Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Norman Warner (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, this is an important Bill but, if I may say so, it is also something of a ragbag of a Bill, requiring careful and detailed scrutiny, given the concerns that have been expressed today Before turning to my concerns, I want to say a couple of words about my perspective. I was a director of social services in Kent in the 1980s and early 1990s, and was involved in implementing the landmark Children Act 1989. This was Conservative legislation, crafted with great care and consultation by the Department of Health—not an approach, I suggest, much in evidence with this Bill. More recently, I was the children’s social care commissioner for Birmingham City Council between March 2014 and May 2015, which gave me some interesting insights into the workings of the Department for Education We should be very clear about the context of the Bill. It is being considered by Parliament when the number of looked-after children is increasing unrelentingly. At the end of March 2015 it was over 69,000, compared with over 65,000 four years previously. The NSPCC has shown that the number of children at risk of abuse was 570,800 at the end of 2013-14—the highest number since these data started to be collected in 2010, although it is almost certainly higher now. The number of children in the child protection system has increased by 80% since 2002. However, local authority expenditure to cope with this inexorable rise in workload is going in the wrong direction. Planned expenditure on children for 2015-16 was less in cash terms than it was in the previous year, and there are serious workforce problems The latest government figures on the number of social workers to cope with this rising workload are depressing. There are 26,500 full-time equivalent children’s social workers in post, but nearly 5,000 of those are agency workers. The average turnover rate is 16% nationally but can be nearly 25% in some places, such as London. In scrutinising the Bill, we owe it to social workers to bear in mind that perspective. We have to consider whether any proposed changes are properly thought through and costed and ensure that they would not disrupt further a workforce and system under great pressure I turn to my major area of concern, which is Part 2, about which concerns have been expressed very succinctly by the Constitution Committee. This is part of a Bill which is framework in nature and gives very wide powers to the Secretary of State totally to reshape social worker regulation and professional development. Part 2 asks us to take a great deal on trust, especially when we remember the rash abolition in 2010 of the former system of social work regulation under the auspices of the General Social Care Council as part of the coalition Government’s bonfire of the quangos. The regulatory pieces then had to be rather hastily put together again in 2012, when regulation of social workers was passed to the Health and Care Professions Council, the HCPC. Now, the Government want to have another go with an ill-thought-through change, when, as far as one can see, the HCPC has done and is doing rather a good job The HCPC is currently conducting a public consultation on proposed amendments to the standards of proficiency for social workers in England. Consultations so far suggest that no major changes are required, and draft revised standards will be considered by the council in September. At that point, the council will start work on strengthening standards of education and training, including practice placements. We are entitled to have reasonable confidence in this body because the independent body that oversees the work of all health and care regulators—the Professional Standards Authority —says that the HCPC has consistently been among the best performing regulators within its statutory framework and against the standards of good regulation in annual performance reviews. It also has the lowest annual retention fee of all professional regulators It beggars belief that DfE Ministers now want to take wide powers to throw all the social work regulatory cards up in the air again, particularly when Department of Health Ministers have made no criticisms of the PSA or the HCPC. Moreover, as I understand it, Department of Health Ministers are discussing with interested parties a public consultation on new legislation in this area following a Law Commission report on the legislation covering all health and care professions, including social workers. This could well be followed by a draft Bill, which might be the subject of pre-legislative scrutiny by both Houses of Parliament What light can the Minister shed on how Part 2 fits into this wider piece of work going on in government? Why do DfE Ministers want to set up a totally new body for social workers, rather than build on the work of the existing regulator? What consultations have they had with Department of Health Ministers and officials and the professional bodies concerned? What are their dissatisfactions with the current regulators, and what estimate have they made of the costs of implementing Part 2, given that it cost about £18 million—and that was some time ago—to shut down the GSCC and transfer its functions to the HCPC Part 2 also has the rather puzzling feature that a DfE children’s Bill seems to give the Secretary of State for Education sweeping powers to amend the regulation of social workers who work with adults—currently, as I understand it, the responsibility of the Health Secretary, who is of course, as we have often debated in this Chamber, trying to integrate health and adult social care. Have I missed a machinery of government change somewhere along the way? I say frankly to the Minister that, as things stand, I will want a lot of convincing that Part 2 should stay in the Bill, and I will want to test opinion on that issue across the House when we get to Committee Part 2 is not my only concern. I do not have time to go into a great deal of detail but, like others, I am unclear how the provisions on corporate parenting in Clause 1 are a massive improvement on similar provisions in the Children Act 1989. I certainly do not think that, as others have said, they are drawn sufficiently widely to cover all the services that looked-after children need both when in care and when they leave care. We need to widen the scope of Clause 1 if it is to stay in the Bill Although I welcome the idea of personal advisers, I have a number of concerns. First and foremost is the whole issue of vetting and ensuring that they are fit persons, given the current concerns to protect vulnerable young people from predatory adults. We do not want to create a field day for groomers. Also, we must ensure that personal advisers have the training, skills and supervision to do a good job. We need to explore in Committee how we ensure proper training and vetting for personal advisers and the possibility of a register Finally, there is Clause 15, which a number of people have mentioned, with a new power to test different ways of working. I have been around in public services for a long time, and it is pretty unusual to try to legislate for innovation. However, if that is what the DfE wants to try, we need to ensure that, in doing so, it and the local authorities do not sweep away the range of children’s safeguards and rights that have built up over many years—indeed, over many decades. I would find it helpful if the Minister could set out in writing a description of the kinds of obstacles that are to be swept away and what rights would be eliminated as a consequence. In the absence of more convincing detail, I think we will want to explore in Committee some form of independent scrutiny of any proposals falling under this power before they are approved I assure the Minister that this is not an exhaustive list of my concerns, which I will want to pursue in Committee. Because of the way that the Government have organised business, I, and I suspect others, will be putting down tomorrow my first tranche of amendments.