Clause 16
Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
Mr. Pope has transmogrified into you, Mr. Williams, and we are delighted that you are here overseeing our proceedings again.
These are probing amendments, and I would be grateful for the Minister’s response to them. They are particularly concerned with the quality and continuity of the visiting and monitoring of children who are placed away from the responsible local authority area. We will return to that subject under clauses 18 and 19.
The purpose of the amendments is to put in the Bill a more detailed requirement that it should be a registered social worker or equivalent appropriate professional representing the authority, rather than simply “a representative of the authority”, which can cover a multitude of sins. Indeed, I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts on to what exactly the terminology “a representative” might extend.
We are talking in many cases about children with complex requirements, particularly if they are placed in children’s homes with specialist facilities. For all the reasons we have been debating with regard to the Bill, it is absolutely essential that the most appropriate person—an appropriately qualified person—is responsible for the child, and provides a key link between that child and the placing authority when decisions are made about that child’s future. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the person who is making the visits, and who will be the direct contact with the child in the care system, should be of significant status—they should be a registered social worker or equivalent—not just a trainee or somebody from a different department who is nominated as the authority’s representative. It should be somebody who is completely au fait with the procedures that put that child in the care system in the first place; with the procedures that may ultimately get the child out of the system; and with the level of care and facilities available to that child to assist their progress and ensure, for example, that the child gets access to the sort of schooling that to which we want them to have access. There are further measures in the Bill to ensure the continuity of the school placement and so forth. It is perfectly realistic that that person should be a registered social worker or an equivalent professional.
A point I made, and which I will make again under clause 18, concerns the large number of children who are placed out of area. Kent estimates that it has 1,250 children in care who were placed in the county by other authorities, and the latest estimate I have for my own authority in West Sussex is some 700. It is therefore essential that children who are placed at a distance have the same standard of visitor as they would expect, and to which they would be entitled, if they were placed within the local authority’s area.
I raised the issue of the use and attraction of volunteer social workers, particularly as a preventive measure, for liaison with families. I am not trying to row back and exclude the use of volunteer social workers, but the responsible person who makes the decisions and will have the contact should primarily be a registered social worker or someone of an equivalent professional standard. However, that does not exclude volunteer social workers from performing the role of visitors.
The amendments are probing, but the underlying reason for tabling them is to ensure that children are not “dumped” and get a worse service and less monitoring than they would if they were placed in the local authority area. That is particularly important, given that many children who are placed away from home are there because they need a more specialist placement. They inevitably have greater needs, which may change, and therefore we require someone of that status who is in regular contact with them and can make decisions based on first-hand experience.