Clause 18
Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]
12:45 pm
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I quoted the list of different agencies that this will require. The principle is the same as we discussed in clause 9, that whichever the likely agency dealing with something when it goes wrong should be notified. At the moment, they are just not being notified, either at all or until after a long period of time. The purpose of this probing amendment is to specify that they should be notified and ordinarily, it should be done the following day, or within a day of that child being placed in that area. It may have been more appropriate to have discussed it under clause 9 as well, although I think we touched on it in the debate we had around that. Whether it goes in the Bill or whether it will be tightened up in guidance, it should be the normal practice that a receiving authority is notified about a child from the care system within their area as a matter of course, simultaneously, if not in advance of that child being placed there so that they are aware in case anything goes wrong and they are hauled out all of a sudden to pick up the pieces.