Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in welcoming the return of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, my old sparring partner in local government. Perhaps I should rephrase that and say “my long-standing sparring partner”. It is so good to see her back looking so well. We very much look forward to hearing her contribute, preferably being somewhat more critical of the Government she supports than she was constrained to be in previous years. It is so good to see her back.
In that vein, the Opposition are very sympathetic to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. We hope that the Government will look sympathetically upon them. I cannot see any great difficulty in them so doing. It would be reassuring to hear from the Minister that the Government are as inclined to pursue this issue as they kindly indicated they would do in regard to property guardians—an issue that I raised. The Government have undertaken to look into that problem. I hope that they will go a bit further and either accept the amendment as drafted or come back at Third Reading with different wording that achieves the same objective—because I think that the objective is widely shared across the House.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I remind the House that often we are talking about families. Some time ago, I accompanied a health visitor to a property in Waltham Forest. Five families were sharing a kitchen and bathroom facilities. Perhaps the property was not so overcrowded but it was very insalubrious as they were all sharing those facilities. The front door was wide open when we walked in. We visited a mother whose child was three or four weeks old. The mother was very isolated and desperate. So I remind your Lordships that we are also talking about families when we talk about these people.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord Beecham(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Beecham (Lab)
I spoke today to the officer in Newcastle who is responsible for the programme. We do not call it the troubled families programme in Newcastle; we call it the families programme. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is right to say that we need a title that does not imply some kind of stigma.
Newcastle has been extremely successful in the way in which the present scheme has been working. However, it was interesting to learn in a little more detail from the officer in question—I declare my interest as a member of the city council—what is occurring on the financial front and with progress on the ground.
In moving her amendment—I support both amendments in this group—my noble friend Lady Sherlock referred to the financial basis that was initially for a grant of £3,900 or £4,000. Two-thirds went on a fee for mounting the programme, while the other third went on a success fee. That has been turned around so that the larger proportion is spent on the success fee. Now, of course, the amounts have been reduced by roughly a third, so the total figure is in the order of £2,600 although, as I have said, the proportions have been reversed. That may in itself be a source of some difficulty.
However, other issues need to be considered. One of the criteria is getting people into employment. Of course, that is important and makes a significant difference, but those criteria will not necessarily apply evenly across all the relevant authorities. It will, frankly, be more difficult to get someone into a job in Newcastle and other parts of the north-east than in some other parts of the country, simply because of the state of the local economy. Too much weighting on that one factor could be regressive. That needs to be considered.
Then there is the question of what outcome we are looking for from the programme and, in particular, whether we are looking over a sufficiently long period to be able to judge what is happening and what is successful. I hope that, in any kind of survey of what is going on, we can take that long-term view—over several years rather than only two or three—to see what approaches have paid a dividend.
Another aspect that occurs to me is that the Labour Government made a mistake, frankly, in dividing children’s services from adult social care. I was chairman of the social services committee in Newcastle in the early 1970s, when the two services had been brought together. Dividing them, particularly in the context of families, is potentially difficult. It means that you are working across departmental boundaries, possibly less efficiently than would otherwise be the case. It is time—not only from the perspective of troubled families but generally, given the pressures on social care and children’s services collectively—to reopen that issue. It is worth revisiting whether that decision is now applicable.
The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, referred to changes and savings that might be made. We must bear in mind that at the moment—I speak with some unfortunate knowledge of what is likely to happen in Newcastle—financial pressures are such that we will see significant cuts in both adult social care and children’s services. We will lose experienced staff because we are facing a reduction of some £32 million in the resources available to the authority. I suspect that, to a greater or lesser extent, that will be the case across much of local government, particularly in the areas with greatest need.
Although it is obviously right to bring people together as far as possible, so that we do not have a succession of different bodies or individuals working with the families in question, it will stretch the capacity of local authorities to be able to cope with this without depriving some other potential or current recipients of the support they also need. We need to look at the totality of funding across the range of services provided by local authorities and their partners in the health service and elsewhere to deal with these issues.
Both amendments encapsulate the correct approach: we should regularly be taking a significant look at what will be a long-term programme. I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and encourage the Government to change the name, because it implies a certain stigma and it would be better if more neutral terminology were applied.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I urge that, whatever approach is taken, we are better at supporting families, particularly vulnerable families. In recent years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of young people being taken into care from their families and a flood of new-born children being taken into care. In some ways, that suggests that we are intervening better to take children out of damaging families, but we should really be trying our level best to support families so that they can keep their children.
Whichever approach one takes—I suspect that it will be a mixture of the two—one needs adequately to fund the general services of local authorities, and I am grateful to the Chancellor for ensuring that there is some limiting of the cuts expected by local authorities. At the same time, approaches such as the troubled families initiative—I express my admiration for Louise Casey, having watched her work in the past—which recognise the need to stick with the family over time, and the importance of loving that family until it can look after itself, are very welcome.