Hansard on Whether Lord Laming proposed the database:
The Earl of Listowel: Is the Minister aware of such a programme being used in another country? If so, can she tell us a little about it or write to me on it? France, for instance, is so technologically minded that it introduced such a system.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: First, the answer to the question, "Is it worth it?", posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, is yes, I believe it is. The provision comes out of the inquiry conducted by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, into the tragic death of Victoria Climbié and the support he has given to my department, my honourable friend the Minister for Children and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in thinking further about what ought to be done.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Laming, will be back with us on Report and I look forward to him being able to speak for himself. But Members of the Committee should be under no doubt that this comes from his report and from a recognition that it is important to provide the tools to practitioners to enable them to support children more effectively.
Members of the Committee will have their own views and they have been clearly expressed. I am grateful to them as regards all the issues and technicalities they have raised, but I believe that it is important to understand the issue of principle. This is about supporting our professionals. They need that support in helping our children and their families.
This is not about a substitute for cultural change or all the other things that noble Lords have indicated to be so important. It is not an either/or; it is a both/and. It is about making sure that we provide the kind of training, support, recruitment, retention and all the other issues that noble Lords have quite rightly indicated not only in our deliberations on this Bill but on many other occasions to be absolutely critical to supporting families. It is important not to lose sight of these other issues but to see this as part and parcel of what we want to do to support them. I look forward to noble Lords talking to senior practitioners. It is interesting that the trailblazers already say that establishing the trailblazer database has been really useful in helping professionals from different backgrounds to reach a common understanding about how to address the needs of children. This is certainly what they indicated to me when I met some of them.
I am extremely grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, for not asking me to answer all those technical questions. I understood most of them but not all of them. I will say that these are critically important questions. I can answer a couple of them. The OGC will do a gateway review which will provide us with the necessary checks and assurances to proceed, taking full account of the risks involved, which is important. The
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RYOGENS project is not the template for this. It is quite different and no conclusions can be drawn at all from it about any future use of our database.
I can tell the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that I do not know of any other countries but it is a point that I shall pick up. I am sure we have checked, I just do not have the answer to hand. We have commissioned independent technical advice to look at the cost benefit analysis and to give us costs based on which route we intend to go down. The noble Earl will not be surprised to hear me say that but as the Trailblazer project is developed, it is important that we establish how we would go about that. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked about dealing with issues like a child moving and whether it is appropriate to indicate this fact to just one other person. I see nothing wrong with that in principle. But all these issues mean that we need to get the right kind of competent technical advice and to look at the cost. These costs will determine, in part, whether we go ahead with this and if so, how far and how quickly. I cannot pre-empt my right honourable friend the Secretary of State's spending review decision.
The Earl of Northesk: That is one of my major objections. The Minister is saying that Parliament is being asked to consider a piece of legislation that actually is unformed. The Government are making it up on the hoof. This is why I am so concerned about tabling a "sunset" amendment for these regulations. It is the height of folly for Parliament to sanction a Government to reserve powers for a rainy day. What the Minister is saying is that at the moment the whole thing is ill-formed. There is something wishy-washy we want to do but we do not know quite what shape it is or what it will end up being. I am sorry. Bluntly, this is not the way to legislate. Either the Government ought to come forward with fully-formed ideas or they should wait until they are ready to present fully-formed ideas to Parliament.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: All I can say to the noble Earl is that I disagree with his interpretation of what we are doing. This is not about being wishy-washy. This is about setting out that which is appropriate for the face of the Bill and bringing forward affirmative resolution regulations to your Lordships' House and another place in order to fill in the detail based on a combination of what noble Lords have indicated are critical issues. We also will take account of discussions with organisations that have a great interest in this issue and most importantly what the trailblazer local authorities tell us in order to ensure that we frame this correctly. That is the way government should behave. It is the way to legislate. It is the way to ensure that the system we put in place deals with all of the checks and balances that noble Lords wish us to have and also, if it is appropriate, provides the right kind of system. I have to put this database in context. It is not a substitute for all of the issues that noble Lords have rightly said are critical to ensuring that we provide for children, both in a preventive way and in a child protection way. It is not about substituting for all those.
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I could go on but I shall not do so because it is important that we have the opportunity to discuss this matter both between now and Report stage and again on Report. I hope that during our debates I have been able to reassure noble Lords that we have listened to what they have said today—I am grateful for all the contributions, which have been extremely helpful and constructive—and that we shall bring forward a package of amendments that take on board the delegated powers concerns as well. I look forward to that. I propose to write to noble Lords with more detailed information about the Trailblazer projects.
I know that the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, has a raft of important technical questions. I shall be delighted to respond to them properly if he can provide me with a list. I believe he said that he had many more questions which he could not raise this evening. I shall be very happy to take those on board and shall try to give him as much reassurance as possible. I know that he speaks with great authority and expertise on these matters.
My ambition is that noble Lords will be reassured on the issues raised and that they will recognise the Government's good intent in taking back these issues and reflecting on them further. We shall fill in some of the details where noble Lords feel that that is important. I also hope that they will be assured of our principle behind this measure—that is, the tool that I described at the beginning of our discussions which will enable practitioners to do their jobs more effectively and prevent them spending time and energy which is better spent in supporting families, in finding out who is involved.
I recognise all that has been said in that respect. We shall try to ensure that when a child presents himself to a practitioner, who may feel a little concerned or worried, the relevant people can be contacted as quickly as possible. I believe that this system might have helped Victoria Climbié. It might have saved her life. For that reason, I believe that the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Earl Howe: Among the debates that we have had on this clause, this one has unfortunately left rather a lot of points unresolved. I regret having to say that because I know that the noble Baroness has been keen to reassure Members of the Committee on their concerns.
We are dealing here with one main question, which was echoed throughout the contributions—that is, the value for money of this giant scheme. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked: is it worth it? I am still not clear about that. While the Minister obviously has faith in the Government's policy, as one would expect, I am not at all clear that the cost-benefit analysis referred to by my noble friend Lord Northesk has been conducted with the kind of rigour which he, and I believe Members of this Committee, would expect.
The noble Baroness stated that the concept of databases emerged from the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming. I wonder whether she would like to correct that. My understanding is that, while the noble Lord, Lord Laming, advocated more rigorous information-sharing, I do not recall that he advocated the setting up of databases. I could be wrong about that, but I think that the proposals for databases that were said to emerge from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, perhaps emerged in a somewhat looser sense than the Minister indicated. I am not sure that they were flagged up, to coin a phrase, by the noble Lord, Lord Laming.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: The noble Earl is absolutely correct. My opening remarks were garbled; I tend to talk too quickly on occasion. I was trying to indicate, as the noble Earl said, that the proposals emerged from information and also from consequential discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Laming. I would not say that he was the author of the proposal for databases, but that has been part of our discussions with him in trying to implement effectively what should be done. I have a note here which says that Recommendation 17 is to explore actively a children's database on all children. Therefore, the idea has arisen from a combination of conversations with the noble Lord, but I hesitate to put words in his mouth when he is not here.
The Earl of Northesk: To clarify that point further, the noble Baroness is quite correct in the interpretation that the Box has given her. Amendment No. 17 refers specifically to a database. However, as I said in respect of Amendment No. 50, a raft of recommendations arise out of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, which refer to the issue of sharing information. That is a different matter from setting up a database. The focus here—to an extent the Minister referred to this—should be on the issue of sharing of information, not on the establishment of a database.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I do not agree with the noble Earl. When one looks at how to share information one has then to look at the mechanisms for doing that. The database is part of that mechanistic approach at that level. I do not think we are at odds on that.
I take on board what has been said about the value for money aspects. I shall reflect on that and see what further information I can provide on this important issue. This is a very important debate and I am grateful for it.
The Earl of Northesk: On that very precise point, the Minister has frequently admitted throughout our proceedings on Clauses 7 and 8 that the data are already there. I singly fail to understand the justification for creating yet another database to complement the databases that already exist.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I hesitate to keep jumping up and down because I am not sure that I make things any clearer for the noble Earl. Lots of information already exists, as I have indicated. I referred to children being on different databases, and the like. The issue that often arises is that those databases are silent and information about who else is working with a child or involved with a child is not available. I am trying to reassure noble Lords that lots of information is kept about children in a positive way and it is not an issue that, in the main, people worry about, with good reason.
I understand where the concerns come from. I am trying to indicate that because the information is held in different places it is not always possible to understand who is involved with a child. I gave the example of an educational welfare officer, who would not know from a school database whether children are simply not in school at all. However, they might know if there was information about children living in the area who were in contact with primary care, for example.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Establishment of LSCBs]:
Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 159:
Page 7, line 20, at end insert—
"( ) The chairman of each Local Safeguarding Children Board shall be the chief executive of a children's services authority."
The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 159 I shall speak also to Amendment Nos. 160, 161, 165A, 222 and 223.
Amendment No. 159 brings us to the key issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, on Second Reading of the accountability of local safeguarding children boards, which are to be the statutory replacements for area child protection committees. Their function is to co-ordinate the arrangements that are in place locally to safeguard children and to ensure that those arrangements are effective. To do that the boards will take an overview, propose improvements, commission specific services, and consider matters such as staff training.
They will also work hand in glove with all the local partners on children's wellbeing, a relationship that is in the fullest sense mutually dependent. The boards and the local partners must feed off each other if the system is to work. They therefore cannot have lines of accountability that look in two directions at once. A local safeguarding children board needs to be tied 100 per cent to the policies, thinking and working of the children's services authority to which it relates.
The Green Paper, Every Child Matters: Next Steps, suggested that it should be up to each board to decide who should be its chairman and that that person could be either the director of children's services or someone independent. I believe that approach is fundamentally wrong. There is only one person who should chair a local safeguarding children board. That is the person who takes ultimate responsibility for everything that goes on in a children's services authority—its chief executive. To allow someone independent to chair the board makes no sense at all. To have the director of children's services has more logic to it, but it is still not right. The proper role of the director of children's services is to report to the board and to inform it; not, I suggest, to take charge of it.
The Bill deliberately steers clear of being prescriptive on who should chair boards. On one level I applaud that. But, in doing so, it is laying a bear trap. We really have to be clear about whether giving local authorities and their partners the freedom to fall into this bear trap is something important to us, or whether at the outset we should save them from it. After all, we want the system to work. There are times when Parliament needs to say, "This is how we envisage it working".
After all, when we look at the clause we are allowing the Secretary of State to specify in regulations who should represent the local authority and each of its partners on the board. I have no objection to that because again what you ought not to have—and I hope the regulations will proscribe—are a whole lot of junior, untrained, badly briefed individuals turning up purportedly to represented their respective organisations. We need senior responsible people around the board table. So I hope the Minister will take time to consider the amendment.
Finally, I turn to the other amendments in the group. I shall leave the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, to speak to Amendment No. 160. Amendment No. 161 refers back to our debates last week in relation to Clause 7. I do not propose to repeat what I said then, apart from reiterating that I believe all the bodies and persons listed in the amendment have a crucial role in the safeguarding of children, and there is no logical reason why any of them should not be a full board partner.
On Amendment No. 165A it seems to me there is a difference between those bodies and individuals who might find themselves being partners under Clause 6, with overarching strategic responsibilities of co-operation; and, on the other hand, those bodies and individuals who are given very specific safeguarding duties and responsibilities under Clause 7.
Potentially the distinction between the two could be harmful and confusing. It might also increase the risk of poor attention to safeguarding by some agencies. My Amendment No. 165A tries to bring all the agencies, bodies and partners involved in children's services into a clear and mutually dependent relationship, so as to ensure that safeguarding activity is part and parcel of strategic and operational services and not separate from it. I would just say that this amendment is supported by the Local Government Association, the NSPCC and the NHS Confederation. I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My name is associated with Amendments Nos. 161 and 165A, to which the noble Earl has already spoken. I have nothing to add, except that I await the Minister's response with interest.
I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 160 and 162. Like the noble Earl's amendment, their purpose is to add agencies and persons with duties which affect, or could affect, the well-being of children to the list of members of local safeguarding children boards.
As the Minister has already discovered, where some persons or organisations are specified for particular roles or duties in the clauses of the Bill, the absence of others is of legitimate concern to groups or individuals with an interest in the matter. The noble Baroness has expressed her dislike of "lists", but the structure of the
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Bill encourages people to add more names to them. Thus Amendment No. 160 suggests that the Crown Prosecution Service and those concerned with the administration of justice—that is, at a local level—should be added to the board.
On the one hand, through the decisions as to whether or not to prosecute the CPS does sometimes have a vital role in child protection. On the other hand, recent research has shown that courts do not always treat cases against parents for non-attendance at school with the seriousness they deserve and are rather reluctant to meet LEA staff for discussion or joint training.
Both the CPS and the local magistrates or Crown Court staff might benefit from a better understanding of the collaborative approach that the Bill requires of all those whose activities impinge on the safety and well-being of young people.
Amendment No. 162 proposes to insert,
"the youth offending team providing services within the local area",
which we feel is a little more precise than the phraseology in the noble Earl's Amendment No. 159. I look forward to the Minister's response.
