Clause 14 - Director of children's services
Children Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Shadow Minister for Women, Family; Epping Forest, Conservative)
We rehearsed the arguments only a few moments ago, under clause 10, regarding the concern that my colleagues and I have that there should be an adequate structure to support the intention that the buck stops here. Any person who is given the heavy responsibility that we are placing on a person in this context should be a senior officer. Under the amendment, a children's services authority in England
''may, and with effect from the appointed day must, appoint a senior officer''
for the after-mentioned purposes. Having rehearsed the argument under clause 10, I will not take up the Committee's time by repeating it.