Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Tyler of Enfield and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, we are fiddling while Rome burns. I have spoken this week to a social worker, a director of children’s services, an academic and a head of a voluntary organisation, all of whom are in total despair about the state of social care. I know it is the Government’s wish to improve that. I am sure that that is where the heart of the Minister in the other place and the heart of the Minister here are. However, I am not sure that they have found the right route forward.

Certainly, the Local Government Association—I declare an interest as a vice-president—feels that there needs to be a balance between greater regulation and encouraging experienced social workers to remain in or return to the profession. I have not yet seen the report from the other place about the movement of social workers but I have read the press report, as I am sure everyone here has. That shows a huge movement. I know that there are vast vacancies and that inexperienced agency workers are taking on these roles with dire consequences.

We know that good social work can transform people’s lives and protect children, and I know that that is the aim of the Government. My concern about what the Government are trying to do at the moment is that this will divert resources and energy. We have got to focus both of those directly on the front line of social work so that we do not leave social workers in local authorities, and sometimes in voluntary organisations, taking the responsibility for the failure of the Government and their authorities to get regulation and professional development right.

We have all been concerned because of Ofsted reports. I have been looking closely at the way that Ofsted works, and I support it in many ways. However, it never takes into consideration the amount of resource that an organisation has. We have occasionally had examples of local authorities that are able to produce more on less resources. However, it is only a handful of authorities. A vast number of authorities are struggling and therefore worrying about what they are going to do. This is about making sure that we have a really good regulator who can assess whether the social worker or the structure in which they are working is at fault.

I have looked closely at how those resources are used. The director of social services to whom I spoke this week simply said, “All I am going to do, because I care about my services, is raise the bar on Section 17”. So we will have more children with greater difficulties going to a higher level of need, and more children below that bar—but again with a higher level of need —who will not get a service.

Unlike some of my colleagues, I do not feel that I have the answer. We all care desperately about social work as a means of helping families in need and we have to find the right answer. However, it is clear that many people feel that we have not reached that point yet.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments in this group, and I wish to make two points.

First, I endorse the sentiments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, about whether it should be a priority at the moment to put so much time and energy into setting up a new regulator when the profession, and the front line in particular, is so stretched. I was taken with the report that I saw on the BBC this morning about the Commons Education Committee which said that urgent action is needed regarding social workers’ case loads. It drew attention to high drop-out rates leading to increased workloads. It said that these problems must be tackled, particularly the endemic retention problems in the profession. These are the issues that are crying out for urgent attention, and that is my first concern about diverting our attention from them.

However, when it comes to the proposals that the Government have set out to bring social worker regulation under government control, I very much share the concerns that have already been voiced about the lack of independence in these proposals, which is extremely problematic. As I said, I support the broad concept of a bespoke registration body for social work and of social work having its own regulator, but a regulator needs to do a delicate balancing act and being government controlled makes that very difficult. It needs to balance the need of the public for accountability, the requirements set, quite legitimately, by government, the interests of the profession and the organisational requirements of employers, and any regulator needs to be independent in carrying out that balancing act.

Therefore, my concerns are the ones that have already been voiced. This proposal has come without any prior consultation or dialogue with the social work sector so far. It has not had an opportunity to feed in. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley said, it would leave social workers in a very different position—unique indeed—among health and social care professionals when we should be doing all we can to enhance the status of the social work profession and put it on an equal footing with other health professions.

I also share my noble friend’s view that this proposal will further weaken trust between the profession and Whitehall. In addition, it could well have a negative impact on the extent to which social workers feel real ownership of the very necessary and important improvement initiatives that are around. Indeed, it could also stifle innovation—something that we have discussed very thoroughly. It is very important that we have innovation. Finally, it could well lead to further demoralisation of social workers when, as I said at the beginning, there are currently well-documented problems with recruitment and retention in parts of the workforce. This is simply not the time to go about these reforms.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Tyler of Enfield and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I add my support to this group of amendments, which are all extremely important, and I want to make two points. I support what has already been said about adoption. For some children, it works very well indeed, and it is absolutely right that we are supporting prospective adopters and giving all the support and help that children who are being adopted need, but it is not right for everyone. In particular, it is not easy for children over the age of five. We need to understand how it becomes progressively a lot more difficult to adopt children as they become older.

Secondly, I want to add to the wise remarks of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about local authorities being required to take children’s wishes and feelings into account. I say that as the chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, as in my declared interests. Our role, as noble Lords may be aware, is to assist the courts and provide reports to the family courts so that judges know what children’s wishes and feelings are and can make their decisions accordingly. The work that we do there is very important, but it is absolutely vital that all parts of the family justice system—and I include local authorities as a key part of that system—have that first and foremost in their minds, so that children’s wishes and feelings really are what drives the whole process.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, want wishes and feelings to be included in the Bill. As noble Lords know, I am not really very keen on having additions to the Bill. I have taken part in a series of legislative debates that involved discussion of the inclusion of wishes and feelings, but I cannot remember exactly where they are and are not omitted. I have been chair of CAFCASS, and I know that judges have to take wishes and feelings into account. If local authorities had to do that before the report stage, it would save time because, often, judges have to send reports back because local authorities have not carried out the proper work on wishes and feelings. The present chair of CAFCASS, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is nodding. If such a provision were in the Bill, that work would be more likely to be undertaken.

My other point is about adoption and fostering. At the moment, there is a groundswell among a group of women who feel that they have had their children prised from them into adoption—I hope that officials have picked that up—and a campaign to look more closely at preventive work, with children being kept in their own homes. However, I have to say that, often, these children should be removed from home. Whether they should then be adopted is the question. I raise that issue because good work with the parents might mean the child could return home. However, they are often very difficult children whose parents are on drugs or have alcohol problems, and who are seeking help for themselves but not making it, and the children are in real difficulties. These are the children whom fostering would help. Fostering would maintain the situation until there is more stability. These are the children who in some situations have been placed for adoption, when we have not given the kind of support the Government previously discussed—ongoing care for adopters, adoption allowances and adoption support through the local authority, to ensure no further breakdown. Where is such a programme? There had been very positive thinking about adoption.

The Government have for a long time resisted proper research on adoption breakdown in order to understand why these children are sometimes being placed several times over. Sometimes adoption does not break down just once; it may break down more than once, and that is a total disaster. I have met young people who have been in that situation. The sooner we gain a greater understanding, either through government research or through gathering the research of others, the sooner we can intervene better by preventing breakdown or not placing these children in such situations in the first instance.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Tyler of Enfield and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 16 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Pinnock. In doing so, I very strongly support Amendment 12, which has just been moved so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Indeed, much of what I wanted to say has already been said, so I will be brief.

We know there is much evidence that existing childcare is simply not working well enough for disabled children and those with special educational needs. That is the nub of my amendment. It will place a requirement on the Secretary of State to ensure that childcare providers are suitably qualified and trained to deliver high-quality care to disabled children and children with special educational needs, that childcare providers have suitable facilities to do this task and, very importantly, that they have access to additional funding to meet the needs of all these children.

I warmly welcomed, as, I am sure, did many others in this House, the commitment by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, to equality in this area and his statement at Second Reading that,

“parents with disabled children must have the same opportunities as other parents to access the entitlement”.—[Official Report, 16/6/15; col. 1127.]

However, there is overwhelming evidence—we have heard it this evening—that parents with disabled children are struggling to access their current entitlement to childcare.

A salient point here is that the current funding system does not take account of the additional costs of supporting disabled children. I know that some local authorities provide top-up funding, which is of course welcome, but it leaves us with a very patchy and inconsistent pattern of provision. I recognise fully that my amendment would have costs attached to it at a time when money is tight. However, the social, economic and, above all, moral case for finding the money to ensure that local authorities can fund all childcare providers to offer suitable places to disabled children is very strong. We are in a difficult situation, as has been said. I hope this is one area the funding review will look at, but until we have that funding review it is hard to say whether more money will go into this area. I very much hope that it is something that we can return to when we have the funding review.

We also know—we have heard plenty of evidence of it today—that the workforce is not suitably qualified and trained at the moment to deliver high-quality care to disabled children. It is something that Cathy Nutbrown touched on in her review. Again, I know that the Government have taken welcome steps to develop a range of tools to support professional development, but there is much still to do. We have heard a lot today—and I welcome some of what the Minister said in response to my earlier amendment—about the Government’s plans for a workforce improvement strategy, but I finish by asking for an assurance that this work on improving the workforce will include the critical area of ensuring that all early years providers have had the training they need to ensure that they can offer high-quality care to disabled children.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I spoke at length about disabled children at Second Reading and I will not repeat what I said then, so I will just make two points in support of the amendments, particularly that in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Her amendment makes two points that take me back to our debates on the Children and Families Act 2014, when we looked at how children with disabilities and special educational needs could be properly assessed and then slotted into services that would meet their needs and give them an opportunity in the future. The first point concerns whether local authorities have sufficient facilities to provide childcare for disabled children. Then there is an assessment of the existing barriers that limit access to childcare for disabled children. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for arranging for me to bring some members of TRACKS autism to meet him and talk about some of the barriers that are in place at the moment. I raise this point so that, should I not be able to move it forward, I can at least speak on Report.

There is a lack of providers and able staff, but even when you have both those things, there seems to be a barrier in some local authorities to enabling the families to have placements. That is even where parents have jobs and want to work, and are working to pay fees so that their children can get the experience that will take them forward in their learning so that they move on to further education, often in specialist facilities, but at least with the basic communication skills that are given at that early nursery stage. I am grateful to the Minister for his interest and hope we can take this forward so that some of those issues can be resolved. In particular, in any reviews that go forward, the questions the noble Baroness raised are extremely important.