Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years ago)
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“(c) a guide for parents; and(d) information on other matters to do with the powers and responsibilities of Regional Schools Commissioners as may be appropriate.”
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
Amendment 3 seeks to add two further requirements to the document on regional schools commissioners mentioned in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Since noble Lords considered the Bill on Report, the House of Commons Education Committee has published a report entitled The role of Regional Schools Commissioners, which was not exactly uncritical of the role of these commissioners and the manner in which they have operated since they came into being in September 2014. Indeed, the report contains a total of 24 recommendations, to which the Minister will, no doubt, respond in detail in due course. I hope his response will not be delayed for long and that he will accept and implement most, if not all, of the very thoughtful suggestions made after hearing evidence from a variety of sources—not least the Minister himself. I dare say he will regard the report as carrying a considerable amount of weight, given that it was produced by a committee which is chaired by a member of his party, which has an inbuilt majority on the committee.
It is striking that there remain so many questions about the precise role of the regional schools commissioners and in whose interests they operate. This means that a guide for parents, as suggested in Amendment 3, is a necessity. Ensuring parents understand who to hold accountable for their child’s experience at school and how to do so is vital, yet the Bill consistently treats parents with disdain. I have given examples before, but if a group of parents wants to break away from a maintained school and establish their own free school, they are welcomed with open arms by the Government and given every assistance, as well as considerable amounts of cash, to enable them to do so. Put simply, they are listened to and treated with respect. However, should another group of parents want their children’s maintained school to keep that status in the face of forced academisation, they are ignored, told the decision is nothing to do with them and that the change will take place no matter what they think. Put simply, they are not listened to and are effectively treated with contempt. So under the Bill, parents are denied the right to have a say when the school attended by their children is forced to become an academy. We have said on various occasions that consultation is appropriate for all parents if they want to take advantage of it.
Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)
My Lords, as we are dealing with this issue of regional schools commissioners, I thought it might be useful to share with the House a personal story giving our experience at Floreat Education Academies Trust, which I founded, of dealing with the regional schools commissioners and of their role in regulating the system as it stands today. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, chose the example of E-ACT, which has had some problems in recent times, but it is important to note that the regional schools commissioner system has helped to generate the changes that have happened—schools have been taken away from E-ACT. To me, that is an example of a system that is working to crack down on low quality rather than one that is not working.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
Does the noble Lord know whether E-ACT consulted the regional schools commissioner before it decided to scrap the governing bodies for the schools that it operates?
Lord Nash
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 2, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt. Both concern the responsibilities and powers of regional schools commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, has proposed that the Secretary of State should be required to publish a document that would describe the powers and responsibilities of RSCs arising from the provisions in the Bill and other Acts of Parliament. Amendment 3 would extend this requirement to specify that the document must include a guide for parents and any other information to do with the powers and responsibilities of RSCs as may be appropriate.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising this issue once again, following the exchanges that he had with my noble friend Lady Evans on this matter on Report in this House. Since the last debate, he has also met officials from the Department for Education and he and I have had a number of exchanges on the matter. I hope that he has found these discussions helpful and has been reassured that the Government are committed to meeting the objectives of his amendment.
As my noble friend Lady Evans explained in the previous debate, RSCs are not defined in legislation: they are civil servants, and exercise only the powers and duties of the Secretary of State that he chooses to delegate to them. Accountability for the decisions made by RSCs rests with the Secretary of State, who remains fully accountable to Parliament. It is important to emphasise that the role of RSCs is very different from the role of local authorities. RSCs operate within a clearly defined framework, with the focus on monitoring and tackling educational underperformance in academies and free schools, approving new academies, advising on free school applications and approving changes to open academies, such as expansions or age-range changes.
To support these functions, RSCs also work to develop the sponsor market in their regions. Subject to the passage of the Bill, RSCs will also take on responsibility for formal intervention in underperforming maintained schools. RSCs carry out their functions within a national framework and individual decisions are made in accordance with the relevant legislation, academy funding agreement and/or published criteria.
Information on the work of RSCs is already publicly available. We have already set out the remit of our RSCs and the membership of each head teacher board, published registers of interest and made available the criteria for RSC decision-making. Academy funding agreements are publicly available, as are the criteria for other individual RSC decisions. For example, the criteria that RSCs use to assess schools applying to become academies are set out online in the guidance document, Convert to an Academy: Guide for Schools. Notes of board meetings that detail each decision made are also published on a monthly basis.
In addition, we have recently consulted publicly on revising the statutory Schools Causing Concern guidance that describes the responsibilities and powers delegated to RSCs resulting from the provisions in the Bill, and how they will be used in practice by RSCs to intervene in failing and coasting maintained schools and academies. Alongside this document the Government are also required, under the Academies Act 2010, to provide an annual report to Parliament on the expansion of the academy programme and the performance of academies during the year. This year’s report will include commentary on RSCs.
We recognise, however, that we need to go further. We acknowledge that RSCs are a new concept and that, as more schools become academies and the RSC remit expands, we need to clearly articulate the role, improve understanding of its responsibilities and increase transparency. Noble Lords will be reassured to hear that the new national schools commissioner, Sir David Carter, considers raising awareness, particularly among parents, as one of his top priorities and he made this clear in a Radio 4 interview last month.
As with any new system, we expect the level of awareness to increase over time, but to expedite this I am today making a clear commitment to the House that the Government will publish a full description of the RSC role and a guide to all RSC powers and responsibilities. We will ensure that this more detailed information is in understandable form, includes a succinct summary of the role and has clear links for the public to find more detailed information should they require it. We will make clear that this information is for parents and the sector.
The information will be published on the education pages of the government website, GOV.UK. This is the website where all government policies, publications, statistics and consultations are published. It is already used by parents to find information on matters such as school admissions, school performance and childcare. It is used extensively. In January of this year alone, there were nearly 1.3 million visitors to the education pages of GOV.UK. The website is designed for the public and is intended to be simple, clear and quick to find information. We will make sure that the information is collated and published in good time for the Bill coming into force. Furthermore, I assure noble Lords that we will keep the information up to date and revise it as necessary, following any changes to legislation or to RSCs’ non-statutory responsibilities.
Alongside publishing more detailed information, we recognise that it is equally important to ensure the public know where to find it. Once the new information is published, we will alert parent and governor groups such as the National Governors’ Association and the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations and encourage them to direct their members towards it. We will also publicise the information through the email which the Department for Education issues direct to schools at the start of every term and which sets out important changes. RSCs will also be carrying out a range of activities within their regions to improve awareness, to raise their profile and to ensure the sector understands and is prepared for the new legislation.
As the noble Lord has described, since we last debated this matter the Education Select Committee has published its report on the establishment of RSCs. While the committee welcomed the introduction of RSCs as a pragmatic approach to the expanding workload of academies oversight, the report also made a number of recommendations, including that the Government should reflect on the need to improve understanding of the role of RSCs. I assure noble Lords that the Government take this issue very seriously and will increase and improve the information available to the public on RSCs, with a particular focus on simplifying and improving the information for parents.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to the situation in relation to E-ACT and parents. I can assure him that we regard the involvement of parents in education as crucial. The best way to do this is not necessarily through having two parents on a governing body. An equally good or better way may be to have parent forums. I understand that E-ACT has plans to do this and is meeting with Sir David Carter this week to discuss this further.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I certainly accept what the Minister is saying about parent forums, but why should that be to the exclusion of parent representatives from governing bodies? Can the two not exist equally well together?
Lord Nash
They can. They will have parents on their advisory boards and E-ACT is required, as are all multi-academy trusts if they do not have local governing bodies, to have two parents on their multi-academy trust board. So parents will still be intimately involved in decisions.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
Perhaps I may follow that up. That is two parents in a multi-academy chain board. E-ACT has been mentioned by me. As I understand it, it has 23 schools and one academy chain board. Out of all those schools, only two parents would have any kind of representation. They could not possibly be representative in any way of the views of the parents in 21 other schools.
Lord Nash
That is why, as I understand it, they will have advisory bodies, which will consist of parents. As I have said, the same point can be made about individual schools. Two parents cannot necessarily be representative of the body of parents, which is why a parents’ association may be a much better way of engaging with parents across a broader church.
I hope that, given the further explanations and reassurances I have been able to give in relation to information about the RSCs, the noble Lord will be assured that we are committed to improving understanding and increasing transparency relating to RSCs and will be content to withdraw his amendment.
Before I sit down, I would like to take this opportunity to put my wider thanks on the record for the careful consideration the Bill has received throughout this House. First, I thank my noble friends on the government Benches, in particular my noble friend Lady Evans, who has provided strong support and kept the Bill on track over the past few months. I also thank my noble friend Lady Perry for her continuing support and advice and my noble friend Lord Harris for his passionate words on Report about the difference that becoming a sponsored academy can make.
I also thank my noble friends Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord True. I would particularly like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for ensuring that the best interests of children are always at the forefront of all our considerations. Of course, I must pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education who is committed to taking forward essential reforms to achieve real social justice for all children and young people.
I also particularly thank the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, who have provided strong and thorough opposition alongside their colleagues the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Addington, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Pinnock. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Hughes, for their contributions. While we may have crossed swords on many things, their challenges have been constructive and it has been clear throughout our debates that across the House we are united in our belief in the life-transforming power of education and in the desire to give every child the best start in life.
There have been very important contributions on this Bill from all sides. On the Cross Benches, I am grateful in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for bringing his extensive knowledge and experience of our education system to bear on this Bill and to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his considered comments and amendments on children in care and mental health issues. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for supporting the Government’s ambitions with the important role that church schools play in our education system.
I also thank the organisations that have engaged with the Bill and contributed to ensuring that its content will benefit children waiting to be adopted and pupils in our schools. In particular, I wish to thank the individual head teachers and MAT CEOs who freely gave up their time to share with Peers their experience of school improvement at the outset of the Bill entering this House. They have improved our understanding of the very real issues that the Bill seeks to address.
Finally, I would like to put on record my thanks to the officials from the Department for Education, the Bill team, in particular Louise Evans and Kayleigh Walker, the lawyers, including Caroline Chalmers, the policy officials and others who have worked on this Bill and helped to ensure the good progress we have made in this House.
As noble Lords will have heard me say previously, the Bill has one essential principle at its heart: that every child deserves an excellent education and a secure and loving home. This Bill is about social justice and about building a fairer society in which every child has the same opportunities to reach their potential regardless of their background. To ensure that adoption is always pursued when it is in the child’s best interests, we have recently announced increased funding totalling £200 million over the course of this Parliament to further develop regional adoption agencies, fund the interagency fee and extend the adoption support fund.
To achieve a world-class education system, we need a school system that consistently and universally delivers high academic standards. To help deliver that, this House has accepted an important amendment to the Bill to give more consistent and effective powers to regional schools commissioners when academies underperform. The amendments we have made, alongside the original Bill provisions to strengthen our ability to turn around failing and coasting maintained schools, mean that I am confident that the Bill leaves this House with the potential to ensure that many more children and young people will have the opportunity to make the best start and succeed in life. I commend it to the House.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I did not expect the Minister to make those remarks at this stage—I thought he would do it at the Bill do now pass stage. I would like to say a little more about my amendment on the question of regional schools commissioners. The Minister was kind enough to facilitate a meeting with the regional schools commissioner who covers the area in which I live. In a sense, that encapsulated one of the anomalies of regional schools commissioners—the way that they are divided geographically. The Education Select Committee report highlighted the fact that London is covered by three regional schools commissioners. The committee suggested that there should be a ninth commissioner for London, to mirror Ofsted regions, which is a very sensible suggestion. The fact that I live in a region that covers places as diverse as West Ham and Great Yarmouth suggests that there is room for improvement.
There is also room for improvement in the role of parents in education. That must be about the hundredth time I have mentioned it in our many hours of debate. I believe that the Government are plain wrong in trying to say that parents do not have a meaningful contribution to make—and not the token that the Minister recently mentioned of two parents on a board that covers 23 schools. Most parents care passionately about their child’s education. The fact that they have effectively been brushed aside by much of the Bill is unfortunate, to put it mildly. It is also grossly unfair. Many people who want to have that input are now going to be unable to do so. So even a parents’ guide to regional schools commissioners would be a step forward, to at least make sure that people know where to go and who to speak to when they have a complaint, and how to forward it. I regret that it has not been possible to get agreement. Perhaps we should await the Minister’s response to the Education Committee report; I do so with some interest. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, we have now reached the point where this Bill must return to the other place. From these Benches we have to say that it is regrettable that it will take so little in terms of amendments with it. As has been outlined, it has many faults, and despite claims by both Ministers that it is all about rescuing children from underperforming schools, many noble Lords believe that there is rather more to it than that.
I should say that I do not doubt the bona fides of either Minister. The relish with which they have advanced their arguments during the Bill’s time in your Lordships’ House reflects their own backgrounds and motivation. I understand that the noble Baroness has a history in the free schools sector and that the noble Lord has a history in the academies sector, each with some success. If I may draw an analogy, to be handed this Bill is tantamount to a girl and boy being given the keys to the toy shop. It is clear that they are in their element, because it allows them to pursue their personal and particular priorities. But it has to be said that their priorities are not necessarily those of wider society, judging by the briefings we have had from a very wide range of organisations, all of whom I thank, and not to any significant extent those of the education professionals, all of whom also have as their raison d'être providing the best possible education for our children.
We have spent almost 24 hours in debate on this Bill—a full day. I wonder whether we might ask ourselves whether we might have put it to better use—some may say yes—and I am sure that we are now all ready to move on to other things. But before we do so, I want to thank the Bill team. We on these Benches have worked rather hard. On my behalf I pay tribute to my assistant, Molly Critchley, who did the heavy lifting when it came to negotiating over amendments. She did much more besides, and both I and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath are indebted to her for her tireless efforts. This is the first piece of legislation for which I have had Front-Bench responsibility and I have leaned much and often on the experienced shoulders of my colleague Lord Hunt, for which I am most grateful. Having leaned much, I like to think that I have now learned much—but I suppose time will tell.
I think I am correct in asserting that this is also the first Bill as a Front-Bencher for the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park. She has perhaps had a slightly tougher baptism than she might have hoped for, but through it all she has retained an upbeat manner and an ability to assure—or at least attempt to assure—those on these Benches that the Bill was much more benign than we believed.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I have had—what shall I say?—our moments throughout those 24 hours. It seems that neither of us is ever going to convince the other of the veracity of our respective arguments, but at least we have given it our best shot. I have made a discovery about the noble Lord and, in spite of the fact that he has offered precious little in terms of concessions on the Bill, I am about to offer him one of my own. I think he and I have only two things in common. One is clearly membership of your Lordships’ House. The other, I have learned, is that we were born in the same year. I am not about to divulge the year, but we were born just five weeks apart—and that provides me with both good news and bad. The good news is that the Minister was born first. The bad news is that it does not show.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I take the opportunity once again to thank the Minister for being prepared to listen. There have been a number of changes—including changes of interpretation—to the Bill. I said to my colleagues at the beginning, “I am sure that Lord Nash will listen”, and he has done. This is a very small Bill, really. On the adoption side, I think real progress has been made.
On the school side, there are a few issues for me. The first is whether this is not just about the academisation programme and the slow strangulation of maintained schools and local education authorities. Maybe there is a much fairer way of achieving that. I recall the statement from the Chancellor that he wants all schools to become academies, and the same from the Prime Minister.
The second issue is that of parents. I have always believed that one of the hallmarks of a successful education system is that parents are at the heart of it. I think we said in Committee that if the school that your children go to is being closed, that is quite a traumatic occasion; you want to be involved in those discussions and to know the reasons and what is happening. To then be told that you are not even going to have a say on the new school or new academy sponsor is something that I am concerned about.
Another issue follows a couple of Questions that I tabled regarding the governing bodies of schools. Again, it seems bizarre that you can have academy trusts abolishing governing bodies. In maintained schools, of course, you have to have a governing body—quite rightly; parents are an important voice in a school—but in multi-academy trusts you can have one governing body for, say, 50-odd schools. In the Harris Academy chain there are now, I think, 52 schools. One governing body—which could be in another part of the country, for that matter—being the parental voice is really not good enough. It could be said—well-meaningly, I am sure—that parents’ associations are quite important. But many schools do not have parent associations; they tend to be, I have to say, in middle-class areas.
The area of schools commissioners is one that has vexed us for some time. Light needs to be shone on the work and there needs to be transparency, and I am delighted with the comments the Minister has made on that. It is a very important step forward.
Some of us have always believed that driving up standards in our schools is not about waving the proverbial big cane but about professionalism and trusting in the leadership of schools. One of my regrets from the coalition period was that we abolished the leadership academy. That was a great mistake. You need to make sure that the people you put as leaders of your school are of the highest calibre, quality and training. You have to have good leaders.
Secondly, it is all for nought if you do not have quality teachers. It is about ensuring that teachers are respected, highly trained and highly valued. It worries me that 40% of teachers leave in the first five years of their teaching. That is a very worrying trend. I hope that, now that the Bill is out of the way, we can do what the Minister is good at—listen and evolve policies or procedures that work for all our education services.
Education: English Baccalaureate
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for promoting the debate and for the persuasive way in which he introduced it.
Despite the views of most education professionals, the Government are determined to press ahead with their aim of having 90% of GCSE students take the EBacc by 2020. We understand that the driving force in this is the Minister of State for Schools, Mr Gibb, who seems to be in thrall to E.D. Hirsch and his theory of the core knowledge system, which above all is characterised by one word: inflexibility.
Labour is not opposed to the EBacc per se. We recognise its value and it is right that every student should have the opportunity to take all five EBacc subjects if they want to, but we do not believe that it should be compulsory. Forcing it on 90% of GCSE students is sensible for neither them nor the long-term needs of the economy. My noble friend Lady Morris said that this is about priorities. By imposing the full EBacc the Government are claiming that foreign languages, and history or geography, are inherently, and in all circumstances, of more value than non-EBacc subjects. If the Minister can point to the evidence to support that theory, I and many others with an interest in education would be eager to see it. It is certainly important to ensure that disadvantaged children are not left with a second-class education. EBacc subjects have a clear role to play in that. Every talented child should study as many of the core subjects as possible, and every encouragement should be given to them by schools and teachers.
We can all appreciate the essential nature of English, maths and science, but for modern and ancient languages, much less so. On history or geography, I must ask, why? The Minister may be interested to know that someone applying to study geography at Oxford University does not require an A-level in geography.
There are other things that should be an equal part of any student’s education. It can surely be argued that the arts and technology are just as important as modern languages, not least because, as the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said, the creative industries are now such an important feature of our economy. We should not be sending a message to schools and young people that creative and technical subjects are not valued. A great deal has been written about the need to close the divide between academic and vocational education, but with the EBacc the Government are unequivocally promoting the superiority of the academic pathway.
There is also likely to be a major teacher-supply problem, not least in modern languages. Time prevents me from going into detail on that crucial issue, but the National Association of Head Teachers’ response to question 4 of the Government’s current consultation set it out with great and persuasive clarity.
Only 39% of students took the EBacc in the past academic year. Yet already there has been a significant effect on other subjects since 2010—most notably, on what I argue is the key subject of design and technology, for which there has been a 29% drop in take-up. The curriculum should not be driven by the needs of the minority who are going to the most selective universities. Every student should have elements of the EBacc subjects in their curriculum. Equally, they should have artistic and practical elements. Many of the essential work-related skills that the CBI says are in short supply may well be better developed in artistic and practical contexts.
Last week in the debate on adult educational skills, the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, stressed the Government’s promotion of the apprenticeship route as a valid alternative to university. The Government now allow FE colleges to recruit 14 to 16 year-olds directly, and are encouraging still more university technical colleges and studio schools, which will almost certainly not offer the EBacc. To say that these initiatives leave the Government’s position a little confused would be an understatement.
The EBacc adopts too narrow a definition of rigorous academic study. The progress 8 measure, as various noble Lords have said, offers a better balance. I urge the Minister to give more thought to the effects of the proposals before it is too late and today’s children pay the price.
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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“( ) In facilitating the conversion under subsection (1), the governing body must ensure that parents and staff of the school are fully informed of the steps being taken.”
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the fourth group of amendments today centres on the Government’s Amendment 20, which introduces the concept of communication with parents. I want to focus first on Amendment 17A,
This provision relates to a situation where the decision has been made on academisation. Not only has that decision been taken without any recourse to the local authority or the governors of the school but its implementation now becomes, at least in part, the responsibility of a local authority and the governing body. How perverse is that? The Government are saying to elected representatives, both councillors and governors, since many governors are elected by their peers: “This school has been deemed to be failing and we’re going to remove it from its current status and make it an academy. We’re not aware whether you want that to happen and frankly, we’re not interested because the regional schools commissioner and the local head teacher board have decided what’s best for you. But wait: we do, after all, have a role for you in this process because you, the local authority and the governing body of the school, are duty-bound not just to avoid impeding the conversion but actually to facilitate it”.
Clause 10 states that the duty of the local authority and the governing body includes,
“a duty to take all reasonable steps to facilitate the making of Academy arrangements with”,
the chosen sponsor. That sounds rather menacing. It is not at all clear what fate might await anyone or any organisation that defied the Secretary of State. Perhaps the Minister might enlighten us as to what sanctions he intends to bring to bear on those who decline to co-operate.
Our Amendment 17A would at least introduce a smidgen of involvement for one group directly affected by the decision: the parents. We heard in the Minister’s response to group 2 that the Government regard parents as, all too often, impediments to change. It goes without saying that a forced conversion would be likely to cause considerable anger and anguish among parents, who would demand to know the details and all the circumstances. At the very least they have a right to expect that, within the provisions of the Bill, they would be entitled to be fully informed of the steps to be taken. Given the Minister’s movement on the question of information being conveyed to parents, as contained in government Amendment 20, it is surely beyond peradventure that they will find it within themselves to accept Amendment 17A. If they do not, we may well need to test the opinion of the House.
Government Amendment 20 is to be welcomed, as far as it goes. The problem is that it simply does not go far enough. It is a nod in the direction of appreciating the need, at the very least, to let parents know what is to happen and who is going to make it happen, but it is no more than that. In the discussion that I had with the Minister last week, he certainly led me to believe that there would be a government amendment allowing parents to assess the plans of the proposed sponsor. The implication was that if the parents were not enamoured of them, another sponsor would be found. That is a considerable distance from the wording of the Government’s amendment. For that reason, it came to me personally as a disappointment.
As I stated in debate on group 2, there is a world of difference between communication and consultation. Communication involves merely telling people what you intend to do; consultation involves saying to people, in what is surely a much healthier situation: “Here are our plans. What do you think of them? Can they be improved? Do they have the right emphasis? Do you believe that they will result in the school’s performance improving, and quickly?”. But none of that will happen because, as we heard in relation to the amendments in group 2 on consultation, the Government refuse to ask people their opinion for fear of receiving a “No, thanks” in reply. It does not wash to use children as the cloak to cover the determination to keep out any dissenting voices—if I was to be accurate, any voices will be kept out, dissenting or otherwise.
The amendment requires only that, once the regional schools commissioner has identified an academy sponsor to take over a school that is eligible for intervention, the sponsor must communicate to parents information about their plans to improve the school. However, in his letter to Peers, the Minister said that further information about,
“what this should typically look like in practice”,
will be put into the Schools Causing Concern guidance. We await that guidance but there are no requirements in the amendment for the sponsor to put in specific details about what it plans to do, so that offers an escape clause for sponsors which do not wish to be troubled by meeting the parents concerned. It would be appropriate to ask why any sponsors worth their salt would need to be told to communicate with parents in any case, but it seems there must be some of them.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, if, as the noble Baroness said, she wants this to proceed as quickly as possible and something to be done about a school, I am rather mystified why in Grand Committee and, so far, on Report we have heard a whole series of amendments from the Liberal Democrats to delay and complicate the process. It seems that the words they say or put down on paper, and what they do, do not seem to match—but perhaps I am not understanding something.
Equally, I do not quite understand why, from the Front Bench opposite, we have the idea of a sunset clause saying we will get rid of all this in five years’ time. It is a funny way to go. I thought that in our democracy one was supposed to stand in a general election, put your plan to reverse the academy policy to the public and win the general election—or perhaps, on the basis of what we have been hearing on Report today, form a coalition with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.
Lord True
I am glad that the House has been informed of that and am sure that academies up and down the country will note that. But I think that the unelected House should probably leave it to the public to make that decision rather than putting in a sunset clause.
However, I did go with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on one point. I welcome what my noble friend Lord Nash has done in introducing a clear duty to communicate information and, pari passu, it may be that perhaps there could be some assurance that that duty to communicate would apply in the case suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, where there is a move from one academy provider to another, even if it does not have to go into the Bill. But of course that is not what is in the amendments before us. The noble Lord had an opportunity to propose that amendment but did not.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, also said that any academy worth its salt would want to communicate with parents. However, frankly, any local authority worth its salt—whatever it thinks and whether it is in charge of a failing school or not—should want to facilitate the change. Why would any authority not wish to? But it is perfectly reasonable for the Government to put in this provision which, again, the noble Lord has not tried to take out, although he referred to it. If a local authority is not minded to assist—and I have heard a few not-very-willing voices opposite—it is perfectly reasonable for the Government to put in a reserve power.
My own view is that these amendments fail. The House discussed the issue of extensive consultation earlier and a full House took a decision on that matter. Could we not now just settle on the communication which has been promised to parents, welcome my noble friend Lord Nash’s amendment and proceed?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to government Amendment 20 concerning communication with parents, the opposition amendments on that and Amendment 27A.
Our amendment is all about ensuring that parents are informed about the action being taken to improve a school. I know that what any parent wants for their child is for them to attend a good school and for there to be quick, effective action if there is significant concern about that school. Where a school has failed, it is right that we take the action that we know will have the best possible impact on improving the school’s performance, and that we make sure that this happens as swiftly as possible. We are clear that becoming a sponsored academy will always be the solution for a school judged inadequate by Ofsted.
That does not, of course, mean that parents do not have a right to know what will happen in their child’s school. Once a sponsor has been identified for a failing school, it is already common practice for it to engage with parents about their plans for the school, ensuring that parents know what to expect and that they understand the process of converting from a local authority maintained school to an academy, and to give them the opportunity to share their views about the changes that the sponsor proposes to make.
We have tabled Amendment 20 to ensure that there is greater consistency for parents on this matter. The amendment will provide assurance that when under- performing maintained schools are becoming sponsored academies, parents will always be kept informed.
To support the amendment, we will also make changes to the Schools Causing Concern guidance to reflect the new requirement. We will use that guidance to provide more information about what the communication from sponsors could typically look like in practice; for instance, to suggest that sponsors might want to write to parents when they are first matched to the school to provide more information about them as sponsors—although, as we have heard, it might be appropriate in some cases for the governing body to make the first communication—to explain their ethos, what parents can expect to happen next, and hold meetings with parents to share information and answer questions. We think it more appropriate for this to be set out in guidance rather than in legislation, ensuring that sponsors have flexibility about precisely how they communicate with parents, to allow them to tailor their approach to the specific circumstances of the school.
We will also reflect the new requirement on sponsors in the notification letters that are sent to the school governing body, the head teacher, the local authority and, where appropriate, the trustees of a foundation school, the religious body responsible for the school, where it is one with a religious character, and to the sponsor itself where one has been identified, where a school is being required to become an academy. We will specify as standard in those letters that the sponsor identified by the RSC will communicate to parents information about its plans to improve the school. This will ensure that all parties are aware of the duty on sponsors.
I spoke earlier about the commitments we have made to ensure that parents are kept informed specifically when a school is coasting. As I committed earlier, we will use the Schools Causing Concern guidance and the notification that RSCs will send to the governing bodies of coasting schools to make very clear our expectation that governing bodies must inform parents when the school has been identified as coasting.
In the light of the amendment that I have tabled and the other commitments we have made to ensure that parents will be kept informed when their child’s school is eligible for intervention, I hope noble Lords will be in no doubt that we recognise the importance of ensuring that parents know what is happening in their child’s school, and will therefore support the government amendment.
Noble Lords have tabled Amendments 21, 22 and 23 to alter what I have proposed. Rather than requiring sponsors to communicate to parents about their plans to improve the school, the sponsor would be required to consult parents about their plans. As I have already set out, I cannot accept the reintroduction of a statutory consultation process. That absolutely does not equate, however, to a belief that parents should not have a right to know, or be involved in, changes that affect their child’s school. I believe that the sponsor, who will be responsible for transforming the school, should have the duty to communicate to parents. We know that sponsors already put a lot of effort into explaining the steps that have been taken. Our amendment will ensure that this will apply consistently.
We expect that in many cases, sponsors will want to go considerably further than the minimum requirement and seek views from parents about specific changes they intend to make to the school—for example, if they plan to change the name of the school or the school uniform, they may ask for suggestions, views or designs concerning their proposed options. However, requiring sponsors to engage with parents through formal consultation, which the amendments propose, is not appropriate. As I said, a formal consultation process is inflexible and in too many cases will unnecessarily raise the temperature of the debate. The arrangement that I have proposed is a much more appropriate approach and gives the sponsor flexibility to tailor its communications to parents to best suit the circumstances of that particular school.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked why this does not apply to academies. Amendment 20 addresses the specific concerns raised by noble Lords about the requirement for failing schools to become academies and to share information about the process involved when a local authority maintained school changes its status to an academy. In cases where an academy is moved to a new sponsor, I am happy to reassure the noble Lord that we will consider in our revisions to the Schools Causing Concern guidance how to make it clear that regional schools commissioners will ensure that parents are kept informed.
The noble Lord also asked what would happen if the sponsor fails to communicate with parents. The duty is clear: the sponsor must communicate to parents information about its plans to improve the school before it is converted to academy status. If the sponsor were to fail to comply, we would not enter a funding agreement with that sponsor in respect of that school, and would look for an alternative sponsor. I am very happy to place that on record, and I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.
Amendment 17A proposes a requirement for staff to be kept informed of the changes in a school being required to become a sponsored academy, in addition to parents. While parental engagement is clearly critical, communication with others is already guaranteed through existing legal provisions. Clause 10 is explicit that the governing body and local authority should work with the named sponsor. The governing body will include the head and representation from parents, staff and the local authority, so those parties will also be kept informed via that route. The local authority will be further intimately involved in the detail of the transfer process of the school to academy status.
Amendment 17A proposes that staff at the school should be included in communications from sponsors, but the existing TUPE process means that employees will be notified about the transfer by their employer or the academy trust. Where the academy trust proposes any changes which affect the employees, there must be consultation about them. This means that there is already a legal obligation for staff to receive information about the incoming academy trust and be consulted on any proposed changes to their terms and conditions prior to any academy conversion taking place. This is comparable to what my amendment now proposes to introduce for parents. It is unnecessary for staff to be additionally included in the new requirement, and therefore Amendment 17A is unnecessary.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
Before we leave this amendment, I asked in my opening remarks what would happen if local authorities or governors declined to co-operate. I am not necessarily talking about them being obstructive—just about them saying that they were not going to do anything. What would the Minister anticipate would be the response to that?
Lord Nash
I think we have the power to bring forward directions to the local authority and, eventually, I guess that we could go to court. But I shall write to the noble Lord to clarify that point.
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for his supportive words about our Amendment 20. As I said, the Church of England is very skilled in community cohesion, and I take great comfort from his support for our proposals for communicating with parents. I also take this opportunity to say more about my assurances about how we will ensure that the religious character of a faith school will be protected when any interventions are necessary. The Government are firmly committed to enabling schools with a religious character to protect and sustain their ethos. There are already provisions in the law that ensure that, when a school with a religious character requires intervention, the religious character will be protected. When a faith school becomes an academy, it retains its religious character by virtue of Section 6 of the Academies Act 2010. The academy’s religious character is protected through provisions within the academy’s funding agreement with the Secretary of State and the academy trust’s articles of association.
When a Church of England school joins a non-faith led trust, we intend to insert the following within the trust’s articles of association: a faith object, which requires the trust to ensure that the Church of England character of the church school is maintained; an entrenchment clause that requires written consent of the diocese for changes to articles relating to the maintenance of the church school’s religious character—for example, those relating to the local governing body of the church school and appointment of staff; a requirement that members and trustees are appointed to provide proportionate diocesan representation on the MAT; and a requirement on the MAT to establish an LGB and for the creation of a scheme of delegation relating to the religious character of the school, agreed between the MAT and the diocese. The supplemental funding agreement for the church school will include a clause requiring the establishment of a governing body with the purpose of honouring the characteristics and ethos of the school. The master funding agreement for the MAT will also include a clause to prevent the MAT amending articles relating to the church school’s governing body and the scheme of delegation. A provision within the church supplemental agreement will ensure that the MAT cannot make amendments to the articles as they relate to the governing body of the church school without diocesan consent. This will agree the best academy solutions for any failing church schools, and we are reviewing and updating the non-statutory memoranda that set out the roles of dioceses and RSCs as they relate to the academy programme, to reflect the changes in this Bill and the wider evolving policy landscape. We expect that regional schools commissioners will work closely with dioceses. We will ensure that the RSCs will comply fully with the terms of the memoranda, and we support diocesan directors of education in upholding those terms.
Finally, Amendment 27 proposes that the education provisions of the Bill will be repealed after being in force for five years. The Government are focused on driving up standards of education in this country and giving children the best possible future. The Bill is an essential part of that; it will ensure we have the necessary powers to swiftly tackle underperformance, but it will also ensure that underperformance can be tackled whenever it occurs. It addresses not only schools that are failing right now, but will also ensure that any schools that slip in future will get the support and challenge they need to improve. The Government’s ambition is for every school to become an academy. Until the point when all schools have become academies, it will be necessary to have powers that allow swift and robust intervention in maintained schools that are causing concern, therefore it is right that we have the powers and duties introduced by the Bill for the foreseeable future.
What is in question here is a fundamental undermining of this Government’s commitment to drive up standards of education. It is not in the spirit of this House’s role to make legislation with a built-in expiry date, and I do not consider it necessary in this case. If and when we reach a point where all schools have become academies, we will of course consider what legislation it is necessary for us to repeal at that time. We will, anyway, review and report on the impact that these provisions are having through the academies annual report, which the Academies Act 2010 requires us to produce—or, if in five years’ time this House does not consider the provisions in this Bill necessary, as this amendment specifically anticipates, for whatever reason, this House should have a full and thorough debate on that matter in five years’ time. I do not want to see noble Lords tie our hands on this matter now through this clearly inflammatory amendment. Amendment 27 is not only unnecessary but not in keeping with the long-standing principles of this House, and I urge the noble Lord not to press it.
Following this debate, I hope that the noble Lords will appreciate that we have listened to concerns here and will support our government amendment and the right balance it achieves between decisive and clear action, while ensuring that parents are informed. I therefore hope that the noble Lords will support my amendment ensuring communication to parents and would urge the noble Lords not to press their other amendments.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive response. I would like to say a word or two about some of the other contributions. I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, was here when I made my closing speech on the second group of amendments, but I think that I answered most of the points that she raised then. I shall briefly repeat them. The fundamental point is that doing nothing was not an option; it never has been and it has not been suggested. I outlined other possibilities at that time, and that remains our position. Secondly, we have not advocated a ballot, so it is not about having a vote on the matter. Thirdly, the emphasis, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, will be on convincing the parents that what is being proposed is in the best interests of the children. To me, that is always the best way forward, if possible. Finally, Amendment 23 says that the Secretary of State will have the final say by being obliged to “take into account” what has happened. I hope that that answers her points—it is not all or nothing.
I think that I heard the noble Lord, Lord True, correctly when he said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that in this democracy the people decide. That is exactly what we are calling for—but it seems that that does not happen with academisation.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, said that parents have the right to know of and be involved in the plans. Involvement is a rather elastic concept, and what it means to one set of parents may not be what it means to another. I certainly appreciate the value of Amendment 20, as I said in my opening remarks, and parents will be pleased that they will at least, I imagine, be summoned to a meeting in the school hall, given a presentation and able to ask all sorts of questions, but there is no way for any rethink on the sponsor. That is the fundamental issue from my point of view. There may well be a number of reasons why the sponsor is deemed to be unfit as a result of what they say to the parents, but there is no way of dealing with that. That is a problem.
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, these amendments emphasise the need for consultation before a school becomes an academy. Consultation already exists for schools that themselves decide to become academies, so these amendments seek to establish a level playing field for all schools and retain the requirement for consultation in all cases.
Amendment 15C is straightforward, allowing the Secretary of State discretion in the issuing of an academy order. Amendment 16 would insert a new Clause 7 into the Bill, which would remove the assumption that there is only one form of governance suitable for such schools, by requiring the regional schools commissioner to facilitate a local discussion about what is best for that school and the area that it serves.
Amendment 17 requires parents to be involved in discussions about the future of their children’s school, which is hardly a controversial proposal. However, I am not convinced that the Government appreciate the extent to which schools are deeply rooted in their communities. Parents should be allowed to be as fully engaged in decisions that affect their children’s education as they wish to be or have the time to be—but not just parents. Cutting short the process of academisation and removing any discussion with head teachers, teachers or support staff about either the decision to become an academy or the sponsor that might take over are ill-considered decisions likely to breed mistrust and resentment—and understandably so.
Consultation with those directly involved before a school becomes an academy is an essential part of community engagement and should not be removed. That was agreed by the previous Government after considerable debate in both Houses during the passage of the Academies Act 2010. Members of your Lordships’ House were influential at that time, insisting that consultation was built into the 2010 Act. It would be at best inconsistent if noble Lords did not support the same principle with respect to this Bill.
Section 5 of the Academies Act 2010 allows for consultation to take place before a maintained school is converted into an academy—as it should be. It may take time and it may not result in support for academisation, but that is basic democracy, which sometimes produces unwanted outcomes; on a personal level, 7 May this year springs to mind. Our Amendment 16A provides for the time allowed to be set out in regulations. In any case, inconvenience or even the potential thwarting of political motives is no reason to dispense with democracy, as the Minister is seemingly content to do. The Government say that this is about putting children above adults, a view echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood. I do not accept that. I believe that a lot of political dogma is involved in this, which is being put above the views and concerns of local stakeholders. It seems that no opposition will be tolerated. That is because underpinning the Government’s whole approach is the belief that maintained schools are, by definition, deemed to be failing. If they are not failing at this moment, they are coasting and it is only a matter of time before they too fail. For them, the logic of the Bill—I accept this much—is unchallengeable. Unfortunately for them, the facts get in the way of that one-size-fits-all conclusion. The Bill rests on the assumption that school improvement can be achieved only by turning a school into a sponsored academy, yet the evidence to support this view does not exist.
At the beginning of this month Ofsted published its annual report for 2014-15. The report demonstrated that conversion to academy status certainly does not result in guaranteed improvement, with 99 converter academy schools—23% of converter academies were inspected that year—declining to less than a “good” Ofsted judgment. Ofsted found that of the 277 stand-alone converter academies, 25% had declined from “good” or “outstanding” to “requires improvement” or “inadequate”. In addition, 21% of converter academies in multi-academy trusts had declined to “requires improvement” or “inadequate” from a previous judgment of “good” or “outstanding”. Ofsted also found that 75% of “good” local authority maintained schools remained “good” or improved to “outstanding” at their next inspection, compared to 74% of “good” academies.
I believe that Ministers need to take these figures on board and give them due consideration. Even rose-tinted spectacles cannot disguise the fact that academisation is simply not the silver bullet that they will it to be. If they will not heed Opposition Peers on this matter, surely they must listen to one of their own. I am not referring here to the noble Lord, Lord True, but to someone who I am certain he will know. Roy Perry is a Tory and a politician of some substance. He is leader of Hampshire Council, chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, former Member of the European Parliament and father of a current MP. Responding to the Ofsted report, Councillor Perry said:
“It is extremely worrying that over the last three years only 37% of secondary schools have actually improved their Ofsted rating after becoming academies”.
He also said:
“Councils must be regarded as education improvement partners and be allowed to intervene early and use their vast experience, integrity and desire to improve the system.”
I referred in Committee to the Minister setting out his reasons for ruling out consultation. Recently the Secretary of State herself complained that campaigners could delay or overrule failing schools being improved by what she termed “education experts”, by obstructing the process by which academy sponsors take over running schools. I repeat that: “education experts”. I do not know how one would therefore describe those who manage and run maintained schools if they are not also “education experts”. I believe that it is an insult to them to be told that the only way their school can be improved is by bringing in outsiders who think they know better. As we have seen, very often they do not.
I have to say that the Secretary of State seems to have a bent for inflammatory language recently. I do not know whether noble Lords are aware that she was involved this morning in a rather bizarre activity; blogging on the Daily Telegraph website under the subtitle:
“If the House of Lords blocks the government’s education bill, it will leave millions of children stuck in failing schools, unable to reach their potential”.
That is arrant nonsense. There is no justification on the basis of logic or evidence which can substantiate such a statement. I understand it is party-political rhetoric, although noble Lords may regard it as unbecoming of someone holding the office of Secretary of State for Education. Interestingly, the comments in reply to her blog on the whole disagreed with her, so perhaps her initiative did not pay off. Perhaps that is not surprising given that she stated of your Lordships’ House:
“The Lords face deciding whether to back handing power to our best teachers and school leaders—a treasure chest of experts ready to improve underperforming schools—or leave schools without the vital support they need to get back on track to the level of excellence seen in many schools across the country”.
That language is very unhelpful.
Let us be clear: the Bill is not about school autonomy. Converter academies do get more autonomy, but the Bill is about sponsored academies, where a school is placed in a multi-academy trust and often has considerably less autonomy as a result. The question is why moving a school from the maintained sector to a multi-academy trust necessarily makes a difference or in any way gives heads more freedom.
Amendment 15C seeks to amend Clause 7, which represents an extraordinary departure from the normal processes of governmental decision-making. Under the clause, the Secretary of State is not allowed to make a decision. She seeks to bind herself to make an academy order, and nothing less. Surely there must be some flexibility in the system to allow the Secretary of State to reach a considered view, having looked beneath the assessment and heard what the stakeholders have to say. Of course in some cases there will be no opposition to academisation, and even where there is, having listened, the Secretary of State will arrive at her view, which may well be that academisation should go ahead. The amendment does not prevent her making such a decision; it simply stops it becoming automatic. No two schools are precisely the same, so why should there be the same outcome in all cases? It does not make sense either logically or in educational terms.
Lord Nash
I shall speak to the amendments to Clauses 7 and 8, which seek to undermine the core intentions of the Bill. The Bill is focused on delivering a manifesto pledge, which is an essential part of the Government’s commitment to ensuring that every child receives an excellent education that sets them up to succeed in modern Britain. That manifesto commitment was that we would ensure that any failing maintained school becomes a sponsored academy, to completely transform that school and its educational performance, as my noble friend Lord Harris has just outlined so eloquently and passionately. I pay tribute to the great work that he does in this area. That is why Clause 7 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order in respect of any maintained school that Ofsted has judged to be inadequate. That duty means that there will be no question and no debate about this, which is why Clause 8 removes the requirement to consult on whether such a school should become a sponsored academy. It would be meaningless to consult when our manifesto was absolutely clear that failing maintained schools would become academies. That mandate means there is no question about what will happen, and no decision being made. It does not make sense therefore to consult on whether schools should or should not convert.
Amendment 15C fundamentally undermines our manifesto commitment to turn every failing maintained school into a sponsored academy, and we consider this amendment to be a breach of the Salisbury convention. As I have set out, I cannot accept the reintroduction of a statutory consultation process on whether a school should convert—a question that makes no sense in failing schools, when we have been so clear. The Bill puts children first, not the vested interests of adults who would seek to delay this action. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for her strong and brave words in that regard. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to a situation that was not a pretty sight some 30 years ago, and I assure her that, sadly, there have been plenty of not a pretty sights much more recently. My noble friend Lord True referred to some, as did my noble friend Lord Harris.
The noble Baroness also talked about the opportunity for representation when a school becomes rebrokered as a sponsor. This is a completely different situation. I attempted to explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, that that is because of how funding agreements work, and we are trying to change funding agreements as little as possible, because no Government want to interfere with contracts entered into willingly between two parties any more than they have to.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, cross-referred the situation to the coasting schools situation, whereby a school may be able to improve on its own, and said that it was relevant to thinking again about whether one should make an academy order in relation to an inadequate school. This is a completely different situation. I have been very clear that the default position for a coasting school is not to become an academy, because the school may very well improve, as I am sure many will be able to, on their own or with limited help. But here we are talking about a school that is demonstrably failing and unable to sort itself out on its own. As I say, it is a quite different situation.
However, our position absolutely does not equate to a belief that parents should not have a right to know, or be involved in, changes that affect their child’s school. This is the matter that Amendment 17 is raising. My government Amendment 20 already proposes to require parents to be informed. When a school is required to become a sponsored academy, the sponsor would be under a duty to communicate to parents about their plans for improving the school. This would have to take place before the school converted into a sponsored academy. That amendment therefore already provides robust assurances to parents that they will be kept informed. However, going further and requiring parents to be engaged through formal consultation is just not appropriate. Consultation is overly formal and inflexible. Formal consultations can unintentionally raise the temperature of the debate, rather like when one gets lawyers involved in a divorce settlement, and too often can be used to create delays to the process.
Amendment 16A would prescribe a list of various additional parties who must be included in the consultation exercise. There are already provisions in legislation that will ensure these parties are informed about changes when a school is required to become a sponsored academy. Our proposed Clause 10 is already explicit that the governing body and local authority should work with the named sponsor. The governing body will include representation from parents, staff, the head teacher and the local authority, so those parties will all already be kept informed via that route. The local authority will be further, intimately involved in the detail of the transfer of the school to academy status. The existing TUPE process already ensures that, as a minimum, staff at the school who will be affected by the transfer of the school to the academy trust will always be notified about the transfer by their employer or the academy trust. Where the academy trust proposes any changes that affect the employees, there must be consultation about those. This means that there is already a legal obligation for staff to receive information about the academy trust and be consulted on any proposed changes to terms and conditions, prior to any academy conversion taking place, comparable to what my amendment now proposes to introduce for parents.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked whether regional schools commissioners would write to parents. We do not want to be that prescriptive. In many cases, it may well be best for the governing body to write to parents to invite them to come to a meeting with a sponsor because parents may be much more likely to listen to the governing body. I am very happy to discuss the precise contents of the Schools Causing Concern guidance with the noble Lord in that regard, and to discuss why it may not be appropriate to be too prescriptive.
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for speaking in favour of my amendment on communication to parents, and I pay tribute to the great work that he does in Ely and across the country in education. Faith schools have an excellent track record on community cohesion. I attended only last week the Church of England’s Living Well Together conference, which brought together students, teachers, faith leaders and others to share ideas about how we live well together and promote peaceful coexistence. I was very impressed by what the Church of England is doing to promote these discussions within schools, and I would very much look to the church’s view on these matters and the appropriateness of our amendment on communicating with parents. I also take this opportunity to reiterate my assurances on how we will ensure the religious character of a faith school will be protected when any intervention is unnecessary, and I shall give more detail on that later on.
I cannot allow a formal consultation exercise to be introduced that requires governing bodies and local authorities to be given a say in whether a school causing concern should become a sponsored academy. We are talking about the same governing body and local authority that, as my noble friend Lord True remarked, has already allowed the school to fail, and not taken the necessary action to halt its decline at an earlier stage. Amendment 16A takes us back to a position that is more inflexible than the current process, and I hope all Peers will accept that that is a retrograde step and a step towards delay and inaction, which would undermine the fundamental principles behind the Bill.
Let us be clear: Amendment 15C would drive a coach and horses through the core purpose of the Bill, which is to turn failing schools into academies. That was a manifesto commitment, and therefore not only would the amendment fundamentally undermine the Bill but we consider that it would be a breach of the Salisbury convention, as I said earlier. Further, we do not consider Amendment 16A to be consequential to Amendment 15C. However, I have already shown that we are prepared to listen to the concerns raised about ensuring that parents are informed about what changes are being made to improve their child’s school, and that is why I have tabled government Amendment 20, to that effect. I hope noble Lords will agree that I have listened and achieved the right balance between responding to Peers’ valid concerns about parents having a right to know what is going on in their child’s school and not undermining the Bill’s core purpose, which is to ensure that there is no scope for delay in transforming every failing school. I hope noble Lords will recognise that the Bill is delivering a manifesto commitment. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, with many speakers and many opinions—which can only be a healthy thing. I will be as quick as I can in picking up just one or two of the major points. My noble friend Lady Morris made the point that you need to make a very strong case for excluding parents in this situation, and that case has not been made.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that the consultation is not detailed. The amendment does not state exactly what it should include. The terms, including the time allowed, will be for the Secretary of State to set out in regulations. She will be obliged to take into account only the views expressed in that consultation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, made an important point, and I think that I owe her and other noble Lords an apology because I clearly did not make it evident in my remarks when moving the amendment that the alternative to academy status is not to do nothing and just carry on as before. That never was the case, and I very much hope it never would be. I would certainly never advocate it, but there are alternatives. Academy status is not the only alternative. For instance, the local authority has a role, a new head teacher can be brought in—which has been successful on other such occasions—and new governors can be appointed. Another successful school in the locality could take the school under its wing—again, there have been several examples of that having been done successfully, short of academisation. So the idea that it is one or the other is simply not true, and I am not for one moment advocating no action.
I think that parents at an underperforming school would be likely to want change—perhaps even to academy status. Who knows?
Lord Nash
The approach to trying to improve schools which the noble Lord has just referred to has been tried for years. Bringing in a supportive school from nearby to get the school better and then move off is not a permanent solution. We have seen this for many years in some of the schools to which that my noble friend Lord Harris referred. It is a temporary solution, a quick fix, and it does not work. Here, we are talking about a permanent solution under a sponsored academy arrangement.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
That is the sort of doom and gloom we have come to associate with the Minister. I will write to him with examples of schools which have been successful in the longer term, when I get the opportunity. I was suggesting that parents at underperforming schools are in many cases likely to want changes, but you do not know whether they want changes until you ask them.
As a parent of a child at a maintained school, I would certainly want a say if that school were being forced to become an academy, but whether that was because it received an inadequate Ofsted judgment or because it was deemed to be coasting, I would take some responsibility. If it had been in those categories for two years and I had not known about it and had not banged on the head teacher’s door to say, “What are you doing to do about it?”, I would be responsible as well. So parents have responsibilities—but, equally, they have rights, and these rights should not be denied.
The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, talked about a black and white situation. That is what Amendment 16A seeks to avoid by introducing shades of grey where improvements can be made. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, suggested that the consultation did not need to be a plebiscite. That, too, is implicit in Amendment 16A, and it is not what is being suggested.
I welcome the fact that the schools that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned have been turned round, and I congratulate the trust on its achievements, but he might have mentioned that not all of his academies have enjoyed that success. On consultation, just because some parents in some schools will object is not a reason for no parents to have a say in any school.
Lord Harris of Peckham
Perhaps I may say that after two years, in every school we have taken over the lowest grade we have had is “good”. They were failing schools, and I consider that getting “good” in under two years and having 80% of our secondary schools “outstanding” already is a great result. Sir Dan Moynihan and our teachers have done a great job, and I am really proud of them.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
The noble Lord is entitled to be, and I was not denigrating him. I was merely saying that not all schools are of the same standard, which is to be expected.
I will not go into the manifesto issue. I am surprised that the Minister has raised it again. We dealt with it in Committee when I quoted the Conservative manifesto to him. It is very vague—to be kind to it—on this issue, and to mention the Salisbury convention just bewilders me. I return to the point that the noble Lord did not acknowledge that the Secretary of State would still retain the final word if consultation was introduced. I made that point earlier. The Minister does not seem to have grasped it, but I hope he will. He goes on about informing parents, not consulting them. There is such a difference between being informed, which is basically being told what is going to happen, and being consulted, which is being asked what is going to happen. They are well apart.
I am not going to repeat any further arguments. I believe that the right to consultation is a basic democratic right that every parent should expect. If the Secretary of State was forced by the wording of Clause 7 to make an academy order, consultation, even if it were permitted, would be meaningless. For that reason, Amendment 15C is necessary to allow the Secretary of State the necessary flexibility—and for that reason, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
“5ZA Consultation about conversion: schools issued with an Academy order
(1) If a school is issued with an Academy order under section 4(A1) or (1)(b), consultation must be held on whether conversion should take place.
(2) The consultation exercise must include—
(a) parents of children attending the school;(b) teachers and staff at the school;(c) governors at the school;(d) the relevant local authority;(e) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate. (3) The terms of such consultation, including the minimum length of time that must be allowed, shall be prescribed by the Secretary of State in regulations.
(4) After the close of the consultation, the Secretary of State must take into account the outcome of the consultation when deciding whether conversion is appropriate for the school.”
Schools: Special Measures
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that by forcing ever more schools to convert to academies, he is in effect making a rod for his own back? If the only role remaining for local authorities is to facilitate those conversions, in the period after that all responsibility for failing schools will fall on the Government, and Ministers will be forced to come to this House and explain to noble Lords why those schools are failing and what they are going to do about it.
Education: English Baccalaureate
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I suspect that the Minister did not give us all the information. At A-level, although there has been a welcome increase in the number taking maths and science, what he did not tell the House was that the trend for increased numbers in those subjects significantly predates the introduction of the EBacc in 2010, and the pace of increase since then has actually slowed. Between 2002 and 2009, numbers in maths increased by 58%; since the introduction of the EBacc, they have increased by only a further 13%. In physics, between 2006 and 2010, numbers increased by 18%; since then, by 16%. The Minister also did not reveal that English and modern languages are also EBacc subjects, but take-up has fallen since 2010.
Last year, the director-general of the CBI said that,
“we have no debate at all about the 14-18 curriculum—only a debate about exams … we need curriculum reform, not just exam reform”.
Was not he right?
Schools: Faith Schools
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Nash
I would be delighted to expand on that as the right reverend Prelate mentions. We intend to insert within the articles of association a faith object, which requires the trust to ensure that the character of the church school is maintained. There will be an entrenchment clause, which requires written consent of the diocese for changes to the articles relating to the maintenance of the church school’s religious character—for instance, those relating to local governing bodies or the church’s power to appoint staff. There is a requirement that members and trustees are appointed to provide proportionate diocese representation on the MAT, and to establish a local governing body, and for the creation of a scheme of delegation relating to the religious character of the school agreed between the MAT and the diocese. This will be protected.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the Minister will have time to answer this question from me. I am sure that he will be aware of media reports over the weekend concerning Highfield Humanities College in Blackpool, where parents were very concerned about its conversion to an academy by the Tauheedul Education Trust, which already runs 10 Muslim faith academies—yet only 2% of the pupils at Highfield are Muslim. Will the Minister provide an assurance that there will always be full parental and community consultation when an academy changes from not having a religious character to having one—and, indeed, when it changes between faiths?
Vulnerable Children: Kinship Care
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Armstrong on securing this debate on a most important topic.
Kinship carers include every kind of relative, as well as friends who are raising children unable to live with their parents. They provide a crucial web of support for children who have often suffered in ways that most of us, I suspect, could not imagine. Yet it seems they are undervalued by the organisation that ought to be most indebted to them—the Government.
We know that 95% of children living under kinship care arrangements are not “looked after” by the local authority. Therefore, by keeping vulnerable children out of the care system, these kinship carers save the taxpayer billions of pounds each year in care costs, as noble Lords have already said. The financial cost of raising the child typically falls directly on the kinship carers themselves, yet they are treated as the poor relation in terms of parents looking after children who are not their own.
Kinship carers get less support than those who undertake straight fostering, so it may be in a local authority’s financial interest to place a child under a special guardianship order rather than to remove them from that environment and place them into a foster placement or a children’s home. As my noble friend Lady Armstrong outlined, taking on someone else’s child is much more demanding than just adding a child to your family. The Government should acknowledge this important fact.
By contrast, adoption has been the main focus for the Government recently. The Education and Adoption Bill makes provision for regional adoption agencies, which are a welcome development, and recently we heard from no less an authority than the Prime Minister that further legislation on adoption is apparently in the pipeline. The question that has to be asked is why the same attention has not been given to the 95% of children who are in other forms of care, including those who cannot live with their parents and who are being raised by kinship carers. We might also ask why the same rationale for supporting adoption—not least in terms of post-adoption support—has not been applied to kinship care. Unfortunately, the Education and Adoption Bill was drafted so tightly that the adoption provisions could not be amended in favour of kinship care—or, indeed, any other form of care.
Various noble Lords referred to the survey carried out by the charity Family Rights Group. I will not repeat the figures here, but I pay tribute to the group and to the Kinship Care Alliance for the very thorough briefing that it kindly provided.
We know that a review of special guardianship orders is under way and will report next year. It would be hugely encouraging for the estimated 130,000 families raising children in kinship care across the country—often, as we have heard, at cost to themselves and their own children —if a similar review was announced into kinship care.
My noble friend Lady Drake referred to last night’s refusal by the Government during the welfare reform Bill to exempt parents of adopted children from the two-plus children tax credits limit. That point bears repeating because it makes no sense at all. I know that the Minister will say, “It’s not my department”. Of course, as far as that Bill is concerned he is correct, but it is his responsibility. That mean-spirited decision by his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, will impact on his department to a considerable extent. At a time when more parents are needed for all looked-after children, the cost of taking a child under a family’s wing is considerable. Parents who already have their own children will now be deterred for financial reasons from becoming involved, which means it will become even more difficult to find sufficient parents for looked-after children. For kinship care, the decision will make it even more difficult to place sibling groups.
I hope that the Minister is fully aware of the implications of the denial of exemption to parents prepared to take on the care of children from troubled backgrounds and that, as a result, he will speak to his colleague and even echo the case made so eloquently by many noble Lords in this Chamber 24 hours ago. It is not too late to have that important exemption inserted in the welfare reform Bill. The Minister would be failing in his duty of service to the Department for Education and many of the children who rely on it for their care if he does not highlight the damage that will be done to children in kinship care and others as a result of the Government’s, at least current, intransigence.
Finally, why should kinship carers be valued less highly than adoptive parents? My noble friend Lady Massey and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, outlined changes that they advocated to the support that could be supplied to kinship carers. I would add to that a positive step the Government could take: to extend the adoption support fund and the adoption passport to children subject to a special guardianship order. If a child is in the care system the parents looking after them are entitled to foster parent or adoptive parent payments. It is fair to ask why those should not be available to and apply to kinship carers.
Often, an older sibling or grandparent steps in to prevent a child being formally taken into care, but if they do that the support given to them is much less. In effect, they are punished financially for relieving the system of the need to look after that child, which means that both the family and the child lose out. That is surely neither logical nor fair. Typically they are the same children with the same range of needs. The legal route taken on how the child gets the care they need should not matter; it is surely first and foremost about meeting the needs of the child and properly supporting those who take on the role of carer.
I have a huge amount of admiration and respect for anyone willing to look after a child who is not their own and provide them with something they may never have known—a loving home in which the child can flourish and reach their potential. I believe that the Minister shares that view, but he needs to use the influence that comes with his office to demonstrate that kinship carers are valued as highly as any other person acting in loco parentis. I hope he will indicate that that is indeed what he intends to do.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for calling a debate on this important subject. I am sure that the whole House would agree that kinship carers, many of whom are grandparents, play a pivotal role in caring for children who cannot live with their parents. I welcome the opportunity to answer for the Government in this short debate.
First, I make it clear that the Government do not see a hierarchy between adoption, fostering, residential care or kinship care. We are interested not in favouring one type of care over another, but in what is right for each individual child. Over the last five years we have made significant strides in this regard. I am grateful for the supportive remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, my noble friend Lady Bottomley and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey.
For a majority of children, kinship care will be the first and best option. This is not just because it is what the law requires, but because we know kinship care offers children a vitally important bond of familial love and belonging. That is why we applaud kinship carers who step in, often in a crisis or emergency, to take on the care of a child, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said. There will, of course, be many children being looked after by relatives where care proceedings are not an issue but where the primary carers are ill or in distress and cannot easily care for the child. However, the Government recognise that kinship carers take on a role that might otherwise have to be performed by the state. Kinship carers enable vulnerable children and young people to remain with their families, with people they know and trust who can provide the right commitment, security and stability they need to thrive.
We know, through voluntary sector research, that children benefit from living with their extended family and that placement stability is a factor in children’s later achievement. Children in placements with relatives are likely to be more stable than ones in unrelated fostering or residential care. In particular, research indicates that children in these arrangements have fewer emotional and behaviour problems and achieve more academically. As the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, said, an analysis carried out by researchers at the universities of Oxford and Bristol and published only last week found that, among the cohort of looked-after children who were eligible for GCSEs in 2013, children in kinship care had higher GCSE point scores on average than children in other types of care. That is why, through the discretionary housing fund and through funding the advice line provided by the Family Rights Group, we are trying to help kinship carers to safeguard children’s futures by keeping them within the wider family and community.
I welcome the chance, through this debate, to consider the support available to kinship carers and what we are doing to improve this. We know they need better information and support. That is why, during the previous Parliament, we issued family and friends care statutory guidance for local authorities. This makes clear that every council should publish a family and friends care policy, setting out how it will support the needs of children living with kinship carers, whether or not they are looked after. In particular, we made a commitment to increase the number of local authorities that have published their policies for supporting family and friend carers. Following national sector learning days organised by the DfE with local authorities, 83% of English local authorities have now published a policy, compared with 42% in 2012. We intend to write again to councils on this issue.
We recognise that kinship carers are not always accessing the support they should have. Although most authorities have policies in place, we now have to focus on the quality of the support they offer to family and friends carers. To this end, the department has been funding the voluntary sector organisation Grandparents Plus to develop models of best practice in early help and to identify how to overcome the barriers to providing good, well-structured services and early support for kinship carers. Also, we have seen the use of special guardianship orders increase year on year since their inception in 2005. Special guardians are mainly family members, often grandparents, who provide loving, permanent homes for children. This has largely been a positive development and we welcome it. My department has recently completed a review of special guardianship. Evidence from this suggests that special guardianships are, in the main, positive relationships which protect children’s welfare and improve their outcomes into adulthood. We are currently considering the results of the review, including looking at how we might improve appropriate support to special guardians.
We have been working closely with the key voluntary sector organisations, the Family Rights Group and the Kinship Care Alliance. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, I can say that we plan to publish the report of the review before Christmas. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, referred to the important work done by the Family Rights Group, and we are providing financial support to it for its work with kinship carers through, for instance, its helpline and promoting the use of family group conferences. My department has been funding them for more than seven years. That clearly demonstrates our commitment to the valuable work that they do for kinship carers.
We are currently reviewing our grant payments to voluntary and community-based organisations beyond the end of this financial year in the light of the spending review. We will have more information on this in the new year. In the mean time, I express my thanks to the Family Rights Group for its support to families and emphasise that the Government recognise the important work that it does.
The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, mentioned the concept of a presumption of kinship care. The law already states that children should be looked after by their families wherever possible. She also mentioned mental health. Improving access to CAMHS for vulnerable children is a priority of this Government. We have committed £1.4 billion to improve mental health services for children and young people over the next five years and we are working closely with the DoH and NHS England. The transformation to services we expect is set out in the Future in Mind report, which makes suggestions about what more can be done to improve access, develop better partnership working with parents and carers and provide the right support for children who have suffered trauma.
Many family members make great sacrifices in order to care for children. Local authorities have a legal duty to support children who leave care under other legal orders, and carers should discuss any needs with their local authorities. Children who have left care for a friends and family placement underpinned by a special guardianship or relevant child arrangement order have access to priority school admissions, pupil premium and free early education for two year-olds.
In relation to support for adopters and whether this should be extended, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the Adoption Support Fund has been set up to address the serious gaps in specialist services for adopted children. It is still in its infancy. If it proves successful, we will look to apply the learning in other areas. We are considering how to improve support for special guardianship as part of the special guardianship review, which, as I said, will be published before Christmas. However, given the wide range of needs and circumstances of family carers, it would be inappropriate as well as complex to provide a national allowance which is both equitable and simple to administer. Children placed in a kinship care arrangement by a local authority are looked-after children, in which case their carer must be approved as a foster carer. In these circumstances, kinship carers must receive the same support as all other foster carers, including financial support. However, the majority of kinship carers will be caring for children who are not looked after. Relatives caring for a child in these circumstances are entitled to support such as child benefit and other benefits available to parents, subject to the usual eligibility criteria. It would be difficult to require local authorities to provide a dedicated support service solely for relative carers, as most of the services required will be the same as those needed by other families.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned that our recent focus had been on adoption; our recent focus has indeed been on improving one area in relation to it. As we have mentioned in other debates, we have done a great deal of work over the last five years on improving the provision for all children in care. The Children and Families Act was a substantial piece of legislation which has substantially improved the fostering arrangements and introduced early placements. Long-term foster care has been recognised as a distinct placement. We have invested £100 million in Pupil Premium Plus. We have virtual school heads and we are currently conducting a review of children’s homes.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
The Minister mentioned other pieces of legislation that have recently gone on to the statute book. I do not expect him to comment specifically on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, but I wonder if he and his department are considering the impact of the decision not to exempt adoptive parents from the two-plus children tax credit limit, because there will undoubtedly be an effect on his department, and indeed on the ability of the number of adopters and kinship carers to be extended in the future.
Lord Nash
Noble Lords will be aware that this was discussed last night. I know that my noble friend Lord Freud will have listened carefully to those arguments and will be considering the response. I will discuss it with him.
Finally, I know that the House recognises the crucial role that working grandparents play in providing childcare and supporting working families, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley mentioned. That is why we have announced plans to extend the current system of shared parental pay and leave to cover working grandparents, thereby providing much greater choice for families trying to balance childcare and work. We will bring forward legislation to enable the change to be implemented by 2018.
I am sure the whole House agrees that kinship carers —grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and friends—fulfil a vital role in the care system and deserve the continued support of the Government. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.
Adoption
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Nash
We believe this may have been misinterpreted by some social workers with, I am sure, the best interests of children in mind. The president of the Family Division has clarified the meaning, particularly in Re B-S and in Re R, where he made it absolutely clear that the law on adoption had not changed. However, it seems that these decisions have sometimes been misinterpreted as raising the legal test for adoption so that adoption should not be pursued unless there is no other option. We are particularly concerned about this.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the greatest shortfall in adoptions is among harder-to-place children. What assurances can he give to people willing to adopt children in that category that they will have full support to enable the adoptions to become permanent?
Lord Nash
We have made £30 million available for the central agency fees, specifically for this category of children. The regional adoption agencies, which the noble Lord will know about because we debated them, will give these harder-to-place children immediate access to a larger pool of potential adopters.
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 6 and 7, which I thought would be treated as individual amendments but, to my surprise, have been grouped. So here we are.
Amendment 2 has been resubmitted, because we share the concerns of the professionals in the field about what the future might hold for voluntary adoption agencies after the full establishment of the regional adoption agencies. Having said that, I think that moving Amendment 2 should be a formality, because, within the past few days, the Minister has to all intents and purposes already indicated—in writing no less—his tacit acceptance of it.
In moving what was then Amendment 32ZA in Committee, I highlighted the fears of many voluntary adoption agencies that they could be squeezed out with the establishment of the regional agencies and that considerable difficulties remained as far as their involvement was concerned. I went on to say that we owed a duty to them to air those views and seek the Government’s help in prioritising them. Well, we did, and the Government did. In fact, those of us involved with the Bill received letters from Ministers in both Houses, and both responded positively. The Minister of State for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, clearly stated the Government’s commitment to making sure that voluntary adoption agencies are involved in regional adoption agencies. He stated that,
“the excellence in practice of VAAs is at the heart of the regionalised system”,
and that he wanted VAAs to be leading players in the design of that system, which was why,
“I have not approved a proposal to set up a regional adoption agency without a clear commitment to involving voluntary adoption agencies in the design of the service—and I will make sure local authorities keep that commitment”.
That is very welcome—so far, so good—but it leaves the umbrella body for voluntary adoption agencies, the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, with concerns, because it believes that the Minister’s commitments do not go far enough in explaining how the Government will achieve that aim. In the letter of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, the paragraph on the matching process is important—and this refers also to Amendment 7. The Minister states that a regional adoption agency will have one pool of adopters that it will draw on when matching children in its area and that this will minimise sequential decision-making.
However, the issue of concern is that, within that single pool of adopters, those approved by a voluntary adoption agency will have a price attached to them in some way. Voluntary adoption agencies somehow have to cover the cost of recruiting, training and approving those adopters, as well as supporting them after placement. This may be through the current inter-agency fee of £27,000, through “block purchase” arrangements where a regional adoption agency pays for a set number of VAA adopters a year, or through other arrangements. It is not yet known how this will be arranged in the various regions; the point is that individual regional arrangements will decide it, and that is an area of uncertainty for the voluntary agencies.
If that means that voluntary adoption agency-approved adopters will be seen as coming with a cost attached to them in a way that adopters approved by the regional adoption agency will not, that is potentially an issue. Of course, adopters approved by the regional agency also come with a cost, although that is less visible. The evidence also suggests that, despite perceptions of voluntary adoption agency-approved adopters being expensive, the costs of providing an adopter are virtually the same across both the statutory and the voluntary sector. There are further concerns, as it is accepted that the inter-agency fee does not cover this full cost. Indeed, the CVAA, the consortium, estimates a shortfall of at least £10,000 per placement, which suggests that local authorities get excellent value for money from using voluntary adoption agency adopters.
In Committee, I raised the issue of what is known as sequential decision-making. In his letter to noble Lords, the Minister said:
“A regional adoption agency will have one pool of adopters that it will draw on when matching the children in its area. Individual local authorities will therefore no longer have their ‘own’ adopters to match their children with ‘in house’ as they do currently. This will ensure that sequential decision making is minimised”.
Yes, it will be minimised, but not ruled out. That remains an issue for the voluntary adoption agencies.
Part of what drives that behaviour, understandably, is the fact that local authorities often have a preference for adopters they have approved. This, in addition to the perception that voluntary adoption agency-approved adopters involve an additional cost, causes a mindset that leads to sequential decision-making. There is no reason to suppose that this mindset would be any different in a regional adoption agency. Voluntary adoption agency-approved adopters would still have to be paid for by some means, and that would not be approved in-house by the statutory part of the regional agency.
The basic issue is that, within regional agencies, voluntary adoption agency-approved adopters will still be the second preference of those deciding on matches. This is bad for children because it causes delay, and bad for local authorities because delay in placing children incurs huge costs. I was surprised—I wonder if Ministers are aware—that providing local authority-based residential care costs more than £100,000 per child per year. That is why there is a need to reform the matching process to ensure that those making the decisions are focused solely on finding the best match for the child as quickly as possible. This would be better for all parties involved and would help the Government achieve their aims of reducing delay for children and involving voluntary adoption agencies in regional adoption agencies.
Further, there is the issue of voluntary adoption agencies having to divert resources towards administrative and governance processes during the transition. We know that the Department for Education has allocated £4.5 million for this purpose but can the Minister say whether any further funding will be made available? Voluntary adoption agencies are already saying that the funding is beginning to dry up and, with the transition likely to be spread over a number of years, the problem can only intensify.
The final reason why the ministerial letters have not assuaged the concerns of those involved at the front line is that it is unclear how the Department for Education will influence the role for voluntary adoption agencies and a given regional agency. That is where typically smaller specialist voluntary agencies would be contracted to regional agencies. The assumption is that it will be for a regional agency to decide when to contract out and to which agencies. Given such uncertainties, there is clearly an issue about predictability of income for smaller voluntary agencies, some of which have already expressed fears that they will be at risk. Can the Minister offer any encouraging words to the voluntary adoption agencies to meet those worries?
Amendment 6 aims to clarify whether the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to adoption functions could be used in respect of a particular group. The key concern is about accountability and ensuring that the new system results in meaningful improvements for vulnerable children, especially the harder-to-place ones, and specifically those in the categories listed in the amendment.
The overhaul of the adoption system introduced by this amendment to the 2002 Act will have failed in its objective if it does not meet the challenges inherent in the current system. There is universal agreement that where adoption is in the best interests of the child, that child should be placed with a suitable family at the earliest opportunity. That must not mean a wait of more than two years, which it often does.
Overall there is not a shortage of prospective adopters. In March of this year, across England there were 2,810 children waiting to be matched and 3,350 approved adopters. The mismatch between these figures highlights the need for an improved system and the introduction of regional adoption agencies may in time produce that. However, there is an existential shortage of prospective adopters for certain groups of children. These groups contain harder-to-place children and include those over the age of four, those with disabilities, black, Asian and minority ethnic children and sibling groups.
The length of time between the decision being made that adoption is in the child’s best interests and the adoption taking place is, of course, key. According to the Adoption Leadership Board, in June of this year no fewer than 71% of children waiting more than 18 months between the placement order and the placement fell into a harder-to-place category; more than half of children from black, Asian and minority ethnic back- grounds waiting to be placed had been waiting 18 months or more since the placement order was made; and 64% of disabled children had been waiting 18 months or more, as had 47% of sibling groups. These indicate the scale of the problem, the extent of the improvement needed in the adoption system and the need for greater emphasis to be given to harder-to-place children.
For the new regional adoption agencies to be deemed a success, it is essential that the time these children spend waiting to be adopted is reduced, and quickly. Understandably, it will always be more difficult to find prospective adopters willing and able to adopt children in the groups to which I already referred. Part of the rationale offered by the Government for the introduction of the regional agencies is that they will lead to a larger pool of adopters from which it will be easier to find a match for harder-to-place children. There is some justification for that, and I certainly hope it proves correct. There is, however, no automatic link between creating regional adoption agencies and improving outcomes for these groups. In fact, there is a risk that the new agencies might feel under pressure to increase the overall numbers and speed of adoptions, creating an incentive to concentrate on the most straightforward matches which, of course, involve babies.
The Prime Minister’s speech on 2 November mentioned new measures to double the number of children placed with adoptive families sooner, halving the time they spend in care waiting to move into their new home. That was greeted with caution among professionals, who have serious doubts that the necessary resources will be forthcoming to allow that increase to become reality. I hope the Minister might be able to offer some reassurance to them in his reply. Equally, concern has been expressed that what I call this “hell-for-leather approach” might contravene the legal duty of local authorities under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989. That legislation states that it is the general duty of every local authority to,
“safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need; and … so far as is consistent with that duty, to promote the upbringing of such children by their families by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children’s needs”.
Therefore, for the Government to prioritise more and quicker adoption is questionable both morally and legally, unless local authorities are providing a good Section 17 service to families. As a consequence of the cuts that local authorities are required to make—ironically, not least in Oxfordshire, about which the Prime Minister himself has been moved to complain—there is major concern among professionals that this is not so.
Equally, there is real concern that the process of creating new regional adoption agencies will divert existing resources, leading to an undermining of current relationships. The new system will inevitably take some years to become fully effective, and there are concerns among the various agencies as to whether they will have the necessary resources during the transitional period to invest in effective services and support for children and adopters.
The £30 million made available by the Government to assist harder-to-place children is welcome, but it will not last long. It was disappointing that the Autumn Statement seemed to have nothing to say regarding additional resources for these children. Without that, it is not clear how the Government can ensure that the system will improve the waiting time for harder-to-place groups. That brings us back to voluntary adoption agencies, which have particular expertise in working with harder-to-place children; perhaps that is another aspect of their invaluable work that should be recognised.
In Committee, the Minister stated that regional adoption agencies would be,
“incentivised to find the right family for a child as quickly as possible”.—[Official Report, 17/11/2015; col. GC 47.]
Can he outline what form these incentives might take?
Returning to Amendment 6 specifically, the Government must prioritise and ensure that these groups do not continue to be left on the fringes of the adoption system. One means of achieving that would be to accept the addition to Clause 13 contained in this amendment, to allow them to become a full part of the Secretary of State’s powers under that clause. As I stated at the outset, this seems to be very much in line with the content of the Minister’s letter, so I hope he will not find any reason not to accept this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 4, which is in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I think that the noble Earl has withdrawn from that, so I am now—
Lord Nash
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 2, 6 and 7, which aim to ensure that voluntary adoption agencies play an important role in the move to, and the future services provided by, regional adoption agencies. Broadly, the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, and the Government’s intentions are in the same place.
First, I take this opportunity to again set out our commitment to the voluntary adoption agency sector. Its expertise and the services that it provides have already been central to the improvements we have seen in the adoption sector. We absolutely want this to continue. As I have previously told the House, these organisations have a central role to play in regionalisation, as referred to in the letter that my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families recently sent to the chief executives of all VAAs, reiterating our commitment to their involvement.
Voluntary adoption agencies have knowledge and specialist skills that will be crucial in ensuring that the new regional agencies provide the high-quality services we expect to see. That is why all the projects we are funding this year include VAAs. We have also been clear with projects that VAAs should not simply be involved once decisions about the design of the new regional adoption agency are made. We have required all projects to commit to involving voluntary agencies in the early design phase of their work.
Amendment 2 would mean that local authorities and VAAs would jointly decide who should deliver the adoption functions on behalf of the local authorities being directed. I absolutely agree that it is important that VAAs have a role in any conversations about using the power introduced through the Bill, and I assure noble Lords that this will be the case. As I set out in our last debate, where the power is needed, decisions about its use will be made following extensive discussions with all those involved or affected, including VAAs. All relevant agencies will have the chance to comment on the proposal before a final decision is taken. In addition, the Adoption Leadership Board, of which the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies is a key member, will have an important role to play in shaping any decisions about regionalisation.
It would, however, be impractical and unbalanced to give a VAA joint decision-making power with the local authority in relation to the question of which agency should carry out the functions on the authority’s behalf. The local authority has statutory responsibility for delivering its functions. Although it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to make a decision, instead of a local authority, about who should carry out those functions in the limited circumstances where this proves necessary, it is not appropriate to give a VAA the power to make that kind of decision on behalf of a local authority or to veto a local authority’s proposed course of action. Instead, we need to use the mechanisms I outlined above to ensure that the views of VAAs are taken into account when decisions are made about how the power will be used.
Amendment 6 would allow the Bill to be used in relation to particular groups of children. This would enable the legislation to be used to make specific arrangements relating to hard-to-place groups of children. Over the last few years we have made significant strides to improve things for this section of children but there is a lot further to go. I completely agree with the motivation behind this amendment. We know that certain groups of children wait much longer for adoption than others. In 2014-15, hard-to-place children waited, on average, almost seven months longer for adoption than other children.
I am pleased to be able to clarify that subsection (5) of the clause is intended to enable it to be used in exactly this way. Subsection (5) enables a direction to be made in relation to certain categories of children. If, for example, arrangements between a group of local authorities are not working well enough for disabled children, this legislation could be used to direct those authorities to make different arrangements for them. This could, for example, include requiring local authorities to make arrangements for their family-finding functions in relation to those children to be undertaken by a specific, specialist VAA.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 7. When we discussed this issue previously, and again today, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, expressed his concern that VAA adopters would not be used by regional adoption agencies in the future because of financial considerations, and that this would lead to a continuation of the practice of sequential decision-making, which we are all keen to see end. First, I can clarify that VAA adopters do not represent a higher cost than adopters recruited by a local authority. A report by the University of Bristol in 2009 found that interagency fees were perceived as excessive by local authorities, despite the fact that they were found to be lower than what local authorities spend on placing children internally. It is crucial that we address this myth, as it is damaging to VAAs and drives the poor practice of sequential decision-making. I emphasise again that one of the key objectives of the policy is that each regional adoption agency will have a single pool of adopters. This is key to ensuring that swift, non-sequential matching decisions can be made. This is what we all want to see.
The local authorities and VAAs which make up a regional adoption agency will need to come to an agreement about which adopters are part of their central pool, and how the VAAs are remunerated for their investment in recruiting and approving adopters. The department is not prescribing the financial arrangements that will underpin new regional agencies, as we want to be led by what VAAs and local authorities think works. However, we are providing a comprehensive package of support to help local areas work through issues such as these, and come up with models which enable VAAs and local authorities to work together seamlessly and fairly.
Some regional adoption agencies may have the VAA partners doing all the adopter recruitment, given their skill and track record in this area. This would certainly be an interesting model. We will be working with VAAs and local authorities to develop fair and robust financial models which ensure that VAAs are not disadvantaged. However, I note the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the financial drivers in this. He raised a number of points that we want the sector not to be nervous about. I think that it would be helpful—if the noble Lord is willing to do this—if I organised a meeting with the noble Lord, the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Minister Timpson and officials, to discuss these issues in greater detail. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is nodding in agreement to that.
Finally, I remind noble Lords that regional adoption agencies will not be, and are not intended to be, entirely self-sufficient. There are, of course, some children for whom even a regional agency’s larger pool of adopters will not suffice, either because the child has particular needs or because the agency does not have an appropriate approved adopter ready at the point the child needs a match. Social workers in regional agencies will be expected to identify these children quickly and act promptly on their behalf by engaging with the national pool of adopters using national matching tools.
In view of my comments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel reassured and will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I thank the Minister for that comprehensive reply, much of which I welcome. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, commented on the Yorkshire pilot and the support for voluntary adoption agencies. Given the very sad episode that she related, I could not agree more that permanence has to be the aim when children are being placed. It is not just a question of finding a place fairly quickly but of finding one that both the child and the family have a good chance of making sustainable and, ultimately, permanent. That is what we are looking for. That is why I raised concerns about the Prime Minister’s comment that we should simply look to double the number. It is not a numbers game in that sense. I will raise this issue again in the next group of amendments, but I point out that Clause 13, on the terms of adoption, concerns only 5% of the children in care.
I was pleased to hear the Minister stress what he called the essential role of voluntary adoption agencies—those agencies will also be pleased to hear that—and that he foresees them having a role at the early design phase. That is what they are looking for. I do not doubt the Government’s will in this regard, and nor do the voluntary adoption agencies, but it is a question of how they intend to make it happen. This is a case of walking the walk and talking the talk, and doubts remain about how they will match the intention with the reality. Of course, it is not me, my colleagues or, indeed, the other opposition parties that the Minister needs to reassure on this point, but the CVAA and its member organisations. The CVAA was obviously centrally involved in the Adoption Leadership Board and those discussions can—and I am sure do—take place, but I simply reiterate that that the voluntary adoption agencies need that reassurance.
The Minister said that he agreed with the motivation behind Amendment 6. It is helpful to have his comments on the record that subsection (5)—if I am quoting him correctly—is designed to enable the measure to be used in the way the amendment suggests. That is useful and will be welcomed by organisations such as Barnardo’s, which has real concerns about harder-to-place children and the fact that the numbers are increasing and the resources to tackle that are at least in doubt, although the hope is that additional resources will be made available. The Minister may be able to reveal that in the near future.
I understand what the Minister is saying on the sequential decision-making issue but am slightly puzzled when he says that there is no difference in cost between voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities in this regard. He referred to the Bristol University study. I had not heard of that but, even more surprisingly, it seems to have eluded the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, which is saying there are situations where local authorities may have—I will put it no more damagingly than this—a back-scratching operation whereby there might be a bit of a trade-off, such as the whole interagency fee not being required to be paid in certain situations or an understanding about some future arrangement between the two. Voluntary adoption agencies are effectively excluded from that. The new arrangements will certainly make that more difficult but they may not rule it out and that needs to be taken into account. I will look at the Bristol University survey and see what it says. I very much hope that that is the case but it may not be. Finally, I thank the Minister for the offer of a meeting and I would certainly be pleased to take that up.
(f) the provision of a mental health assessment prior to the making of a placement order.”
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, we turn now to mental health support, which is very important indeed. Amendment 3 follows on from what was Amendment 33 in Committee, to which I spoke. I emphasised then that the issue of support once a child is placed in adoption can be crucial to whether that adoption becomes permanent—the point we were making a few moments ago in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. Often, specialist support is needed to care for a child appropriately.
I also quoted figures supplied by the NSPCC which I think bear repeating because they show that 45% of children in care have a mental health disorder, compared with only 10% of the general child population. The mental health needs of children in care were debated thoroughly in relation to that amendment and those in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The NSPCC has now met with Ministers, yet the organisation still believes that specific measures need to be included in the Bill to provide mental health assessment and support as early as possible during a child’s time in the care system. Amendment 3 sets the placement order as the milestone point by which children should have received that assessment.
What is needed is to prioritise vulnerable children, particularly those who have experienced abuse or neglect, which includes a significant majority of looked-after children. The Government must give a commitment to create the earliest possible provision of automatic assessment and support for those children within the adoption system. I will not repeat the point I made in Committee—that Clause 13 aims to provide for only 5% of children in care. We believe that the Bill is wrongly skewed in favour of adoption to the exclusion of all other forms of care. The vast majority of professionals in the field want nothing more than good provision for all looked-after children, whether their welfare be met by adoption, special guardianship, a child arrangements order—what used to be a residence order—long-term fostering or kinship care.
I say in passing that Sir Martin Narey’s announcement that he will be standing down as chair of the Adoption Leadership Board next year offers the Government an opportunity to demonstrate that they value all forms of care equally. The arrival of a new person to head the board should be used as an opportunity to broaden its remit to include all forms of permanency.
Recent research carried out by the NSPCC highlighted that one-fifth of children referred to local specialist NHS mental health services are rejected for treatment. This was described by the NSPCC as creating,
“a ‘time bomb’ of serious mental health conditions”.
Children in care not being able to access the mental health support they need to rebuild their lives represents a serious gap in provision—one that I highlighted in Committee—but I am afraid the Minister did not provide an answer as to how that gap might be filled. I ask him again: does he grasp the extent of the problem being set out for him by the professionals, the people working daily with children with mental health problems? If so, does he believe that sufficient resources will be made available to meet the needs of children in care who are not currently receiving the support they desperately need? Ultimately, the care that can be provided in mental health and other areas for children in care comes down to resources.
In Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, referred to the £1.25 billion that the Government have made available to improve mental health services for children and young people over the next five years, through the implementation of the report Future in Mind. She also mentioned that clinical commissioning groups were involved in that process, although how that huge sum of money is being spent continues to be something of a mystery. Although Future in Mind makes a number of recommendations, there is real doubt as to where we are in the delivery of those recommendations or detailed plans for spending the promised funds. With the majority of that money being spent through clinical commissioning groups, and given all the layers of devolution that there are in the National Health Service, it remains unclear just how that report’s priorities will be met.
The answer to those questions seemed to become less, rather than more, clear last week with the Autumn Statement, when the Chancellor said that “we build on that”—the £1.25 billion—
“with £600 million of additional funding, meaning that by 2020 significantly more people will have access to talking therapies, perinatal mental health services and crisis care”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/15; col. 707.]
The question is: what might this mean for the mental health needs of children in the care system? The Chancellor did not indicate whether the extra resources were for children, but—let us look on the positive side— he did not rule out children being prioritised within its reach either.
In response to a Question from Luciana Berger in another place as to how that £600 million will be prioritised, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Alistair Burt, confirmed that the sum is to be spread,
“over the next five years … and … is additional to current spending. The levels of funding in individual years and the specific mental health service improvements it will fund will be determined in the new year, once the Mental Health Taskforce has reported”.
We know that there are to be additional resources available, so my question to both Ministers today is: what representations will they and their officials in the DfE be making to ensure that a proportion of that money is earmarked to fund the improvements required in mental health services for children and young people in care over the five-year period that is meant to be covered?
In conclusion, given the spending pressures which councils face and a situation that can only deteriorate still further as a result of the Autumn Statement, surely the Government should now be prepared to acknowledge that all children entering the care system should receive an automatic mental health assessment, in addition to the physical assessment that they currently receive. Why on earth should that not happen? Children in care should then immediately receive the report that the assessment shows is necessary to enable them to deal with their condition. Thereafter, common sense surely dictates that there must be regular monitoring of children’s mental health while in care to ensure that the support they are being given is contributing to their improved state of health. I suggest that these demands are not unrealistic and should become expectations on behalf of children who need support to enable them to develop into adulthood. I beg to move.
Lord Storey
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 3 and 4. I was taken with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, in Committee when, speaking for the Government, she said:
“I absolutely agree that the mental health of adopted children is a key issue”.—[Official Report, 17/11/15; col. GC 38.]
She went on to say that the £1.25 billion would be available and how the Future in Mind report would be implemented. Of course, we all want to see children who are in adoption find the right parents to adopt them as quickly as possible, but we also want to make sure that that adoption works. It is no good children being adopted if the adoption then breaks down.
One of the reasons that adoption regularly breaks down is that we have not properly assessed the children, particularly in relation to mental health. If we want to make sure that adoption works, we must put this crucial area right. I will not—well, I will—repeat the figures that 45% of children in care have a mental disorder, which is a huge number, while 60% of those who come into care have experienced neglect or abuse.
How do we ensure that we get this right? To me, it is very simple; to use an old expression, it is not rocket science. It is about providing the expertise and the resources but also about making sure it happens, which is why these amendments actually specify how it should happen. Like the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I cannot understand why the Government would not agree to that. It will be to their credit, and to the success of the Bill, that children who are adopted or who go into care are in the right situation and getting the right support.
We have come a long way in terms of mental health issues in the last few years—and it literally is only in the last few years. One of the areas I am concerned about is that we say, “Oh, there’s a strategy; there’s X amount of money available”, but often those resources do not go to the right people. I know from experience and from talking to other teachers that getting CAMHS into schools now is much harder than it was a few years ago. Never mind a few weeks’ wait, it can often be several months before that support is given. So I wonder whether, when the Minister replies, we might hear how mental health support might be given to schools in a more orderly and speedy way.
I repeat that I want it enshrined in the Bill that we do the assessment for children and young people as soon as possible so that we get it right. In replying, perhaps the Minister could say whether, if the mental health strategy comes out and says that, the Government will agree to it and implement it as well.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 3, 4 and 5, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which focus on improving the mental health needs of children adopted from care. I thank noble Lords for raising these issues. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, we had a detailed discussion in our previous debate in Committee, when I set out that improving the mental health of both looked-after and adopted children is a key issue for the Government. Following the debate, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools sent a letter to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, describing in more detail the actions that we are taking to improve the assessment and support that these vulnerable children receive.
As the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, said, I set out that the Government have committed £1.25 billion to improve mental health services for children and young people over the next five years through the implementation of Future in Mind, the report resulting from the Government’s review of child and adolescent mental health services. I can give noble Lords an assurance that we are now working closely with the Department of Health and NHS England on the implementation of Future in Mind. The NHS England guidance on completing local transformation plans stipulates that they should cover the needs of the most vulnerable children, such as looked-after and adopted children. Key to this is that local areas must work together to understand the vulnerabilities of these children and young people and transform their services accordingly. We are absolutely committed to looking at the needs of children and making sure that they are properly addressed. This will include addressing the important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about filling in the current gaps in services.
Local NHS clinical commissioning groups, in developing their local transformation plans, have worked closely with their local health and well-being boards and partners in local authorities, youth justice and education. All clinical commissioning groups have now submitted their plans, which are currently being assessed by NHS England. Improving the assessment of and support for looked-after children will be a key priority for our programme of work. I agree with all noble Lords and with the NSPCC, which has been cited a number of times in this debate, that getting the assessment right when children enter and leave care for adoption is important.
All looked-after children already have a health assessment at least once a year which must include an assessment of their emotional and mental health as well as their physical health. That assessment, which informs the development of their health plan, should take account of the information provided from the strength and difficulties questionnaire that is completed by their carer. I accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, that for some young people with a range of problems, a follow-on referral to a specialist health service is required.
Turning to the provision of a mental health assessment prior to adoption placement, when an agency is considering adoption for a child, it should immediately consult its medical adviser to determine whether the health information obtained through the most recent health assessment is sufficient, up to date and as broad-ranging as it needs to be. Where a new health assessment is needed, this should be organised in time for the medical adviser to complete their part of the child’s permanence report. That is because, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned, permanence is key.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I hesitate to break the noble Baroness’s flow. She mentioned that a new health assessment will be undertaken, but she did not specifically mention a mental health assessment. That is the point. The physical assessment is always done, so why should the mental health assessment not always be done at the same time or immediately afterwards to make sure that any problems are spotted at the earliest opportunity?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The broad health assessment will include those elements. It must include a summary by the agency’s medical adviser of the child’s current physical and mental health, so both are included. When an application is made to a court for a placement order, the agency is required to submit the summary as part of the application. Local clinical commissioning groups should use these assessments of looked-after children and adopted children to inform their local transformation plans to ensure that they can meet the needs of their local population.
At the national level, the Department for Education hosted a roundtable event last month bringing together children’s social care and mental health stakeholders to discuss how to improve mental health services for looked-after children and adopted children. As a result, we are considering how centres of excellence, possibly linked to regional adoption agencies, might enable the mental health needs of looked-after children and adopted children to be better met. Following that roundtable event, Edward Timpson, the Minister of State for Children and Families, met Alistair Burt, the Minister of State for Community and Social Care, to discuss how to ensure that mental health services can meet the particular needs of these children and young people in an effective and timely way. I should like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that the two departments are working closely together.
In addition, we are providing £4.5 million of funding in this financial year to accelerate the development and implementation of regional adoption agencies. Adoption support, including mental health, is a key element of that. We are clear that regional adoption agencies should have a focus on improving the assessment of adopted children’s mental health needs and the provision of appropriate mental health support services. I should also mention the government-funded adoption support fund. More than 2,000 families have already benefited from £7.5 million of therapeutic services provided by the fund for adopted children and their families. We know that getting a high-quality assessment of need is critical, and local authorities are increasingly using the fund to pay for specialist assessments and, where appropriate, specialist therapeutic support.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised concerns about this Government’s focus on adoption. We are engaged in comprehensive reform, but we are also doing a number of other things. For instance, we have established a programme of reform for social work, including the development of new assessment and accreditation systems for three levels of professional practice for children’s social workers in England. We have created the children’s services innovation programme and we have introduced “staying put” to allow children to remain with their former foster carers after the age of 18. We are engaged in reform across children’s services that will benefit all looked-after children.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about getting CAMHS into schools. We heard from head teachers who came to the briefing a few weeks ago that one of the benefits of multi-academy trusts is being able to recruit professionals to work across a number of schools, so we are seeing improvements in that. Alongside this, the Future in Mind report says that there will be mental health training for health professionals and others who work with children and young people, such as staff in schools, to help them to identify problems and ensure that young people get the help that they need. So it is something that is on our agenda and we are continuing to look at how we can improve that.
I hope that the explanations I have given will reassure the noble Lord that we are committed to meeting the objectives of these amendments, and that he will be feel reassured enough to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
In welcoming what the Minister said, and in noting that the noble Lord, Lord Prior, is sitting next to her, which is comforting in this current discussion, I ask her whether she has quite recognised the nub of the concern of Peers all around the House. While current practice is that a GP, a generalist, will give a health assessment that will include mental health elements when a child comes into care, many of us believe that that is inadequate, and we have been trying to communicate this to the Government. While there is a strengths and difficulties questionnaire, which is useful, it simply does not meet the need for a mental health professional to undertake an initial assessment of all children coming into care so that their mental health needs can be identified early on and they can then be met with services following. I listened with great care to what the Minister said and it was very helpful, but I hope that she can assure us that the Government recognise that that is the concern that many noble Lords are raising—the need for a specialist mental health professional to do that initial assessment for every child coming into care.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, along with all other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on this group of amendments on this important area.
I was very pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, had received a letter from the Minister for Children and Families, I think he said, subsequent to our last sitting in Committee. I wonder whether he might be prepared to share that with us because it might have information of general interest to those of us who have been involved with the Bill and are looking to take these issues forward.
My noble friend Lady Massey raised an important point about what the outcomes of not providing this proper mental health care could be. You do not need a very vivid imagination to foresee that there will be many effects, once children reach adulthood, if some of the issues with which they are trying to deal in childhood are not adequately cared for and are allowed to get worse as they approach adulthood, not least at a time when they have to go out into the world and live on their own. That is an important point and it was well made.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, if I noted her point down correctly, talked about the resources being targeted at need rather than category. I very much agree, as she will know. Despite what the Minister said, I do not doubt that the Government are committed to other forms of care but it looks as if this is given a disproportionate amount of attention; it is the only one involved in the Bill, and then there were the remarks—attributed to, I think, the Prime Minister in his speech in November—that further legislation was somewhere in the pipeline,. Those working in the other categories would value something of substance from the Government to say, “We’ve looked to beef up the ability of the adoption sector; now this is what we are doing for the other sectors”. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind and that the Government will come forward with that in due course.
The Minister said that mental health care for children in adoption was a key issue for the Government. I am perfectly willing to accept that, but I come back to the point made on Amendment 2 that there should be an assessment prior to placement. In response to that, the Minister said that assessments were carried out prior to placement but she seemed to say, and I hope that I am quoting her correctly on this, that both types of assessments—that is, physical health assessments as well as mental—were included. That is very welcome, but it is not understood by the organisations involved in adoption, judging by the comments they have made to me and other noble Lords as the Bill has progressed through its various stages. It therefore might be helpful if she could write to me, perhaps to expand a bit about what mental health assessments are given prior to placement, as I think everyone involved sees that as a key issue.
The Minister also mentioned the £4.5 million that the Government have provided to accelerate the establishment of the regional adoption agencies. While that is welcome, I made the point in moving the amendment that that is seen to be if not running dry then already running a bit thin, and I wanted some assurance of what might follow that. She mentioned another sum of £12.5 million. I do not know whether that will be used in the same way. Some of it might be, but certainly the feeling among the adoption agencies is that £4.5 million will get things started but will not take the whole process very much further, and that additional resources will be necessary.
When the Minister assured me that the Department for Education works closely with the Department of Health, I thought, “Well, of course you would say that, wouldn’t you?”. However, a serious point is: how will the progress of implementing the recommendations of Future in Mind be reported? How can they be monitored and made available to organisations in the field that are involved in their delivery to some extent but which also care about being able to trace the effectiveness of those recommendations that are put into place? Some form of reporting would therefore certainly be valuable. Again, I ask either of the Ministers whether they would be prepared to write about that, because £1.25 billion, which is over a five-year period, is a huge sum of money—although I am not sure when the five-year period started. I think I am right in saying that Future in Mind was published in 2012 but I do not know whether that was the start of the five-year period. However, that is one of the questions that may well be answered in the Minister’s response.
We have had a number of helpful comments from the Minister. Those involved will be happy to take some of them forward and, I hope, to build on them, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.