to vary from person to person. I would hope that this transparency may be a defensive thing from people who are providing a service that is needed.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Neill of Bexley and Lord Addington

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, having listened to the noble Baroness introduce these amendments, I think they are quite interesting. Let us see what the answer is.

The one that really attracts my attention is Amendment 37: how are you going to assess how the teams have worked? The point that the noble Baroness made was reasonable—that you might want different types of implementation teams in different areas—but if you are doing something new, how do you assess where it has or has not been successful? If the Minister could point out where in the Government’s process that is going to happen—if it is—I would be very interested to hear that. If it is convincing, I hope we can put this to bed and move on.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran on Amendment 30, which builds on the previous conversation in seeking to confirm that local authorities can use their discretion in how the multi-agency child protection teams are implemented operationally in their areas.

In addition to the contributions previously made about the pilots and having the information about those pilots, I want to add two very good reasons why it is imperative to ensure that local decision-making will become effective: how there could be confusion over legal accountability, and how the Bill could weaken local authority leadership.

The statutory responsibility for safeguarding will still rest with the local authorities, as has previously been said, not with the partnerships or multi-agency teams. If all functions are located within a multi-agency team, it may become unclear who is ultimately accountable, especially in the case of a serious case review or legal proceedings. As was referred to previously, current DfE guidance, through Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023, emphasises that, although functions can be delegated, accountability cannot be transferred.

I have previously referred to the issue of budgets from other partners, especially police and health, and how that might impact their involvement, but we also need to consider the fact that not all agencies are coterminous. In my area, our police, under the leadership of the Mayor of London, are a tri-borough relationship. The NHS is a six-borough relationship. I quite often get notices from the police identifying a child in Lewisham, and I have to ask my team whether there is a connection to Bexley. There is a potential confusion there and, of course, with that confusion comes the ownership. This could create issues in determining not least the ownership but also the cost implications.

The other risk is weakened local authority leadership. Overconsolidation into multi-agency spaces could disempower directors of children services or the lead members, who are the statutory leads for safeguarding. There is a risk of fragmenting the governance. For those reasons it seems sensible to trust the local authority to use its discretion in how the multi-agency child protection teams are implemented locally in their own area. I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s amendment.