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§ Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden)I beg to move amendment No. 11, in page 2, line 16, at end insert—
'( ) The Secretary of State may by regulations specify persons or classes of person who are and persons or classes of person who are not suitable to act as personal advisers under the provisions of sections 19C. 23B(2), 23C(3) and 23D(1).'.Three months have elapsed between Committee and Report. I am sure that all hon. Members need to cast their minds back to the issues that were raised three months ago. The gap means that the Government have had extra time in which to reflect on some of the excellent points that we made in Committee, and it has also allowed for some fresh thinking by us.The Bill has a strong measure of support from all parties. We recognise that the system fails care leavers dismally. The facts are worth repeating for any hon. Members who did not participate in earlier stages of our consideration of the Bill, or for whom July is a long time ago. Seventy-five per cent. of young people leaving care have no educational experience and 50 per cent. are unemployed. I am especially struck by an appalling statistic—that up to 25 per cent. of young women leaving care are pregnant or have a child. We, as a corporate parent, are not doing a good job for care leavers. That is the reason for the Bill.
On Report, we want to press several amendments and hear the Government's views on them because they cover points that, on reflection and careful re-reading of all the records of proceedings for the Committee stage, would leave the Bill less effective than it would be if we could persuade the Government to accept the amendments.
Amendment No. 11 would add the provision:
The Secretary of State may by regulations specify persons or classes of person…who are not suitable to act as personal advisers…We believe that that is important. As parliamentarians, I am sure that we know that care leavers are among the most vulnerable people in our society. We therefore need to be extremely streetwise about putting them in a position of trust with a personal adviser. We have all learned some hard lessons from our experience of children's services, especially in north Wales and in other parts of the United Kingdom where it has been revealed that unscrupulous individuals prey on children.We need to understand that the role of personal adviser is one that could be attractive to unscrupulous persons who seek to prey on vulnerable children or young persons. The purpose of the amendment is to strengthen that understanding. We remain concerned about the specific training and qualifications required of young persons' advisers. It is a particular concern of the National Children's Bureau.
635 It was made clear by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on Report in the other place, that in his view the majority of personal advisers would be drawn from persons who now work with children in care or those leaving care. That was put forward as a point of reassurance to their Lordships. Lord Hunt was saying that those still concerned about the matter need not be.
I still have two residual concerns. Although there are planned changes to the training and development of social workers under the Care Standards Act 2000, it has been acknowledged by the Government that child development has been an area in the training of social workers that may not have had the full attention that it requires. That will be especially important in relation to the new role of personal advisers. If the majority of them are to be drawn from the group of people whom we would now regard as social workers, we need to be sure that in the course of their training attention is drawn to child development. Understanding the needs and predicaments of young persons leaving care has much to do with understanding how children behave, particularly when they have had poor experiences of family life and bad experiences from the past, which they carry as luggage when going forwards.
That is why we endorse the concern of the National Children's Bureau that the training and qualifications of personal advisers should be spelled out more clearly. Although Lord Hunt sought to reassure their Lordships that the majority of personal advisers would be drawn from among those who already work with young persons in care or leaving care, a minority of others could come from completely different walks of life. That is desirable, but some of them may be volunteers. We need to be sure that even those who volunteer to undertake the important role of personal adviser are trained and qualified to do the job. We would regard somebody as not suitable if he or she did not have appropriate training.
§ Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)I warmly welcome the amendment. Would the regulations that my hon. Friend has recommended be subject to the negative or affirmative procedure?
§ Mrs. SpelmanAs my hon. Friend knows, and as we discovered at an early stage, as parliamentarians we need to have a belt-and-braces approach. It is not enough in this instance to let things go through on the nod. That is one of the motivations behind the amendment. We feel that there is too much latitude for inadequacy in training people for the important role of personal advisers. They must be qualified and they must be suitable.
Save the Children Fund is another charity that has a real concern. It has said that there could be a situation in which a personal adviser has a conflict of interest. The example that it has given could genuinely arise. If a personal adviser is a social worker and an employee of the local authority, it is possible that he or she may be under considerable pressure to stay within a budget. That is not unusual for a local authority employee. That may compromise the preferable choice that that personal adviser would make in addressing the need of the care leaver for suitable accommodation. The fact that Save the Children Fund recognises that there is a conflict of interest 636 should lead us all to reflect on the matter. A conflict of interest could be an important reason why someone might not be suitable for the role of personal adviser.
Another important practical consideration has come to light through the work of charitable organisations, which have a great deal of experience in this area. The National Children's Bureau has said that there is no mention in the Bill of the links between advisers of young people who are involved in other recent Government initiatives, such as the youth support scheme which will be established by the Learning and Skills Bill. There is a risk that young people may face a veritable army of advisers. For example, they could find themselves with a social worker, a personal adviser, a case supervisor, a home link worker, a foster carer and, indeed, a Connexions adviser, although that role might double up with that of personal adviser. I invite hon. Members to put themselves in the position of a vulnerable young person who has so many different people to answer to for his or her actions, to consult, to take account of and to get to know. In addition, that young person has to cope with changes in personnel as those advisers change.
It is fair to ask the Government to reassure us that the approach will be streamlined. There is a danger that an array of different people will intervene in a young person's case when it is crucial that that person does not become another statistic in a system that has failed him. The arrangements must remain personal. Young care leavers will undoubtedly view an array of such people as representing the establishment, for which they may not have the warmest regard. There is a danger that young people will feel no more cared for and supported than they were before.
We should reiterate that children have a right to expect unsuitable advisers to be screened out. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that protective measures exist in other parts of the legislation. We know that terrible mistakes have been made. In Committee, I cited the example of how, almost by chance, a local authority uncovered the fact that an employee of another local authority, who held a position of enormous trust looking after vulnerable children, had a criminal record. It took more than a year for the local authority that employed him to do anything about the fact that he was in charge of children despite having a criminal record that would render him completely unsuitable for working in close proximity with children. The criminal record was only uncovered when the individual applied to Wandsworth council to become a foster parent. The council ran the proper checks and discovered that he had a criminal record, of which Lambeth council was completely unaware. We are talking not about theory but about mistakes that happen in practice. Children were let down in that case and we must ensure that they are not let down in the same way again.
All the evidence surrounding inquiries into the running of children's services in which there have been problems has taught us that some local authorities do not have a good track record in this area. I would be the first to acknowledge that great steps have been taken to protect children. People who have contact with children should now be rigorously checked. I have first-hand experience of that because, wisely or unwisely, I volunteered to help with the Sunday school in my local parish church. I have been interested to go through the whole process that requires me to declare whether I have a criminal record, 637 a health reason why I should not work with children or have had a different name in the past. I even have to supply my birth certificate. I therefore know that checks are made even when an individual is volunteering, but I am nevertheless concerned about the fact that the appointment of a personal adviser relies on such checks by local authorities.
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During the Committee stage of the Care Standards Bill, we learned of the terrible dearth of social workers. They are in short supply, and much of the legislation that we have passed requires them to do more and more. There is a huge demand for their skill, and I should hate the need for them as social advisers to be compromised because of a shortage of time for checks to be made. The amendment will help to ensure that local authorities take seriously the process of establishing whether a person is suitable to act as an adviser.
I want to make another practical point about timing. The Minister explained in Committee how changes in the checking procedure could be helpful, but there is no doubt that there will be a time lag between the establishment of the Criminal Records Bureau and local authorities needing to know whether someone is suitable, and has passed the police checks.
On 26 October, a ministerial answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) suggested that the new bureau would be in a position to issue criminal records certificates by around July next year, but the Minister involved said that detailed planning was continuing. That leaves a bit of doubt in my mind. I know that the time is coming, but the needs of care leavers have been clearly identified and the role of personal adviser is key to the success of this part of the Bill. There must be a huge temptation to get the system going, perhaps before the establishment of the very best protection which we hope will be afforded in future. I should like the Minister to reassure me that there will be no gap during which unsuitable persons might be appointed.
We understand how crucial advisers are to the workability of the system. I cannot emphasise that enough. They will be responsible for ensuring that care leavers' pathway plans develop and for adjusting those plans to young persons' changing needs. An adviser will have a close relationship, involving trust and understanding, with a vulnerable care leaver. Advisers will represent the human face of what I have described as the corporate parent. As I said earlier, as a corporate parent we have not done very well in the past in relation to the group that we are discussing.
If the Minister is receptive to our amendment, we shall, I hope, help to remove elements of risk that might cause unsuitable people to gain a position of influence, and to aggravate an already bad situation. A number of care leavers fall through the net, causing the sad statistics that I cited earlier. They may become unemployed, they often become homeless, some become pregnant, and some have young children.
We tabled a similar amendment in Committee, but the Minister rejected it, saying that the Government did not want to be too prescriptive and wanted to leave the matter to the discretion of local authorities. As I hope I have made clear, we remain anxious about the discretion of 638 local authorities. We feel that our amendment would strengthen the Bill and would leave less room for manoeuvre.
One of our major concerns with the Bill is that we have to take quite a lot of it on trust. The Government stated that they would resolve the matter that we are concerned about through statutory guidance, but the question is: what will that be? We do not know. It is yet another example of an empty box. We are being asked to agree the contents without having seen them.
We were invited by the Minister to help him to ensure that the guidance was correct. How can we do that without knowing what it is? Perhaps we shall hear what it is and perhaps that will give us some reassurance. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
§ The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) for the spirit in which she has moved her amendment. She started by saying that we all had to remind ourselves about the nature, scope and range of the Bill. That is true for those on the Government Benches, as I am sure it is true for those on the Conservative Benches. A long time has elapsed between the Committee stage of the Bill and Report. We all know the reasons for that, but the hon. Lady showed her customary grasp of the detail. I congratulate her on that.
The hon. Lady is right to say that there is a powerful sense of deja vu about the debate: she made exactly the same speech in Standing Committee. I do not want to antagonise her, but my response is likely to be similar to my response to her amendments then, although I shall try to deal specifically with the particular reassurances and assurances that she asked me to give in relation to two particular concerns. One was about the relationship between the young person's adviser and the Connexions service that the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Health strongly support and encourage. The other was about the progress of the Criminal Records Bureau and the facility that local authorities will have to check the names of potential young persons advisers against the database that the bureau will maintain.
As I said in Standing Committee, the hon. Lady's argument with the Government is one of process rather than substance. I do not think that her argument is one of substance in relation to the role of young persons advisers, their training, qualifications and suitability to do the job. As I understand it, her argument is essentially that she would prefer those issues to be dealt with by regulations—she is right; if we took that action it would be subject to the negative procedure—instead of setting the procedures for appointing young persons advisers and the detail around that in guidance.
The hon. Lady was slightly wrong to say that I suggested in Standing Committee that all those matters would be left purely to the discretion of local authorities because, as she went on rightly to say, I made it clear that we intended to issue statutory guidance to local authorities on how that discretion should be exercised. Of course, that is guidance that local authorities are required to follow. We are aware, as she is, that substantial issues of policy and consistency need to be addressed around the appointment of that new person—the young person's adviser—who will have, as she rightly said, an important and substantial role in overseeing the implementation of the new arrangements.
639 What is clear—I agree with the hon. Lady—is that the young person's adviser must be able to build the right relationship of trust with young people. The Government believe that there is no monopoly of those skills and characteristics in any given professional group, or in the public, private or voluntary sectors. In our consultation document entitled "Me, Survive, Out There?" we produced a fairly comprehensive and long list of people who could potentially act as young persons advisers. We must allow for flexibility in the system, so that individual needs and circumstances can be best met.
I believe—I made it clear in Standing Committee and I repeat it—that that is not a suitable matter for regulation, but that statutory guidance is a better mechanism to build in the flexibility that we want. We shall be clear that we envisage a wide field for potential young persons advisers and that the critical point in each case will be whether they are able to work successfully with the individual young person. I believe—it is a matter of common sense, and I am sure that this is where most Members would want to draw the line—that those judgments about suitability are best made through local recruitment and selection processes.
As for defining groups that may not be young persons advisers, that issue has been largely overtaken by the Protection of Children Act 1999, which, subsequent to our discussions in Standing Committee, became law on 2 October.
The hon. Lady was right to say that it is important that vulnerable young people, such as those who have been looked after, should be protected from unsuitable people. I am confident that the legislation will do that. We have taken account of that need and safeguards are already in place—such as police checks, to which the hon. Lady referred and about which I shall say a few words in a moment, and the provisions of the 1999 Act.
We do not envisage that young persons advisers will be recruited to specialise in different age bandings. Indeed, the ideal will be that a young person keeps the same young persons adviser from 16 to 21, or whenever he or she stops receiving support from his or her responsible authority. Consequently, young persons advisers must be able to work with the entire age range, and recruitment will have to take account of the safeguards in place to prevent unsuitable people from working with children. Therefore, I do not think that there is any need to make separate regulations for that purpose as amendment No. 11 invites the House to do.
The hon. Lady asked two specific questions and expressed a particular concern about the Connexions personal advisers. The role of the Connexions personal adviser and that of the adviser appointed under the Bill clearly will be largely similar. It is proposed, therefore, that the advisers for young people aged 16 and over living in and leaving care should usually be their Connexions adviser.
The precise nature of the relationship between the employing authority—for example, a social services department—and the Connexions service is still a matter for consideration. We are examining the details of that relationship. Additionally, proposals are being developed for a major training programme for Connexions advisers, to include those who are appointed as advisers for the purposes of the Bill.
640 As for the training of young persons advisers who are not going to be Connexions advisers, we made it clear in the "Me, Survive, Out There?" document that local authorities would be able to use an element of their children's special grant—the quality protects money—to ensure that young persons advisers receive the training that we all know they need to receive.
The project remains on target for the Criminal Records Bureau to begin issuing greater numbers of certificates by about July 2001. Meanwhile, the Home Office is examining possible methods of minimising delays in local police forces. I think that it is very important, for reasons that the hon. Lady has rightly identified, that police checks are conducted as expeditiously as possible. That is a basic safeguard which we expect to be in place.
I hope that the hon. Lady is reassured by the particular responses that I have made on the Criminal Records Bureau and the Connexions advisory service. She is less likely to be satisfied with my arguments on why we prefer to deal with the matter in statutory guidance rather than in regulations. However, I think that it would be wrong to characterise statutory guidance as an ineffective tool. It is not ineffective—it has proven its worth on many occasions and in many settings in which Governments of all persuasions have used the section 7 route to provide guidance to local authorities.
The hon. Lady asked me specifically about how she could know whether the guidance would be appropriate. The fact is that the guidance is not yet ready. If it were, we would certainly let her see it, so that she and her right hon. and hon. Friends could comment on it. I meant what I said in Committee: when the guidance is ready, we shall certainly seek her view and that of other Conservative Members on the appropriateness of that guidance tool. We shall do that not because of nostalgia or sentiment, but because it is the right thing to do.
We want to ensure that consensus on the Bill is maintained. The hon. Lady identified consensus as one of the strong characteristics of our proposals and we are anxious to maintain that. I am sure that she will not mind me saying, however, that we do not think that Conservative Members necessarily have a monopoly on wisdom in the matter. She said that I asked her to help out, but I think that she might have misinterpreted that, as we have very strong ideas about what we want the guidance to cover. Nevertheless, we should certainly welcome her advice and opinions and those of other Conservative Members.
I therefore cannot recommend my right. hon. and hon. Friends to accept amendment No. 11. However, I hope that the hon. Lady has at least been reassured about our intentions on maintaining proper and effective safeguards and that the legitimate points she has made on training and suitability will be properly dealt with in the guidance that we shall be issuing.
§ Mrs. SpelmanI am grateful to hear the Minister's clear reassurance that there will be some streamlining in the number of advisers who will be working with vulnerable young people and his identification of funds to finance additional training. I have been reassured on both those points.
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There would have been no need to debate the amendment had we seen the draft guidance. One of the problems throughout our consideration of the Bill has been that quite a lot of detailed background information has not been available. Of course, three months have elapsed since we debated the Bill in Committee, but I hope that this evening's debate, which has highlighted some of the Opposition's concerns, will serve to inform the Government as they draft the guidance, to which we wish to contribute by dint of their invitation to us.
To be realistic, we are unlikely to see any draft guidance until it is pretty well in its final stage, so perhaps tonight's debate has served the purpose of enabling us to make a contribution, even if we have reiterated some of the points that we made earlier this year. We feel that they are important and we look forward to seeing the draft guidance. As we have had some reassurances on streamlining, funding and training, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.