Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Colin MacKenzie Low (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who has covered the ground with his usual thoroughness and eloquence. These clauses, which we do not think should stand part of the Bill, stem from the Government’s mission to shrink—or in this case substantially dismantle —the institutions of the state on a grand scale. The two areas which led the way in the state’s assumption of the role of social protection in the 20th century were pensions, followed closely by social services for children provided by local authorities It was the brutal murder, in 1944, of 13 year-old Dennis O’Neill by his foster parents, and the consequent outcry, which persuaded society that it needed to be more proactive in protecting the welfare of children and led to a duty being placed on local authorities in the Children Act 1948 to protect children and, in appropriate circumstances, take them into their care. The public inquiry into his death found that the foster family had been selected without adequate inquiry being made as to their suitability and that there had been a serious lack of supervision by the local authority. It found that the local authority had failed to act on warnings it had received and that there had been poor record-keeping, a failure to work with other agencies, a lack of adequate resources and so on. These same failings have characterised subsequent inquiries, such as those concerning Maria Colwell, Jasmine Beckford, Peter Connelly—baby P—Victoria Climbié and a host more. The failures to which these inquiries have drawn attention are routine things, but they are vital. It is important to note that they are just the sorts of things that councils could be exempted from having to do by Clause 29 of the Bill. All the reports into the scandals attending the cases I have mentioned, down to the latest one by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, point to poor communication between agencies as a significant contributory factor, but that is just what the local authority duty exists to promote. In all the cases I have been referring to the default is that of the local authority, but surely that is a reason for more prescription and regulation, not less. Clause 29 does not just permit the Secretary of State to exempt councils from overprescriptive and bureaucratic regulation. For example, it would permit her to exempt a council from having a duty to safeguard and protect children in need, under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989; to undertake an investigation where the authority suspects a child in its area is suffering significant harm, under Section 47 of the 1989 Act; to accommodate a child in its area who is lost or abandoned, under Section 20 of the 1989 Act; and to provide essential welfare support for a disabled child, under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 What is the need for these provisions if the object is to enable local authorities to test different ways of working with a view to achieving better outcomes under children’s social care legislation or achieving the same outcomes more efficiently? It is perfectly possible to test different ways of working, as earlier speakers have noted, within the existing legislative framework. If it is sought to test out different ways of fulfilling a duty, it makes no sense to get rid of the duty. The only circumstances in which it would make sense would be if it were intended to give the duty to someone else—in other words, privatisation, or dismantling of the state, as I said. That is what this is all about In the last six years, the Government have substantially emasculated local authorities by cutting at least 40% of their funding, so that they are increasingly able to do little more than what they are statutorily obliged to do. Now, it is evidently proposed to complete the process by getting rid of the statutory obligations themselves. I do not think that we should go any further down this track.