Foster Care

Bill Esterson Excerpts
Wednesday 14th March 2018

(6 years ago)

Westminster Hall
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Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered foster care.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. This subject is very dear to my heart, as I shall explain. The life chances of children in care—they are also referred to as looked-after children—are significantly lower than those of other children. That applies to their prospects of getting well-paid employment, their educational achievement and the chances of them being involved in the criminal justice system. Foster care is where 75% of children in care are looked after, so supporting foster-carers is essential to ensuring the best possible outcomes—the best life chances—for the majority of children in care. Ensuring that foster care is as positive an experience as possible, maximising its benefits and minimising its risks and downsides, and ensuring the best outcomes for looked-after children, must be a priority for anyone who is interested and for everyone in a position of authority with responsibility, be that in national Government or in local government.

The outcomes for looked-after children show just what a contrast there is. Let me take educational achievement at year 11. The Minister will be all too well aware of these figures. Some 18% of looked-after children achieved A* to C grades in English and maths, and 14% achieved five or more A* to C grades, including English and maths. The figures for children as a whole are 59% and 53%, so looked-after children’s achievement is something like one quarter to one third of other children’s. That on its own tells a story.

Children in care are around five times more likely than other children to find themselves convicted of an offence between the ages of 10 and 17. Former looked-after children have difficulty establishing and holding down good relationships later in life, many of them have mental health difficulties that continue right through their lives, and many find themselves with housing difficulties or homeless. In 2015, 39% of care leavers were not in education, employment or training. That figure is far too high for comfort. Given those figures, it is essential that we ensure that children in care and those who care for them receive the best possible support, so that as much as possible can be done to improve outcomes.

Nick Thomas-Symonds Portrait Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate on such an important topic. Although he is absolutely right to highlight those statistics, does he agree that we should also praise the work that foster-carers themselves do in seeking to provide a caring and loving environment, particularly when children’s services are under such pressure across the UK because of austerity?

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Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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My hon. Friend makes his point extremely well. I know many foster-carers, and I am sure that other Members here do too. The vast majority do exactly as he said: they provide an extremely supportive, loving and caring environment. They do their best to deliver the kinds of outcomes he mentioned, in the face of great difficulty, due, as he said, to the cuts forced upon local government. I have nothing but the highest regard for foster-carers and the work they do.

I know from personal experience—as many Members know, I have two adopted children—that when someone adopts, they are effectively a foster-carer for the period until the adoption goes through, with all the same rights, responsibilities, restrictions and interventions from the local authority and social workers that other foster-carers have. I know just how challenging that can be. During that period and since, I have met many foster-carers and seen just what a good job they do. I am glad that my hon. Friend made that point. The question is how we ensure that foster-carers continue to get support, not least given the scale of the cuts. I shall develop that point.

One of the challenges is delivering permanence for young people in care to ensure that they receive a long-term settled placement that is right for them. The Government have placed enormous importance on children being adopted. As I said, I have two adopted children. It was decided that that was the best outcome for them. They have siblings who were not adopted, and for the vast majority of children who go into care, that is not the way forward. Foster care is often a long-term option. It is really important—there are many dear old friends in the Chamber with whom I have debated this over the years—that we see adoption, fostering, residential care or kinship care not as better, but as the right outcome for the individual child. It is incredibly important to restate that.

One of the challenges right now is ensuring that we do not lose sight of putting the individual child first. My hon. Friend mentioned austerity. We have seen cuts in early intervention of 55% since 2010. It is predicted that there will be a £2 billion shortfall in the children’s services budget by 2020. The number of children on child protection plans has risen by 83% since 2010. Social workers’ case loads are rising. Local authorities have reduced the number of social workers they employ directly and have become more reliant on agency workers, who are more expensive. Although budgets have fallen, spending on children’s services has actually increased, which means that money has been taken from elsewhere, including early intervention. Many in child protection, in children’s services more widely and in local government, say that we are at crisis point in terms of both the social impact and the economic situation.

Yesterday, I was with someone from Northamptonshire County Council who is responsible for children’s services. He has been told that he cannot spend on discretionary services at all, so he will not be able to increase the number of social workers. What does that mean for foster-carers? It means that when a child comes to live with a foster-carer, there is no prospect of money for clothes or anything other than the weekly allowance, not just in Northamptonshire but everywhere. Foster-carers therefore have to pay for absolutely everything, whether new clothes for a new arrival, a holiday or any kind of additional support for the children.

Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
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I should declare my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on holding this unfashionable but important debate. He will be aware that funding of children’s services has increased, albeit in very challenging circumstances—particularly now—but there are huge differentials between experiences with different authorities. As a study by the all-party parliamentary group for children found, in one authority 166 children per 10,000 will be taken into care and, at the other end, at another authority the figure is 22 for every 10,000 children. There are similar big differentials for referrals to children’s services, child protection plans and so on. To what does he attribute the huge difference in experiences of vulnerable children in different authorities? It is not just based on funding pressures.

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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That is probably more of a question for the Minister. The hon. Gentleman said that funding had gone up. It is true that spending has gone up, but funding from central Government for local authorities is significantly down, including in children’s services. Some local authorities have seen significant cuts and some have seen very few. That may have something to do with what he says.

Lisa Nandy Portrait Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
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I do not want to stop my hon. Friend because he is making some incredibly important points, but there is also a clear issue about cuts to services other than children’s services, which are putting greater strain on local authorities. In areas of high deprivation, where all those services are under significant strain, the result is much worse outcomes for children. It is essential to look at the whole picture of what is happening to these children every day in their communities.

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot ignore the effects of the wider local government and public service spending situation. Numerous organisations who provided briefings for the debate pointed out that if the support is not there for families, it is difficult for local authority children’s services departments to act in anything other than a reactive way, intervening only in a crisis. That is an expensive way to operate. If the services, social workers and local foster-carers are not available, outcomes are more expensive. In a demand-led service, a crisis is invariably more expensive and, in the areas of highest deprivation that my hon. Friend mentioned, it is more likely that intervention happens only in such a situation.

Barry Sheerman Portrait Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
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My hon. Friend and I were in the same Home for Good seminar, which I chaired yesterday, on this subject. If we put the budget to one side for a minute, does he agree that what emerged from that seminar was an acknowledgment of the inconsistency of social worker support? If the social worker keeps changing and there is not continuity, the social worker will not know the person, their background and their problems and challenges. Is that not the real problem?

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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Absolutely. It is well established that continuity and stability are vital to the long-term wellbeing and life chances of children in care. In foster care, that applies to the carer and also to social workers. One point made in the briefings is that there has not been continuity between social workers. A child and their foster-family need support from a social worker, but in far too many cases they rarely see one, either because there is not one there or because they keep changing. That is damaging, as my hon. Friend points out.

We have recently had two inquiries—the national fostering stocktake requested by the Government and the inquiry into fostering by the Education Committee— which have made several recommendations. I will not address them all them, but there is evidence—this also emerges from the briefings—that while overall there are enough foster-carers, there are regional disparities. There are also problems in providing foster-carers for some groups, whether those are ethnic minorities, sibling groups, children with special needs or disabled children, so a challenge is how we improve the number of foster- carers who have the specialisms and skills to look after children in those groups.

Caroline Spelman Portrait Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
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I apologise for arriving slightly late for the debate. We had a roundtable on faith and fostering yesterday, and I hope to get a chance to contribute on that later. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the challenges is that people of religious backgrounds feel that that is perceived as a barrier to their genuine intention to offer a home for good for children who need it in fostering, and that we need to get over the idea that in some way having a faith is problematic?

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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The answer is that in all cases the consideration must be what is in the best interests of the child. That has been my view for as long as I have looked at this.

Some of the briefings pointed out the need to recruit and retrain better, to deal with the shortages in the areas I touched on. To address that point, the stocktake and the Select Committee both recommended a national register of foster-carers. I also notice that the stocktake suggested that local authorities pool resources. There have been consortiums over many years, which I thought were part of doing just that.

On a national register, one of the challenges is that often needs are local. I think the Government have made the point that it is often desirable for children in care to be relatively close to home—although not in some cases of problems with their birth families—and a national register does not always address that. There are some real tensions around that recommendation.

The stocktake concluded that pay was not an issue. The feedback I have had is that that is totally untrue. Foster-carers have seen their allowances cut. I mentioned that there are not payments for additional support or for when a child arrives, and the money that foster-carers receive is not what it used to be and is under pressure. We must be wary about that and ensure that they are properly remunerated.

As to whether foster-carers should be regarded as professionals, I understand why the stocktake says they should not be—it does not want to take away from the fact that they are there to provide a family environment, and that is quite right. However, we also need to regard them as holding an incredibly highly skilled, professional role. There is a degree of professionalism, and it is wrong not to recognise foster-carers in that respect. There are, therefore, some tensions around what is being recommended.

The Government have not yet responded to either of the two reports. It is probably a little early to expect the Minister to respond today to all the issues in those reports, but I hope he will reply to some of the points raised in the debate. In reality, only 3% of children are adopted, and 75% of looked-after children are in foster care. The scale of cuts experienced by local government has clearly created challenges in providing the support and resources that are needed to look after children and improve the outcomes I mentioned earlier. Unless there is a step change in our approach, it will become harder to prevent children from entering care in the first place, and harder to provide support that puts families back together when that would be the best outcome for the child.

It is no coincidence that more children are in care than at any time since 1985. If those numbers are to reduce, the Government must intervene to ensure that local authorities, social workers, foster-carers, and everybody who is dedicated to supporting and improving the life chances of children who end up in our care system have the support they need to do the best for those children. Only the Government can take such action—the £2 billion figure is very significant, and I hope that the Minister will listen to Members from across the House who, I suspect, will raise similar points about the need to get this right.

I mentioned both social and economic effects. If it is not possible to do the best by a child, that is disastrous for that child, and also for their birth family, foster-carers, and others involved in their care. There is also, however, an economic cost, and perhaps the Minister—or another Member—will remind us just how expensive it is to provide lifetime support for someone who does not recover from the neglect and abuse that puts them into care in the first place.

I have not mentioned prisons, but a significant proportion of our prison population are people who were in care. We must act and intervene early, not late, if we are to address those concerns and support those children, and it is incredibly important for foster-carers and all those who assist them to have that support.

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Emma Lewell-Buck Portrait Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) for securing this debate. His practical experience and knowledge of fostering made for a formidable opening speech. I pay tribute to all other Members who have contributed, especially the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), who it is a pleasure to follow. We are honoured that you shared your story with us today.

Since 2010 we have seen an exponential rise in the number of children coming into care. There are now 72,000—the highest since the 1980s. There is a wealth of evidence that the Government’s forced austerity measures are driving that increase. With the stream of referrals coming into children’s services departments leading to 90 young people entering the care system in England every single day, the implications for fostering are clear. That is why so many of us were keen to see the long-awaited fostering report, which was first announced in 2016 and released this February. Sadly, for some of us, that keenness quickly waned. Today I will focus on that report.

The report has received more criticism than praise, and is viewed by many as lacking vision about transforming the dire state of fostering in England. It makes assumptions based on opinion, not evidence. It makes a number of unqualified, sweeping generalisations. In my view, our children and foster-carers deserve better.

It is essential that there are enough foster-carers to meet demand. At present, there simply are not. The pitiful pay given to foster-carers, leading to some of them making the painful decision that they cannot continue in that role, coupled with the Education Committee’s findings that identified the Government’s lack of efforts in the recruitment of new foster-carers, suggest that we are on a trajectory where there will not be enough homes for the children who need them.

Foster-carers are deeply committed to every single child in their care. So it was disappointing to see that the stocktake claims that carers are not routinely underpaid, and that they are paid adequately. That is simply wrong. We know that a quarter of carers receive the equivalent of less than £1.70 an hour, based on a notional 40-hour week, and 90% of our foster-carers do not receive the national living wage. The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who chairs the Education Committee, summed up its findings by saying that,

“it is clear that too many are not adequately supported, neither financially nor professionally, in the vital work that they do.”

Should it not be an embarrassment for the Minister and the Government that they are presiding over a situation where foster-carers, who provide an excellent standard of care day in, day out, report that they are struggling to support not only themselves but the children who are entrusted to their care?

Carers who are struggling are also being offered golden hellos from independent fostering agencies to leave the local authorities they work with. Those agencies then charge local authorities higher rates. The undercutting by independent fostering agencies is a pattern that has been identified by many social workers and the Conservative vice-chair of the Local Government Association. Yet, the review denies the existence of such a practice, claiming that the reverse is happening—that councils are poaching foster-carers from independent agencies. That bizarre claim is based on nothing other than the authors’ perception. I really hope that the Minister will look closely at the regulation of commercial fostering agencies, as the Labour party has.

I, with others, was aghast when I saw in the report a raft of recommendations that would require primary legislative change. The report recommended that carers be given prominence over the day-to-day decisions regarding children in their care—prominence over birth parents, even when the children are in voluntary accommodation. That is at complete odds with the current legislation on parental responsibility and is simply wrong. The report’s authors do not seem to realise that there is already provision in legislation to take account of parental disagreement.

A deeply worrying recommendation, based on very little evidence, was also made that local authorities should scrap independent reviewing officers. IROs are a fundamental part of the care system. They were created to protect the rights of vulnerable children in care, to advocate for them and to ensure that their needs are met. Without IROs, a child who is unhappy or—worse—being abused in their placement, could literally have nobody at all to turn to. Imagine being that child, who has been removed from a place of harm into a placement where that harm endures, when there is nobody to tell about it and no escape. I am sure the Minister agrees that removing such safeguards would be at the Government’s peril, and that judicial consequences will certainly follow.

In the report there is also a fixation on legal status. It claims that the priority must be to convert more fostering placements into permanent arrangements. Apart from the obvious fact that an emphasis on legal status, rather than a child’s individual needs, is at odds with good practice, it completely ignores the availability and benefits of other options, such as long-term foster care. Every single child in the care arena is completely different and has different needs. That is why there are a number of options for care. Decisions should always be made on a child-by-child basis. The cynic in me cannot help think that the authors’ predilection for adoption or special guardianship is a cost-cutting exercise. Once permanence in those forms is achieved, the state no longer has a duty towards those children or their carers.

Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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I am glad that my hon. Friend raises the point about the cost element of recommending adoption and special guardianship orders rather than long-term fostering. That particularly applies for those aged 18 and above. In my speech I did not mention Staying Put or the fact that the funding for it is lower than for foster care. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a big mistake and a big impediment to ensuring that children who go into foster care are given the long-term permanence of being part of a family?

Emma Lewell-Buck Portrait Mrs Lewell-Buck
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It will come as no surprise to my hon. Friend that I completely agree. I am also a keen advocate of extending Staying Put to children in residential care. It cannot be right that there is a two-tier system where some children are treated differently simply because of their placement.

The recommendation is also symptomatic of the Government’s obsession with adoption as the gold standard, to the detriment of all other forms of care. We need a consistent, overall strategy for children in care under this current Government. Rather than seeing the holistic picture and attempting to address issues when they first arise, their piecemeal approach has led to separate and unaligned strategies around early intervention, children in need of help or protection, fostering and adoption.

Can the Minister confirm that he will robustly refute those recommendations? I respectfully remind him that full adoption comes with the severance of birth ties. He knows as well as I do that that is not always right for those children in long-term foster care who enjoy continued contact with their birth families throughout placement.

The report deeply disappointed again when it came to contact. It stated that the well-established presumption in favour of contact was removed by the Children and Families Act 2014. It was not. The presumption remains as enshrined in the Children Act 1989. I again make a plea to the Government for parity in legislation between the rights that children have to contact with their parents when in care and those that they have for contact with their siblings. As passionately explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), relationships matter deeply to children in care.

I hope that the Minister will reject the recommendation that local authorities should not presume that siblings are best placed together. I acknowledge that it is not always appropriate, which is why the law states that siblings should be placed together as far as is “reasonably practicable”. This proposal, as with the false assertions about contact, is completely at odds with well-established practice and law, which is built on robust evidence.

The majority of organisations, charities, foster-carers and social workers are not only deeply concerned about some of the recommendations in the review, but disgusted by its shoddy nature. It makes assertions backed up with no evidence and at times contradicts existing research and evidence, which are coupled with an absence of children’s voices and a lack of understanding of the relevant legislation and policy in this field. Can the Minister advise when his counterpart will formally respond to the report, and will he pass on the request that, in doing so, he very seriously takes into account what has been said today and these misgivings, and ensures that our foster-carers and children are, once and for all, given the respect that they deserve?

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Bill Esterson Portrait Bill Esterson
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I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this excellent debate. The right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) made an excellent speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), as ever, brought huge insight to the debate, combining passion and authority and making some brilliant points. I also thank hon. Members who made interventions. I especially thank the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) for having the bravery to tell his story. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for her speech too.

The Minister ended his speech by saying that the Government want to make a difference to the lives of all children in care. He made many very good points and accepted the arguments that have been made today, but that is only part of the story. I thank him for congratulating me on what he called my excellent opening speech, but if he is really serious about thanking me, he should use his influence in the Department to ensure that the Government play their part in supporting foster-carers, social workers and children’s services departments to reverse recent developments such as the 83% increase in children on child protection plans and the fact that the number of children in care is at its highest since 1985.

It is no good taking money away from early years and cutting early intervention by 55% and local authority spending by 49%, as this Government have done since 2010, without expecting an impact on children’s services, child protection and the number of children in care. By the way, it is no good cutting support for the police service without expecting an impact either—our police service in Merseyside has had the biggest cut of all. The Government have cut £233 million of funding to my local authority since 2010 and we face severe pressures in children’s services. It is a cut, not an increase. The Minister kept saying that there was an increase in the local government funding settlement in 2015, but there has not been an increase in the funding to local authorities under this Government since 2010.

The Minister is right that there are many wonderful foster-carers out there. There are many children who are given every possible chance when they go into foster care in this country, and who are provided with the love and support that they need and have every right to expect. But the Minister needs to listen to those children, to their foster-carers, to the professionals who have lobbied for this debate and to those who gave evidence to the Select Committee inquiry and the stocktake. It is short-sighted and short-termist to do anything less than ensure that intervention is possible. It is failing the children and young people who need all our support.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).