Children and Social Work Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2017-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Kelly Jane Tolhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton); with his expertise and knowledge in this area, he has been a great source of information and guidance to me I was elected two years ago, and I have had great involvement with some of the most vulnerable children in the country, and particularly in my area. When I was a local councillor, I saw some of the decisions taken around the cabinet table on looked-after children; my sister is a social worker; and I continue to be an independent visitor for a looked-after child. I am extremely proud that this Conservative Government have brought forward a Bill that seeks to improve outcomes for our looked-after children and children in need. I pay tribute to the Ministers; it is because of their dedication to improving outcomes for our looked-after children that the Bill is being championed I welcome the Minister’s comments on sibling contact, including when the children are not looked after, although I have not once met a social worker or foster carer who has denied a young person in care an opportunity for contact with their siblings. I have seen some of the damage done by contact with parents. Parents have legislative rights to contact with their children, and I have seen really damaging outcomes from forcing newly looked-after children to have such contact, which they do not always want; I hope that that is always taken into account and that the best interests of children are always to the fore when decisions are taken On Second Reading, I welcomed the introduction of the local offer in the Bill, and I continue to do so today. I also supported the amendment that was brought forward. The local offer should always be about more than just financial support, and it should be more than a box-ticking exercise. In my experience, young people need guidance and support during their transition from being looked after to going it alone. From what I have seen, local authorities, due to budget burdens, will only ever deliver what they are statutorily obliged to deliver. Therefore, as we evaluate the implementation of the Bill, I would like to see greater prescription of the services we would like local authorities to provide for care leavers, which will hopefully take into account accommodation, training and finance Investment in our young people will always pay off. From my experience, people leaving care sometimes lack the necessary experiences and training, because they have often been wrapped in a safety blanket—more so than people’s biological children—so it is important that we do enough for young people in care to make sure that they are prepared. In some of the cases I have seen, that has not always taken place, and I hope we now have an opportunity to further the local offer I want to mention new clause 14 briefly. On Second Reading, one Opposition Back Bencher made a speech; I was pleased the Chamber was a lot fuller earlier, when we spoke about refugees, than it was on Second Reading. However, I would have liked to have seen a real championing of the need to find foster carers and social workers to look after the children we are already struggling to place in some parts of the country. We are not selling the fact that becoming a foster carer is an amazing thing to do. We also need an acceptance that when somebody becomes a foster carer, there is a mountain of assessment and training to go through before they are, quite rightly, qualified to look after young people. It is exactly the same in relation to unaccompanied young minors, and it is right that we have the same high standards for them. I therefore welcome what the Minister said about reporting to Parliament, but the way we look after refugees and our looked-after children must be on a par We have seen increased referrals, especially to independent fostering agencies. Speaking from my own experience, we often see large numbers of referrals in Kent of young people from London, and we have also seen that with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We hear that many local authorities around the country have capacity, and I hope they will continue to support counties such as Kent. I hope they will take part in the national transfer scheme and help Kent, as well as Croydon and other London boroughs Let me turn to the clauses that were removed from the Bill today. In some parts of the country, as I have outlined, there is great demand for intervention and support for looked-after children and children in need. We have seen growing demand for intervention for young people, especially those with complex needs. The strain on local authorities in terms of providing high-quality support and placements is still there. There is great variation in the quality of service and practice throughout the country, as my hon. Friend outlined, and outcomes for our young people remain poor I welcome the fact that the Government have the desire to get behind innovation in the children’s social care system and to drive and encourage the reviewing and sharing of best practice. I am sure this is not the end and that the Government will continue to look at ways in which they can improve things, because the Minister is extremely passionate about doing what he can for young people in our care. I would like to see vast improvement across the country in the delivery of children’s social care. This should not be—I am glad it will not be—the preserve of local authorities that may have been judged to be good; it must happen in other parts of the country where innovation is much needed I look forward to the Minister making further proposals on meaningful reform, after consultation with frontline professionals and care deliverers. For example, I would like IROs—independent reviewing officers—to become truly independent of local authorities, enabling them to make decisions and face challenges on the outcomes for our looked-after children without the demands of budgetary pressures. We still need to tackle social workers’ caseloads because there is such a vast difference in the number of cases that social workers will have in different local authority areas. Local authorities are struggling to keep up with demand, and when there is higher demand, caseloads are greater. We need to protect our workforce and enable them to carry out their role knowing that they are safe when doing so, with the personal capacity to deliver good-quality services to the young people they are charged with looking after There is a high burn-out rate for professionals dealing with child protection cases, and many social workers are leaving frontline social work due to the stresses involved. Local authorities are relying heavily on agency workers, and this impacts on the continuity of some of the decision making that takes place subsequently. In turn, there is lots of churn in the system. I have seen examples where looked-after children may have 10 to 12 different social workers over a very short period, and that is just not right. We need to be bold. I hope that the Government come forward with further recommendations and further work in this area, and I am confident that that will happen My final point is about social worker regulation. Social workers, in my opinion, have never had the credit that they deserve. They are sometimes the forgotten public servants. They are vilified when something goes wrong, but we never hear about all the good work they are doing day in, day out in protecting families. Social Work England is a positive way forward. Social workers need a stand-alone body to make sure that they are held in the high regard that they deserve. I would like the Secretary of State and Ministers to work with the professional bodies to make sure that the qualifications and continual professional development is right and is acceptable for these workers. It is true that we see variations in the standard and quality of the delivery of social worker practice among individual social workers. I have had some first-hand experience of that Although there is some concern from the profession about these changes, I really do believe that they rightly put social workers in the position that they deserve. I hope that the Government will continue to work with them to make sure that they, as a profession, can continue to carry out their job knowing that the Government—this Conservative Government—are fully behind them and all that they are doing for young people in this country.