Clause 7 - Risk assessments
Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
David Kidney (PPS (Mr Elliot Morley, Minister of State), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Stafford, Labour)
The two amendments are in my name and those of two of my hon. Friends. New clause 21 is in my name and that of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar, who we established last week is not a member of this Committee. Amendment No. 37 would introduce into the clause the need to carry out risk assessments in accordance with a code of practice. Risk assessments will be a new formal process in the children’s and family proceedings covered by the Bill.
I am sure that CAFCASS officers and Welsh family proceedings officers and their predecessors, the court welfare officers, would tell us that they have always considered risk in the course of their duties in family proceedings. However, the Bill is introducing a new, formal requirement of risk assessment.
It is worth reminding ourselves of the October 2005 report from HM inspectorate of court administration, “Domestic Violence, Safety and Family Proceedings”, which established that the courts already operated an informal presumption of contact. Paragraph 3.9 says:
“The presumption of contact was evident in all the practice sessions observed during this inspection and there was consistent evidence that inappropriate assumptions about contact were made, rather than assessments about whether there was any risk associated with domestic abuse cases.”
While it may be argued that we already have an informal system of risk assessments and people who are very experienced at doing them, we are now importing risk assessments formally into the law. I would not like to import with them defective risk assessments, as described in that HMI report. Establishing from the outset some standards for carrying out those risk assessments is important.
I would like to give one other illustration of why guidance would be helpful, from the latest briefing from National Family Mediation, which I mentioned to the Minister a few minutes ago. “The role of accredited mediators in risk assessments” describes how mediators already have their own, well-attested risk assessment protocol for when they are giving mediation.
My example to the Minister was this. In the context of court proceedings started before mediation was undertaken, the mediator might see the gateway form from the court with a tick in the box asking whether there were any concerns about domestic violence. The mediator would carry out a risk assessment to determine whether or not mediation should go ahead, or whether it was too dangerous for either of the parties or for any children involved. Mediators would say that they are already experienced in risk assessments. In the briefing, they ask whether the risk assessments must be carried out by CAFCASS officers alone or whether the Government intend that the expertise of relevant others can be called upon. What they are saying is that people other than CAFCASS officers have something to offer in the process, but only if somebody is going to give guidance that that may be the case.
The briefing tells us that in two recent pilots, in courts at Cambridge and Bromley, mediators worked alongside CAFCASS officers in their duties, which, in Bromley’s case, reduced the need for formal report by 60 per cent.—an enormously successful rate. We need to know whether there will be guidance—a code of practice could give that guidance—as to whether people can assist CAFCASS officers in carrying out risk assessments.
I jump next to new clause 21, because that proposal introduces the idea of a code of practice, inserting a new section 8B into the Children Act 1989 requiring the Secretary of State to prepare and from time to time revise a code of practice for carrying out such an assessment. It is an open process, involving consultation, laying the code or revision before Parliament and an ability for Parliament to vote to have the code or revision withdrawn.
In addition to those two, amendment No. 37 and the new clause, amendment No. 38 is a significant statement of what ought to be the obvious: when a risk assessment has been carried out and provided to the court, the court ought to consider the assessment before making an order.
Nothing in clause 7 says that at the moment. That is of course implied; it would be a foolish court that took no notice of a risk assessment that had been asked for or received—clause 7 does require one to be produced for the court. For completeness we ought to have a chain of a process, which starts with the spotting of the risk, then the carrying out of the risk assessment and the court taking that risk assessment into account before making an order. If we set a firm chain in place, that will make clause 7 a very effective process indeed.
Together, the two amendments and the new clause represent a strengthening of the process for risk assessment, which was first introduced into the Bill in the other place.