Glenthorne Youth Treatment Centre (Hansard, 17 April 2000)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath)

On 15 December 1999 we announced that we would be consulting on the future of Glenthorne Youth Treatment Centre, including its possible closure.

That consultation has now been completed and we have considered the representations made to us by the staff of the centre and their representatives, by Members of Parliament, by local authorities and by others, especially those representing young people accommodated in the centre. The centre has made a valuable and important contribution to the treatment and care of some of the most difficult and disturbed young people in the past, and these representations have paid fitting tribute to that contribution.

When the Youth Treatment Centres were first developed over 20 years ago, there were no comparable facilities for accommodating and treating such difficult and disturbed young people. Things have moved on considerably since then. Local councils have developed their own secure accommodation and have become skilled and experienced at dealing with young people requiring secure care, including young people like those accommodated in Glenthorne. In recent years, the Department of Health has undertaken a major expansion of local authority secure accommodation by providing an additional 170 places 79WA for young people. Providers in the voluntary and private sectors have also established their worth. In these circumstances, we have concluded that it is no longer appropriate for the department to run such a child care facility and that we should therefore withdraw from providing such a service.

We have looked carefully at the option of someone taking over the centre as a going concern but, unfortunately, no suitable proposals have been put forward, and 18 of the 30 young people who were in the centre at the time of our announcement in December have been moved by their placing authorities to alternative facilities. The whole question of the financial viability of the centre is affecting the morale and welfare of both the staff and the children. It is, therefore, time to bring to an end the uncertainty which has inevitably existed over recent months.

However, the welfare of the children currently placed in Glenthorne is of paramount importance and no decision will be taken on when the centre will finally close until suitable alternative placements have been found for them. The department will be working closely with the local authorities and the Prison Service to identify the most appropriate places. Once that transition has been achieved, the centre will close.

The department will also be working closely with the departmental trade union side to identify posts elsewhere in the Civil Service to which some of the staff of the centre could be redeployed. However, given the specialist nature of some of the posts in the centre, redeployment may not be possible in all cases. In those instances, redundancy terms will apply.

This has been a difficult time for the staff of the centre and we are grateful for the professional manner in which they have continued to conduct themselves.