Oral evidence: 16+ care options, HC 1033Wednesday 30 April 2014
Oral evidence, 30 April 2014.
Witnesses
Denise Hatton, National Secretary and Chief Executive, YMCA England, Jonathan Stanley, Chief Executive Officer, the Independent Children’s Homes Association, Andrew Christie, Tri Borough Executive Director of Children’s Services, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, and Sally Morris, Director of Young People and Families, Catch22, gave evidence.
Chair
Welcome. Thank you very much for joining us. I know you have sat through all or most of the last session, so you have seen how we have been warmed up by the excellent first panel. We are grateful that you have come along to speak to us today as well. As I failed to do at the beginning of the last panel, I will certainly say to you that recommendations are the business end of what we do. If there are any specific changes, small or large, please do try to share them with us during this session or write to us afterwards if, on reflection, you come up with them. To what extent do the resources available to children’s services dictate the experiences and outcomes of children and young people in and leaving care?
Andrew Christie
I do not think resources dictate, but the availability of resources is a very significant aspect that influences decision‑making, policy and practice. That would be my headline summary.
Denise Hatton
I could share what I think has been one of the biggest impacts of the reduction in resources, looking at the value of integrated and partnership working. The most significant change I have seen in working with young people has been, not just in local authorities—significantly in local authorities, but also in some of the voluntary sector—the capacity for most staff, within their job role, to meet with partners and to think together. A reduction in allowing people to come together has had a significant negative impact.
Sally Morris
Inevitably, it will affect the commissioning process as well, because the commissioning process is based on the effective use of available resources. The process that was being talked about earlier in terms of matching needs with services is affected by the resource base.
Jonathan Stanley
That is a good point. I would make the distinction between procurement and commissioning. Very often, we are procuring from what is available, rather than being able to commission from having a sufficient understanding of the needs of looked‑after children. As much as the Government has done, there is still the omission of the sufficiency duty, which needs to be looked at in much more fine detail so that we have a needs‑analysis of each local authority, each region and the nation, and then we are able to truly commission what is needed and where. Until we get there, we are always at the mercy of what is being provided that we think we need, rather than what we know we need.
Alex Cunningham
We know that the Government is looking at the idea of giving local authorities the opportunity to, basically, contract out all their services in this particular area, and across other care services. The pilots that have been held so far have shown that they are highly dependent on local authorities. Is it realistic for services to be contracted out wholesale, and how will that affect care leavers?
Sally Morris
At Catch22, we already provide statutory services; we provide leaving‑care services, and we work very well with local authorities in doing that. There is no reason, we think in Catch22, that you could not provide other parts of children’s services. With the exception of the very high‑risk cases, there is a strong case to be looking at alternative models for providing other elements of children’s services outside the local authority, because it would allow for more innovation and for us to look at new ways of providing support that, potentially, could work better, given the number of local authorities currently rated as poor in terms of the provision of children’s services. We think there are lots of opportunities there, and we welcome the Government’s move to innovate in this area.
Alex Cunningham
Despite the fact that we have some good provision out there, and tremendously good partnership working, it is not the same, as you rightly say, across the piece. Is there not a tremendous risk, in this, for care leavers, who generally seem to think that they get a raw deal?
Andrew Christie
Can I ask whether or not the point you are trying to get at is about the whole of children’s services?
Alex Cunningham
It is, yes, but I am very keen on understanding how that affects care leavers.
Andrew Christie
Just as my fellow witness says, the reality is that the commissioning of services for care leavers is very well established. Just thinking back, 20 years ago I was the manager of services in a shire county, and quite a lot of the provision that we made for care leavers at that time was provided by third‑sector organisations.
Alex Cunningham
But the quality goes from good to absolutely atrocious.
Andrew Christie
In terms of commissioned services?
Alex Cunningham
Yes.
Andrew Christie
There is variability. The starting point to your Committee’s inquiry was looking particularly at some of the alternative provision—I think that is the term you are using—for care leavers that is commissioned. There are some issues there, which the Committee will want to come back to, about the quality of that and the local authorities’ commissioning of it. Just to pick up your point about, as it were, the whole outsourcing of all children’s services, there are relatively few organisations, in my experience, that are currently positioned to be able to run an entire children’s service. It is only likely to happen in circumstances where two things happen. There is a good example of the first at the moment, where Richmond and Kingston have decided to move all their children’s services into a separate social enterprise. If you look at that, there are very careful governance arrangements being put in place.
Chair
We do not want to go into too much detail on that, Andrew. We have very limited time, and I want to stay reasonably focused on the brief, if we can.
Alex Cunningham
I had best get back to the subject, or the Chairman will have me. How do providers and LEAs, therefore, work together to make sure that they get suitable accommodation to meet the needs of each individual child? What is suitable accommodation?
Denise Hatton
If I take the first point, how do we work together, it is something I feel passionate about. What gets the best outcomes for young people is when we do it together. There is an example in Kent where the local voluntary sector, the YMCA along with other voluntary sector organisations, meet with social services and the housing team before any 16 or 17-year-old is put into any type of accommodation. That is done with the young person. When we talk about partnership, we talk about hearing the young person’s voice as well, so, if you wanted a good example, I would look at the local authority of Dartford in Kent. Sorry, what was your second point?
Alex Cunningham
I am just interested in what good accommodation actually is. What is suitable accommodation for young people? We have had tremendous examples across the piece. There was a visit—I was not there myself—down to Gravesend, where we were finding that accommodation might be okay in itself, but it was situated next to places with criminals and all manner of other people.
Chair
Thanet—Margate.
Alex Cunningham
What is suitable accommodation, and where should it be?
Denise Hatton
We have a really good example of what is suitable for 16 and 17-year-olds in particular in Suffolk, where we have purchased a number of houses in residential areas. We would have a house with four bedrooms, but it would be supported accommodation, so there would be a trusted adult, onsite, staying overnight and working with those 16 and 17-year-olds to support them. I would say that is very suitable.
Chair
We met children in Suffolk, some of whom talked about one of your provisions in there being—off the top of my head—not that fantastic, to say the least. It was mixed, if I remember.
Alex Cunningham
We also had young people who told us they were being placed in unsafe placements all the time. This was in Ipswich. They get dragged into the wrong crowds, but the important thing is they said that B&Bs should be banned. Is that a view that you would hold?
Sally Morris
We certainly think it is a last resort, and in our experience it is only really used, with people practising well, in a dire emergency for a very short period of time. The reality is that there is a need for emergency, crash‑pad‑type accommodation for a very distressed young person who is in an urgent situation and needs accommodation.
Alex Cunningham
Yes, but we have had young people who have told us they have been left languishing in a bed and breakfast for weeks on end.
Sally Morris
That is not acceptable.
Chair
The only places that will take young people from care are places that also have a lot of homeless people with drug and alcohol dependency. A girl said she was 16 and had had people knocking on her door inviting her to their room. She was alone, unsupported, and this is going on and on and on, and we are told we have practical difficulties to stopping it. Surely it has got to stop.
Sally Morris
That sort of practice clearly is not acceptable, but, in fact, we have also worked in certain areas, for example in Kent, where we have transformed what previously were good bed and breakfasts into supported lodging schemes, and we think it is about a local authority providing a range of accommodation to meet a range of needs. One element of needs is emergency support. It is one that local authorities do not do very well, but that is certainly something that they ought to be providing for, not relying on bed and breakfasts.
Alex Cunningham
What is the specific recommendation that this Committee should be making to Government in relation to bed and breakfasts, Jonathan?
Jonathan Stanley
I would say the recommendation is that a bed and breakfast is not appropriate.
Alex Cunningham
But should it be banned?
Jonathan Stanley
I think it should be. The reason for that is understanding where the young people are in their development. They need more grown‑up, adult, parental assistance, and that is not necessarily always available in bed and breakfasts. To go back to your other point, what is suitable accommodation for the individual is where it meets the details in the care plan. More generally, there is a need for some standards around this area to enable us to understand what is a facilitating and nurturing environment and make sure that environment—not just the fabric, but the relationships—is there. On that basis, bed and breakfasts cannot provide it.
Alex Cunningham
What recommendations do we, therefore, make to Government in order to tighten this up, make sure that the care plans are robust and address the young person’s needs, and then are acted upon? What can we do to tighten that up?
Sally Morris
I think you should recommend that they provide and commission, specifically, a facility that meets the need for which some local authorities are using bed and breakfasts, which is an emergency facility to deal with emergency situations, and it is used on a short‑term basis only.
Bill Esterson
Mike Stein told us in the previous panel that he thought it possible to create a new, much extended form of respite care—that kind of approach—to totally replace bed and breakfasts so that we overcome this. Would you agree with that recommendation as a long‑term aim, as a way of dealing with this problem?
Sally Morris
Suitable accommodation depends on the needs, maturity and risks relating to the young person. There needs to be a spectrum of provision in any local authority. A good local authority—ones generally rated “good” by Ofsted as well—would be one that is actually doing a good analysis of those needs now and the emerging needs coming forward for young people leaving care. They are matching their purchasing and the facilities of accommodation they have available to those needs. Obviously, that is quite a complex task, and listening earlier to the proposal that there should be better investigations into systems to help do that would be very encouraging, but that is the job that the local authority should be doing.
Alex Cunningham
Denise was nodding her head in agreement that bed and breakfasts should be banned. What I would like to know is: what effect would that have on local authorities? What would it mean for them? Is this going to boil down to resources? You would then be compelled to keep some form of supported lodgings or accommodation on reserve just in case.
Andrew Christie
That might be one of the consequences. There are other unforeseen consequences. I would agree that, in a good, well‑run local authority, they are only used in absolutely exceptional circumstances. Before I came here, I looked at the data for our use across the three boroughs over the last year, and it was a handful of young people with probably the most complex needs, where they were used absolutely as a short‑term stop‑gap measure. The alternative could be that you had nothing to provide for that young person.
Chair
What, across the whole of London? In Suffolk—coastal, sparse and rural—they might suggest it is more difficult, but the idea that in London, across three boroughs, it would be impossible to provide, for what you have said is a tiny handful of people, a safe, decent place for those people in extremis, I would put to you, Andrew, is not something you would want to be defending in too many public places.
Andrew Christie
I would not say it would be impossible to provide, but there is experience of just this very issue of specific provision in London, where we have spent a lot of time trying to work out a way of making just such a provision sustainable. If it is dependent on, essentially, what becomes infrequent spot purchase by a local authority, it is a very unreliable basis for any organisation to try to operate on.
Pat Glass
But, Andrew, why can local authorities in the north do this so much better than local authorities in the south?
Chair
It is an invidious north/south divide, and the south is losing out.
Pat Glass
No, it is not. Every local authority has this problem; every local authority has a small number of emergencies, and yet I know, in my area, local authorities come together, and they do have this provision, so why on earth can we not do it in the south?
Andrew Christie
There are different circumstances that might apply in different areas. For example, there is a particular problem in inner London.
Pat Glass
We saw the kids in inner London; we saw them in Thanet, and, quite frankly, it was an awful situation that kids are put into. Why can local authorities in London not get together and do this better?
Denise Hatton
Some do, though. There are some local authorities I have seen in the south-east that do provide what you have suggested—the crash pads. We do that ourselves. I also think it is the point about investing money. It is much more expensive to do it in the south than it is in the north.
Pat Glass
Well, you have got a lot more money in the south.
Denise Hatton
Perhaps local authorities are not investing that money in having that emergency accommodation. Just having one or two places in a local authority area can often stop that need for putting people into bed and breakfasts.
Pat Glass
But why can they not get together and do this?
Denise Hatton
A lot of this is based on individuals. It is about people, different types of leadership and decisions that are made locally.
Alex Cunningham
Are you saying the local authorities cannot work together to say, “We will commission someplace that is central to the three or four boroughs that will be suitable for crash accommodation,” or does this boil down to the lack of resource? If you had plenty of money, you would say, “The ideal thing to provide for our crash kids is this facility.”
Denise Hatton
I can tell you that YMCA has 10,000 beds across England in 500 communities. We would absolutely love to work with local authorities to ensure that emergency accommodation is available, but it is hit and miss. It depends, absolutely, on the local authorities.
Jonathan Stanley
I am not sure that is the route we would need to be going down. We are addressing something that exists at the moment as though it will continue to exist, and it need not. One of the things that happens, I know, in the north, for example, where they do amalgamate, is there is always an attrition on those services—as Andrew is saying about the variability of service—and where the cost evaluation comes: is this cost effective or not? It is not necessarily an issue. Is there not another way of us thinking about this, rather than it being a separate service of existing services, such as the hub model, which is represented in the Innovation Programme paper on adolescence? Do we really want crash pads, or do we want young people to be coming into functional areas that are able to extend their care for these young people? I think it is the latter, not necessarily accepting the way things are now.
Alex Cunningham
What needs to change to make that happen, though, Jonathan?
Jonathan Stanley
We have to have a real look at new models of providing care, not just looking at specifics but being able to extend them, for example with children’s homes being able to work with foster carers in the community, with health services, with schools as an extended hub, using outreach workers, working with housing associations: a real different model that is sustainable, because I am not sure an emergency is always sustainable.
Chair
We have limited time and a lot to get through.
Alex Cunningham
This is my final question, really to Denise. If the local authorities in London were to get together and say, “We require somebody to provide us with crash accommodation for 200 nights at year,” or whatever, what would you need to be able to do that, to make sure that you could always provide that?
Denise Hatton
I suppose what you need to be able to do is to keep the rooms free. Our own model of delivery for local housing needs to be able to incorporate that, so it needs to be paid for somewhere. What we looked at in number of areas, in order to make that work financially for everybody, was that the support was given by social services, so the YMCA did not say, “Yes, we will do the accommodation and we will deal with the support as well.” We pooled our resources together, so social services provided support; the housing department paid for the rent and the YMCA secured their own funding from private donors to put a support worker in place that was there 24 hours.
Alex Cunningham
That is quite different from providing a crash placement. There is a great company in my area that provides computer services for people whose buildings get burnt down, and they pay an insurance for that. Could we not have a situation where the local authorities could be contributing, through the YMCA, to say, “You will always have X number of beds available for us”?
Denise Hatton
Yes, we could do that.
Chair
Just a quick straw poll, if I may: if the Committee recommended and the Government consulted on imposing a ban on the use of bed and breakfasts—let’s put it at a period in the future to give time to adjust, hopefully either expand out existing services, commission crash or whatever it was—in four years’ time, that sort of date, would your organisation oppose that, Andrew?
Andrew Christie
I do not think my organisation would oppose that, no, but it would wish to caution that proper arrangements were made as an alternative so that you did not run the risk of an even worse outcome, which is a child has absolutely nowhere to sleep.
Chair
Well, your members would be responsible for doing that. They would be given four years’ notice, so are you saying that there would be a risk that they would come up with something even worse or not?
Andrew Christie
Sometimes we are working with young people who are extremely difficult to help and assist. Generally speaking, the young people we are talking about in these circumstances are often those who have been through many placements already. It is absolutely definitely not a placement of preference; it is not a placement of first resort, or even second or third resorts. It is for young people who are in very particular and difficult circumstances. At the end of the day, I would have a responsibility if my emergency duty team comes to me and says, “I have a young person. I have absolutely nowhere to put this young person tonight.” In those circumstances, I will sanction a placement in a bed and breakfast, only as a short‑term measure, while we are looking for an alternative provision. Then we have to try to engage with that young person.
Chair
No, we understand the complexities, Andrew. We have a system that leaves 16‑year‑old girls with their doors being knocked on by predatory people in inappropriate situations, and that is happening now. We have not gone to see that many people and we have heard personal testimony of it happening. The question was whether a change in the rules to ban that from happening would do more harm than good. I am trying to find out whether this panel, starting with you, thinks it would probably do more good than harm. I know you gave me a highly nuanced answer but, at some point, people at this level of Government have to set this stuff down and hope that it does more good than harm, hopefully on the basis of evidence and consultation. Well, this is part of that. Tell us.
Andrew Christie
Well, it would probably, on balance, do more good than harm, but—
Chair
Excellent. You will have ample opportunity to put all the complexity into it. Sally.
Sally Morris
Yes, I absolutely agree.
Chair
Denise.
Denise Hatton
More good than harm.
Chair
Jonathan, you have already made your position clear.
Mr Ward
Would that be different if B&Bs and similar accommodation were formally inspected?
Andrew Christie
Probably not bed and breakfasts. The trouble is—and this was going to be my caveat—the definition of bed and breakfasts. There is some accommodation, as you have just described, that is run pretty much along bed and breakfast lines, but is providing reasonable quality care for some of the most challenging. Those would be my considerations and caveats.
Mr Ward
We will take that on, because I am really looking at the issue of inspection. Sally, in your submission, you say, in the absence of there being external standards for inspection arrangements, “local authorities have developed measures that seek to ensure that accommodation provided is suitable”. What are some of those? Should they form the basis of a formal, regularised system?
Sally Morris
You could either, for the alternative accommodation, go down the full regulation route, or you could provide a national quality framework that everybody works to. At the moment, it is very much left up to the individual local authorities to impose that. Some of them are using the Supporting People framework and other locally developed frameworks. We would favour a national framework. We do not think that would be too difficult to pull together. It would need to be simple to cater for the range of accommodation that falls into that alternative accommodation that is not currently regulated. It could bring together some of the schedule 6 guidance in the regulations that is fragmented and in different places at the moment and then look at accountability through the inspection framework so that the inspection framework could be more rigorous in this area. That would be the route that we would recommend.
Mr Ward
You have also commented on the possibility that it would stifle what you call creativity in provision.
Sally Morris
It does not need to be too onerous. That is why I was emphasising something that is a fairly straightforward, simple framework, covering all the basic standards that you would expect to see and that, therefore, that would be monitored on an implementation basis through the commissioning, through workers who are visiting young people, but also through feedback from young people themselves about how that accommodation is working for them.
Jonathan Stanley
I struggle, because I can see many of those services as children’s homes, and yet they are not regulated in exactly the same way, because they are seen in a different way. What we would say is that, yes, we need a set of national standards—quality standards, not minimum standards—and that the regulation and inspection should be undertaken by Ofsted. We already have a children’s homes framework, which has some specified sections for secure. There could be another specified section for this particular area. It seems the most practicable solution, to me, to take things forward relatively quickly, and within four years we could certainly do that.
Denise Hatton
I was going to say exactly the same as Jonathan. I would challenge, if we do have projects that are bed and breakfasts, why they are staying outside social housing. I would not be looking at setting separate standards. We do need the one set of standards across housing.
Mr Ward
Who should police that? You have suggested Ofsted, but would local authorities have a role to play?
Jonathan Stanley
I do not think so.
Andrew Christie
I would say that the local authority is, obviously, the commissioning agent; therefore, it has to ensure that it can satisfy itself. I absolutely agree. I do not think it should be a task that is given to Ofsted to do the regulation. I do think that, however, Ofsted can hold local authorities to account in the inspection arrangements, because the inspection arrangements now include a specific provision that there will be a judgment made on the standard of care-leaving services, and this could be very easily built in to the kind of work that Ofsted does when they inspect local authorities.
Chair
The last panel were talking about the risk of duplication. You have local authorities going through a whole framework, and then Ofsted doing precisely the same thing, in an area where we are horribly short of resource and we are spending money on repetition.
Andrew Christie
Can I clarify that? I agree there needs to be a clearly established framework of what the kinds of standards and requirements might be. What I was saying is it would be the local authority’s responsibility to ensure that they are commissioning against that. Ofsted’s job, then, when they come and inspect the local authorities, would be to look at the kinds of placements that are being made for care leavers, and check that they are up to the standards that have been defined by the framework, not that Ofsted would then go out and do the approval of a specific placement. It is regulation, oversight and inspection of the conduct of the local authority and its commissioning arrangements.
Chair
Specifically, though, something came up around this risk of duplication between local authorities and Ofsted doing the same thing. If regulation was extended to 16 and 17‑year‑old accommodation of whatever sort, how do we ensure that we have a lean, clear, simple and yet effective system that does not waste resource on duplication? Are there any insights into that?
Sally Morris
I think it is a misunderstanding, because some provision is currently regulated and inspected by Ofsted. Most of the alternative accommodation is not inspected directly by Ofsted. The suggestion we are talking about here is, for those things that are unregulated, there is a quality framework that could be tested through the inspection of children’s services role that Ofsted also play. Ofsted have a number of different roles.
Chair
What I understood, though, was that the currently regulated settings are subject to Ofsted inspection, and that the commissioning frameworks used by local authorities force those settings to go through a duplicated process, which is wasteful of resource. We heard from one witness who thought they were moaning on unnecessarily when she had worked at the local authority. When she went to the other side, she realised that going through all these local authority systems was enormously wasteful, frustrating and led to duplication. I just wanted to tease that out and see if that came out.
Andrew Christie
That is a separate issue, and we are certainly not advocating that those that are regulated by Ofsted as residential care or foster care, essentially, should not be regulated in that way forward. It is a perfectly reasonable point to say that any commissioning arrangement should rely upon the Ofsted judgment as a fairly significant way of informing them about quality standards.
Chair
Is it true that local authorities, while doing their commissioning, would go and ask the provider to provide precisely the same information that has already been provided to, and has already been verified and checked by, Ofsted, and yet there they are, paying people to fill in the forms to give the same information and go through a process that is entirely a waste of resource, in an area where we are horribly short of such resource? Is that fair or not? Sorry, I am making too much of a meal of this.
Jonathan Stanley
Yes, that is true, and yes, that does occur.
Andrew Christie
On the other hand, if the provider already has the information, what is the difficulty of sending that same information to the commissioner?
Chair
Perhaps if, like the previous witness, you moved from where you are now to the other side of the fence, your eyes would open to a reality that you refuse to see when you sit where you are.
Denise Hatton
It is about consistency, as well, of the ask. Equally, with the framework, it is about, again, integration. If you have a framework around the accommodation, that would cover a lot of issues around support, around how a young person’s voice is heard. If it is duplicated again, say through Ofsted if they are re‑inspecting, often the opinions differ. That is not good either. It is a bigger picture.
Pat Glass
Can I ask you about the Southwark judgment? Sally, Catch22 has said that young people that would present under the Southwark judgment do not necessarily fit into the kinds of provision that local authorities have available. What kind of provision should be available for those young people under that particular judgment?
Sally Morris
In those cases, we are either trying to help young people to get back into their families—and obviously that is the best result that we could get, assuming the family is suitable—or looking at a temporary form of accommodation while we work with the whole family together. Indeed, young people might be in an irreconcilably different situation with their family, so we are talking about a range of provision. Again, it is about commissioning a range of provision that could meet those needs. We know now that those cases will be part of the local authority portfolio, and the local authority really needs to be thinking about how they are going to arrange to meet those needs in the future as they emerge.
Pat Glass
Are they doing that, Sally? Are local authorities accepting that these children are theirs and that they need a different kind of provision?
Sally Morris
There is incredible variety of response in local authorities in this area. Good local authorities are planning and commissioning against those types of needs, and they are providing a range of provision.
Pat Glass
Others just have not picked up on it yet.
Sally Morris
Poor local authorities are not, and they are, in some cases, not providing for those needs at all.
Chair
Can you name names?
Sally Morris
Good local authorities are generally those who have come out “good” on the inspection framework: Derbyshire—
Pat Glass
On the issue of inspection, obviously, Andrew, your organisation said not, but, to the other three, should Ofsted be inspecting local authorities in relation to their adherence to the Southwark judgment?
Sally Morris
They will make a comment on that already in the single inspection framework. It could be a stronger dimension.
Denise Hatton
I have been involved in local authority Ofsted inspections where this has been looked at, and I think they do already do it and, if they see a piece of best practice, it is drawn out, so I think it is already there.
Jonathan Stanley
You have to extend this notion of “out of sight, out of mind” much further and more deeply. I am still equivocal about the local authority children’s inspection framework from Ofsted until we have seen more of it. One of the things we are moving away from is an understanding of triangulation of evidence, and just assuming that it can be seen in one short inspection process. It is very short, when you think about what is going on for a local authority. I do not think that can be sufficiently captured by it. We drift, with particular groups, to more “out of sight, out of mind”. It needs to be much more robust and much more central in our thinking.
Pat Glass
Andrew, the ADCS has suggested that this would lead to greater state dependency, and that there could be a better range of systems responses. What would that look like?
Andrew Christie
It troubles us that, for a 16 or 17-year-old, there appears to be a presumption—more of a presumption, frankly, than for any other child for whom we have to carry out an assessment as to whether or not they should be looked after—as a result of the Southwark judgment that the local authority will look after that child, and they will then become formally relevant and be entitled to leaving-care services. The reality is that it was not that local authorities did not have responsibility for these 16 and 17-year-olds previously, because, certainly where I worked, it was something that was done, essentially, by the housing department. I think it is entirely right that local authorities’ children’s services should be required to carry out an assessment to see whether a young person is vulnerable and therefore should be looked after, like any other under‑18-year-old as a child, but there are other ways and means of meeting those needs. Can I just get to the issue of the question about the risk, if I can just describe our concern, of dependency? There is some experience that we have that this is seen by certain young people and families, if I can be really cynical about it, as a route into the social housing system. The perception—whether it is true or not—is that, if you can get yourself accepted as being a 16 or 17-year-old homeless, you are on the ladder towards housing, which is clearly an extremely valuable asset. Local authority housing policies are changing and adapting, and, as my fellow witness was saying, in these circumstances, often the starting point is to work with the family on what is going wrong that this young person is sitting in our reception area saying they cannot go back to live with their family. We think the emphasis and presumption should be on working with the family about continuing with its responsibilities towards that young person. Of course, in some circumstances, the young person needs to be protected, and we would absolutely say that we have a responsibility.
Bill Esterson
Is your presumption always to work with the family first, then? Other people might put it that you should be saying whatever is in the interests of the child or individual. That is quite a dangerous potential problem there, isn’t it?
Andrew Christie
Those who are parents have a parental responsibility, and that parental responsibility continues until the young person is 18. Most of us would say parental responsibility extends beyond that. Therefore, if a 15‑year‑old child comes to our door, our first presumption would be: “What is happening here? Let’s work with you, 15-year-old, and your family to see whether or not what is going wrong can be changed so that it is safe and appropriate for you to return home.” It does not mean to say we would always conclude that is the necessary and predetermined outcome. Exactly the same questions should be asked of 16 and 17-year-olds, and their families too.
Pat Glass
Andrew, do you think that children’s services have sufficient capacity to distinguish between a 16-year-old who is looking for an easy route into a council flat, and the parents think that is a really good idea and really should be taking a proper responsible attitude to taking care of their children and their family, and the child who is presenting at 15 who has safeguarding issues?
Andrew Christie
Well, I do.
Pat Glass
That comes back to earlier reports we have done about whether social or children’s services take enough account of older children and their safeguarding issues.
Andrew Christie
That is a perfectly reasonable challenge. There has been a benefit that has emerged from the Southwark judgment, which is: yes, we have to recognise these 16 and 17-year-olds are vulnerable. In fact, your whole line of inquiry is about: well, 18 and 19-year-olds are vulnerable too. They are not really ready for independent life; they have a continued requirement for support. It absolutely has to be part of the skillset we develop, which is to work out whether or not these are 16 and 17-year-olds who really do need protecting by the state, or whether or not they are 16 and 17-year-olds and families who need to give some thought to how they can live together and be different with each other. We have to constantly make judgments and evaluations.
Chair
Do you have any proposals for change, then, following the Southwark judgment? Do you have any recommendations that you would like us to be making to Government, and Government implementing, that would help nuance the Southwark judgment, so that the action is there but is appropriate?
Andrew Christie
It is maybe a revision about exactly what the expectations might be of those young people, for those young people. It probably is not necessarily a change in the legislation, but it may be a change in terms of the regulation, guidance and advice that would help inform subsequent practice, which, then, may inform subsequent judgments that are bound to be made.
Chair
If you had any further thoughts on that and wanted to write to us, we would welcome that.
Sally Morris
At Catch22, we would say this is an area for innovation as well, because we are running, in some areas, a rapid‑response service. We are supporting the local authority, where they have a case like this, to provide high‑level, intensive support to help move them back home, if that is appropriate. It links into the earlier point about innovation—that there are, potentially, other providers out there who could do this more effectively and provide the assessment and support you are talking about.
Mr Ward
Earlier on, I was talking about the inspection and regulation of accommodation, but we heard some quite critical comments about staff as well, particularly key workers. What about the regulation and inspection of the staff, these crucially important individuals in the lives of these people? What needs to be done in that area?
Jonathan Stanley
It is much the same as we are now undertaking around children’s homes, looking much more at the content and delivery of not just the relevant qualifications, but the training to do the job. Parts of the lives of many of these young people are much the same as those who have been fostered or in children’s homes. We need exactly the same level of qualification, and the same level of leadership and management as well, which we know is a key issue. For me, there would be no distinction. We need to have a much wider view across the children’s workforce about the sorts of things that we want to support our young people.
Mr Ward
Does that need to be regulated? Obviously, we would hopefully expect the training and support for all of these staff to be in place. Does it need to be inspected and regulated?
Jonathan Stanley
Yes.
Chair
Does anyone disagree?
Andrew Christie
If we are talking specifically about requirements in terms of the staffing of the alternative provision as opposed to foster care and children’s homes—
Mr Ward
Yes, absolutely.
Andrew Christie
—I would want to advise against over‑specification and over‑regulation. Clearly, what you would be looking for are some of the basic checks being carried out, the DBS being applied, and you would expect the provider, then, to have good records that could demonstrate that they had carried out the necessary checks and taken up the reference requirements. If you then start trying to specify training requirements, you are into a fairly automated response, whereas, surely, what you are going to be looking for is evidence of good quality of care: that the young people are having their needs properly met and that the establishment is a warm, welcoming and supportive community, as opposed to whether or not somebody has a particular level of qualification.
Mr Ward
What would that look like? We have heard not simply about the training and capacity, but also, sadly, attitudinal problems: “These are just professional people; they are just doing a job.” “We do not feel we are really, truly cared about and supported.”
Andrew Christie
Attitude is probably best measured by a) observation and b) reports from the young people concerned, isn’t it? It is very hard to train people to have the right kinds of attitudes, and, therefore, what you need to look for are proper complaints systems, proper oversight of what young people are saying, opportunities for young people’s views and experience to be recorded, and for the people who are commissioning the homes to be visiting them and making their own professional judgments.
Denise Hatton
I think attitude is difficult. There is lots of regulation, and lots of providers probably would provide the right training. Attitude comes from values. It is not something you teach. You can ask people to have a particular attitude, but it is about making sure that the people employed are the right people in the first place. I would inspect the values of an organisation and how they ensure that people coming in meet those values.
Chair
Sorry, Jonathan, I am not going to bring you in again, because you have already spoken. I know you want to disagree with Andrew, but he disagreed with you, and there we go.
Alex Cunningham
As Bill said to the first panel, many young people tell us about an important person in their lives who provides them with support, whether that is a teacher, a social worker or a carer. Others depend on the more formal systems that exist, yet Marie Tucker has argued that the automatic appointment of a personal adviser is an area where the social services sector is wasting significant resources. Do you agree?
Andrew Christie
I think I do. I was listening to that piece when you were receiving evidence, and I was thinking about what good practice looks like. The Committee were pressing people to say where there are examples of good practice. Well, when I look at my three boroughs, I can tell you that, for care‑leaving services, there are differing levels of practice across the three. Actually, in the one—I will not name it publicly—where I think the standards are highest, or at least with the best provision, what happens is that there is a place that is, essentially, a centre of provision for care‑leavers, which is essentially run by two people who have been there for a very long period of time and who, in many ways, perform quite a parental function for the young people. It is about a couple of people who can make very good, effective and lasting relationships.
Alex Cunningham
That is an example of good practice, but children and young people across the piece tell us that they do not have any real support, and they really do need a personal adviser.
Jonathan Stanley
One of the arguments Marie is making, too, is that it is the established relationships that the young person already has, even though they might have been relatively short, in terms of six or seven months of coming into the children’s home. They have an established relationship that could be built on, and having another parenting function coming into life is not necessarily helpful, because they will have even less of an understanding. It is about enduring and sustaining those relationships from the setting they are working in into future life. I think that is Marie’s argument, which holds some water.
Alex Cunningham
So it should not be compulsory for every person to have a personal adviser.
Chair
I am not going to let Denise come in. Next question, please, Alex, because we have so little time.
Alex Cunningham
Well, I think that was quite an important question, Chair, but I will move on.
Chair
You are absolutely right.
Denise Hatton
Can I just say, I would look at youth work? That is the bit where we are losing those relationships of trust and paying for it in a different way.
Alex Cunningham
Young people tell us that they would like a model where each of them has a consistent team supporting them as they go through the process, including a mentor, a social worker, a leaving‑care worker, a former carer. That will happen in good places. Is it realistic for us to say it should be happening across the country?
Chair
Is it viable?
Alex Cunningham
Is it viable? That is a good point.
Jonathan Stanley
It runs against where we have currently got to in our thinking about careers, in that we have lost the vocational element of people being able to stay with a young person throughout an extended period of time. Working residentially, in one place we worked, you could not leave the place until your young person had left, because you were breaking the cycle. There is something about the ethics and the values that lead into the practice.
Alex Cunningham
But, if there is a team of people, and they are all involved in the young persons’ life, there is bound to be some form of consistency there that sees them through their transition to independence, surely.
Jonathan Stanley
I am not sure we have that level of consistency any longer, and I think it is open to variation through various means: from policy and from budgetary measures.
Alex Cunningham
That must be lamentable, then, because that is what good practice would be.
Jonathan Stanley
I think it is.
Alex Cunningham
Do you agree, Denise?
Denise Hatton
Yes, I absolutely agree. If you asked a young person what they most wanted, it would probably be a relationship of trust, so trying to gain that consistency is really important. It will not always necessarily be the named person—the social worker—and that is why I think youth work is very important. Those are the sorts of relationships and communities that last a lifetime.
Sally Morris
I agree. We very much put a strong emphasis on building an effective relationship with young people, and think that is the basis on which you can sustain change as well. I suppose it is being able to continue a connection. If a young person makes a connection, they should be able to nominate that person as the person that they want to support them. Going back to the PA role, it is a function rather than a role. In that respect, it could be any role that is operating in the children’s services system, as it were. There are some practical difficulties, though, in implementing that, particularly in very large local authorities, where you have to have some organisation principles. Again, to me, that begs for innovation and for different ways of providing, certainly, those less high‑risk parts of children’s services.
Bill Esterson
The DfE says the quality of children’s homes should be improved before Staying Put is extended. Are they right?
Jonathan Stanley
No, I do not think they are right. We do not need to have pilots; we can go forwards with it now, on the basis that there are many children’s homes that are already “good”, and sustainably “good”, or better, and we have seen them. There are ways of using the “wholly or mainly” regulation for young people to be able to stay beyond 18. Yes, we need to do safeguarding checks for them to stay, and yes, it will be a local arrangement as to the purchasing or financing of that place, but I do not think we need to wait. We do not know, from that statement, how many it would need to be. We do know how many are “good”, and are sustainably so, and I do not think there is any reason we cannot continue on that basis.
Denise Hatton
I would just caveat that with what we call children’s homes. There are models popping up that we are calling children’s homes that might be a slightly different model, so it would be good to really bottom that out because, for lots of older young people, those 18-plus, would it be appropriate—I don’t know if this would work—for them to all be together in a children’s home? Should there be a different model? I wouldn’t know.
Bill Esterson
This concern about safeguarding is an issue you both touched on there. How do you overcome that?
Denise Hatton
I do not even think it is just safeguarding; it is about whether or not it would work in relation to the dynamics of having a community like that together. It might be better for you to reply on safeguarding, Jonathan.
Jonathan Stanley
I do not understand how, if you are 17 years old and 300‑odd days, you are not a safeguarding problem and you are being safeguarded, and then, when you get your birthday, you become a safeguarding problem. The relationships, the risk assessments, are all in place for that young person. Yes, we are not looking for that young person to remain there forever. It is not going to be their home forever; they will be moving on sooner or later, but we know about the risks. Moving to another place, we do not necessarily know the risks. The experience of managing that risk by the young person and the workers has been demonstrated.
Bill Esterson
So it is a proper risk assessment.
Jonathan Stanley
A proper risk assessment, yes, and these have to be in place.
Craig Whittaker
Jonathan, you said that there were issues in the children’s homes sector. Are you, therefore, proposing that we only give the provision of the Staying Put agenda in children’s homes when they are “outstanding”?
Jonathan Stanley
Not necessarily, but I think “good” or “outstanding”. We have to be practical.
Craig Whittaker
Even though you accept that the framework for children’s homes has to change because the old framework under Ofsted was not good.
Jonathan Stanley
Under where we are at the moment, if you are “adequate”, you are meeting national minimum standards. There has to be some acceptance that “good” or better would be beyond that. If we moved to quality standards, then we might have a different discussion. “Good” or better, I think, at the moment, would be the majority of the sector.
Craig Whittaker
Michael Gove disagrees, though.
Jonathan Stanley
Yes. We are in dialogue.
Craig Whittaker
He is the man who makes the decision, so what are we going to do to change that?
Jonathan Stanley
I would hope that there would be a greater understanding of what the evidence from Her Majesty’s Inspectors is showing: that most children’s homes are “good” or better. Is that the quality that the Minister is seeking? I would hope so.
Craig Whittaker
My question to you, then, is: is your head in the sand about whether children’s home standards are good enough?
Jonathan Stanley
No, I do not believe so. Very often, people have said, “Are you complacent?” No, I am not. My track record is saying we need the best we can possibly give to children, and we need to be rigorous in our challenge to children’s homes.
Craig Whittaker
Are you up to that challenge now? Is that the situation now?
Jonathan Stanley
No, I do not think we are, but the situation is one of seeking to improve things, rather than of challenge, because I do not see a lot of people wanting to open up children’s homes, but the issue is about improvement.
Craig Whittaker
A final question from me, then: should young people who leave care have the ability to come back into care if they so wish and at what age, or do we set an age limit on that?
Andrew Christie
Presumably, by that, you are meaning somebody under the age of 18 leaving care.
Craig Whittaker
Someone who is 18, perhaps, when they leave care deciding at 19, “I am sinking here. I need to go back into care.”
Andrew Christie
They should, and would, still have their full entitlement to leaving‑care services, so I would not suggest that you need to make any legislative change. But the point that should be made is that, because you have chosen to no longer accept leaving‑care services at the age of 18 and a half, if you change your mind at 19 and a half, absolutely, you should have that entitlement.
Bill Esterson
Is that happening?
Andrew Christie
It should do. I cannot tell you whether it happens in all 150 authorities regularly, all the time, but it is what the legislation would prescribe, so if it did not happen for a young person, it would be open to them, through all the means available to them, to make issue and representation to the local authority.
Chair
Sally, the ability to come back into care?
Sally Morris
I agree with Andrew; they do have that right. The local authority ought to be supporting young people who were previously care leavers if they need that support, and they have the right to ask for that support.
Chair
What about a step beyond that?
Sally Morris
Good local authorities are doing that. The age thing is always difficult. This is not everybody having the same thing; it needs to be responsive to need. Age is difficult, but I agree with extending it.
Chair
But under 18: there are still, as we know, so many children leaving care at 16. Do they need more than just leaving‑care supporters? Should they be able to come back into care, and should they be able to trigger it?
Andrew Christie
The legislation would say that, if that is what they require, they should do. I do not think, again, you need to change the legislation; that would be more of a challenge to practice.
Chair
Jonathan, a final word from you?
Jonathan Stanley
For me, it comes to, as Ben was saying, whether it is good enough for all of our children. One of the things parents do is provide a home for children, and they do frequently say, “Can I come home?” It would be a wonderful expression of corporate parenting if “Can I come home?” was able to be agreed to. You challenge me, because I cannot think of single time that it has occurred. That might be because I have not been looking, but it probably means that it does not happen often enough.
Chair
Good. Thank you all very much indeed. As I say, if you have any further thoughts following today’s session, particularly about recommendations, we would love to hear from you. Thank you very much indeed. Oral evidence: 16+ care options, HC 1033 21