New Clause 20
Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Annette Brooke: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This is about the participation of looked-after children. I do not want to undermine the great strides forward that have been made generally in terms of taking on board children and young people’s views and listening to them. But it is vital that we make sure that children’s views are fully taken on board in service improvement. The new clause calls for each local authority to establish a children in care council or other collective mechanism to ascertain the views of the children they are looking after about the services they are receiving.
We must acknowledge that it is not prescriptive to say that every local authority shall have a children in care council. There are obviously other ways of accessing children’s views. It may not be appropriate for a very small authority to have a children in care council. However, there should be a collective mechanism to bring children and young people together to engage in debate on a fairly regular basis, not just once a year. That would enable them to have a dialogue with the lead member of the council and the director of children’s services.
The purpose of the new clause is to place a duty on local authorities to provide a collective mechanism for children in their care. It would obviously be helpful for the director of children’s services and the lead member for children’s services to be able to give due consideration to the views of such groups, to report on their responses and to give action to the views expressed.
I was honoured and privileged, along with the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich, to attend the all-party parliamentary group on adoption and fostering yesterday. I met a virtual head teacher for the first time. I was looking forward to that moment and it was impressive to hear him talk about his work in the local authority where he is effectively head teacher for 500 looked-after children. In any school situation, it would be good to have a school council among a group of 500 children. With all of the good work going on with the virtual head teacher, it would be superb to have a children in care council. I can see that it would really work with those sorts of numbers.
Following that meeting, I am even more inspired about this idea. I am very keen on school councils and like to promote them when I go round schools. Now that we have virtual head teachers, I do not see why a virtual head teacher should not be empowered, or have a duty, to set up a council.
Lord Adonis claimed in the House of Lords that it was unnecessary to legislate for children in care councils because we have existing regulations for children in care to be consulted about service provision. My briefing points out that what is in existence is only an annual one-off event for the children and young people’s panel. A children in care council would be ongoing with continuous participation and existing ideas could be built upon. Consultations are narrowed by specific questions, where as a children in care council would be pretty open-ended. The views of children in care would be heard directly by the people who are vital to the provision of services: the director and the lead member.
Most of all, this proposal focuses on the specific views and experiences of children in care. Throughout the Bill we have made the point that we must keep focusing on the particular needs of children in care. I emphasise that I am not suggesting that the new clause should result in a children in care council for every local authority. I can see that there would be variations. However, I think that it would be excellent to have a commitment in the Bill to listening to the views of looked-after children.
The new clause is compatible with article 12 of the convention on the rights of the child. It would bring out debates on local needs and it could spread accountability to children in care. How often do we hear young people say, “Well I said such and such, but it did not make any difference.”? Regular interactive meetings with young people would enable them to follow something through. They would be able to find out why good ideas that they had raised had not been implemented. They would be able to find out the reasons and chase people up to get on with the job. I commend the new clause to the Committee for serious consideration.