Memorandum submitted by Barnardo's
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 We are pleased to have the opportunity
to submit evidence to the inquiry into Every Child Matters.
Barnardo's works with more than 100,000 children, young people
and their families in 361 services across the UK. These services
are located in some of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods,
where child poverty and social exclusion are common features.
Some services are totally funded by voluntary funds. Others are
managed in partnership with social services, education departments
and health authorities: we participate, for example, in 41 Sure
Start partnerships.
1.2 In our evidence we concentrate on:
— The integration of services and collaboration
between agencies.
— Listening to children; the role of
the Children's Commissioner.
— The creation, management and sharing
of records.
2. INTEGRATING
SERVICES
2.1. We consider the initial focus on integrating
health, social services and education necessary given both the
significance of these areas to children's lives and the challenge
of developing more coherent and child-centred services. As Childrens
Trust are mainstreamed and Childrens Services Authorities established
there is a need to ensure that the voluntary sector maintains
its position as a key partner in service delivery. Attention should
also be given to other areas that are significant to children's
lives. In particular we are concerned about:
— The integration of housing and childcare
strategies at both government and local level.
— The attention afforded recreation,
and particularly play.
— The changed position of schools following
the recent publication of the DfES Five Year Strategy for Children
and Learners.[56]
2.2 Homelessness is one of the five key
issues that the Government identify as continuing to drive social
exclusion. Poor housing undermines the health and well-being of
parents and children. Respiratory illness, behavioural problems
and depression are regularly attributed to poor accommodation.
Children's access to health and social care are badly affected
by homelessness, as is their access to space to play safely.
2.3 The Government intends to sustain investment
in the homelessness prevention measures that have been piloted,
including mediation services aimed to prevent family breakdown.
Sure Start and Children's Centres are well positioned to point
people in the direction of these services. However, there is as
yet little evidence of collaboration between housing and children's
services on the ground, no imperative for housing departments
to participate in Children's Trusts and no apparent joint endeavour
by the Children's Directorate and the ODPM to collect and collate
relevant data to inform a better integrated strategy.
2.4 The Children Bill includes a definition
of well-being which is drawn from the outcomes outlined in Every
Child Matters. The Government has accepted that including
"recreation" in this definition clarifies what is meant
by the outcome "enjoying and achieving".
2.5 There is thus a statutory requirement
for Local Authorities to consider play, recreation and leisure
outcomes when making decisions about the co-ordination of children's
services. This needs to be matched by a clear expectation that
relevant play and leisure providers in new structures will deliver
to the Government agenda. This is complicated in multi-tier authorities
where opportunities to play, unlike education and social services,
are provided at a district level.
2.6 Education departments are a key element
of the structures designed to deliver to the vision of Every
Child Matters and extended schools provide a major delivery
system. However, the DfES five year plan, in giving schools more
autonomy, weakens the strategic role of education departments.
It therefore becomes more important for schools per se
to participate in local planning and commissioning structures.
This is particularly pertinent with respect to the overall objective
of safeguarding children, as evidenced in Sir Michael Bichard's
report into the tragic events at Soham Village College[57]
and Sir Christopher Kelly's Serious Case Review of Ian Huntley's
contacts with agencies in North East Lincolnshire between 1995
and 2001.[58]
3. LISTENING
TO CHILDREN
3.1 We consider the model of Children's
Commissioner adopted for England to be both weak in comparison
to already established commissioners in the UK, and inattentive
to the voiced views of children and young people.
3.2 The Commissioner's role and functions
were considerably weakened during the Children Bill passage in
the House of Commons when provisions to support individual children,
to review and report on the effectiveness of advice, advocacy,
whistleblowing and inspection and to assist young people in custody
were removed.
3.3 A recent Hansard Society online consultation
with children and young people about the personal characteristics
of the Commissioner, how the Commissioner should communicate with
children and young people, and what issues the Commissioner should
prioritise, captured the consensus in one young person saying:
"A Children's Commissioner should be someone
who believes that the rights of children should be counted. They
should be committed to helping children and finding out what matters
to them. A Commissioner should understand the ideas and opinions
of children and take his job very seriously."[59]
4. THE CREATION,
MANAGEMENT AND
SHARING OF
RECORDS
4.1 The recording and sharing of basic information
in databases as set out in the Children Bill is intended to facilitate
information sharing between professionals and to ensure appropriate
delivery of services to children and young people. Barnardo's
is supportive of the need to improve information sharing to ensure
that children are better safeguarded and welcome the government
recently published consultation[60],
but we remain concerned about:
— the type of information to be recorded
and in particular the recording of a "cause for concern";
— the lack of professional discretion
about when to record information, particularly in relation to
"sensitive services";
— the apparent contradiction between
statute and the Government's stated intentions in the consultation.
4.2 We recognise the importance of information
sharing in ensuring that children, young people and families get
the support they need. We believe that effective information sharing
is grounded in joint working, with professionals committed to
common goals and working within a common ethos. Our concern is
that the provisions in the Children Bill establish a new legal
term in "cause for concern" without also establishing
its meaning.
4.3 Sharing subjective judgements of the
kind envisaged by the legislation can only be effective where
there is a common understanding of the relevant threshold; the
information shared must be accurate, objective and comprehensible.
The power to record "any cause for concern" will create
a system of information sharing that fails to meet all three standards.
This will at best lead to professional confusion and at worst
increase the risks to children and young people.
4.4 Additionally, the Bill creates a statutory
requirement on a range of listed persons or bodies to disclose
information for inclusion on the database. There is no caveat
or exception to this requirement in the Bill itself. The long
list of agencies that would be required to share information includes
services concerned with children's education, health, social care
and offending behaviour.
4.5 During the Standing Committee debate
the Minister rejected the need for professional judgement and
the discretion for workers to be able to make decisions about
the wisdom and safety of disclosing details to the database[61].
4.6 The Government consultation document
released on 27 October[62]
appears to contradict this message, by indicating the Government's
"initial intentions" to rely on professional judgement
about the best interests of the child to inform decisions on disclosure.[63]
However we understand the Bill itself rules out such discretion
by permitting no exceptions for the agencies who are "required"
to share information.
4.7 Every Child Matters embraces
the most marginalised of children. We are deeply concerned that
requiring the disclosure of information by statute overrides the
essential need for professional judgement to be applied to decisions
about the safety and wisdom of disclosure in the circumstances
of each case. A blanket policy of required disclosure may itself
put some children at risk, and we are concerned about the impact
on children's access to essential but sensitive services that
automatic notification to the database may have. The engagement
of the child with the service they most need may be the single
most effective means of achieving a safe and healthy outcome for
the child—their need to get that help, in confidence, must
therefore be allowed to take priority over a blanket legal requirement
to share information on a database.
4.8 Research shows that refugee children
are missing out on the support, services and protection available
to other children in England[64].
Furthermore, refugee children are discriminated against in many
ways:
— in benefits, housing provision and
access to education;
— through social exclusion and discrimination.
4.9 We welcome the commitment that every
child matters and the assurance it carries that all the reforms
of childrens services apply to every refugee child. We are therefore
hugely disappointed and concerned that the Children Bill's proposals
to ensure joint working, information sharing and the new duties
to provide further safeguards for children specifically exclude
the critical agencies responsible for the welfare and support
of refugee agencies. This exclusion has been seriously criticised
by the Joint Committee in Human Rights, and is inconsistent with
the Every Child Matters agenda as a whole.
4.10 Further, Every Child Matters
recognises unaccompanied children as in the greatest need and
specifically asked the question: "how can we improve support
for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, building on the work
of the children's panel?"[65]
There has been no movement on this critical issue through the
passage of the Children Bill. There is a clear need to address
duties to provide independent assistance and advocacy to children
to whom services are provided and/or who are involved in legal
proceedings. Unaccompanied children should be provided with a
legally appointed independent guardian.
5. WORKING WITH
PARENTS
5.1 We are concerned that two linked strands
of government policy—supporting parents facing the day to
day challenges of parenting, and confronting them as to their
"responsibilities" where their children behave anti-socially
or criminally—lead neither to a cohesive parenting strategy
nor to a coherent set of services available to parents at key
transitions in their children's or family's lives, or at times
of stress and distress.
5.2 It is our experience, in managing programmes
supporting "parenting orders", that parents both wish
the programme had been available before matters reached a crisis
point, and had made earlier, repeated and unsuccessful attempts
to obtain help.
5.3 We believe this policy tension is exacerbated
by siting responsibility for young offenders in the Home Office
ie not with the vast majority of services to children, young people
and their families in the DfES. Young offenders are children too:
it is unfortunate if structural barriers have to be overcome before
strategies and services rooted in Every Child Matters can
properly be allocated to meet their, and their parents', needs.
5.4 The joint DfES and DCA proposals on
parental separation[66]
are welcome and seek to balance rights and responsibilities, for
both resident and non-resident parents. The quality of the relationship
between parents and their children, after the adults have separated,
is evidenced as the most significant of all related factors effecting
children's well-being., This quality reflects the impact of other
important stress factors such as conflict and economic hardship,
and in turn predicts a wide range of negative outcomes in childhood,
adolescence and extending into adulthood.
5.5 However, the quality of relationships
between parents following a lengthy court conflict is unlikely
to be greatly affected by the compulsory parenting programmes
proposed. The real policy challenge is to enable parents to address
the conflicts between them much earlier, in both their and their
children's interests. The policy thrust of the Government's proposals
is too late in the process to deliver to the outcomes envisaged
in Every Child Matters: by the time adults are in court,
positions have become entrenched, children's voices long unheard
and "parenting plans" are more likely to have been agreed
through pragmatic compromise than any real consideration of children's
best interests.
5.6 What is needed is a more systematic
set of services that parents and children can be made aware of
through existing provision such as Sure Start and Parentline plus;
services which recognises that separation is a process not an
event, and that are available to intact families, those breaking
up and those re-forming, at key points of their transition.
5.7 Existing services to parents do prioritise
"positive discipline" and thus make a welcome contribution
to safeguarding children and their greater enjoyment of "family
life". However, the government's resistance to abolishing
the defence of "reasonable chastisement" available to
those hitting children, do not sit well with the wider vision
and explicit outcomes of Every Child Matters. The compromise
position in the Children Bill is confusing for professionals and
public alike. However, we welcome the government's commitment
to review the issue of "reasonable chastisement" in
two years time would like this process to be subjected to parliamentary
scrutiny.
6. CONCLUSION
6.1 In summary:
6.1.2 There is scope for better collaboration
between Housing Departments and Children's Trusts and the DfES
and the ODPM.
6.1.3 There is a need to ensure the inclusion
of relevant play and leisure providers in the structures that
deliver to the Children Bill's sought-for outcomes.
6.1.4. It is important that schools, in
addition to education departments, participate in local planning
and commissioning structures, particularly those focused on safeguarding
children.
6.1.5 The current role afforded the Children's
Commissioner is weak and inattentive to the voiced views of children
and young people.
6.1.6 The current confusion between primary
legislation and government consultation with respect to "information
sharing" is in need of urgent resolution.
6.1.7 Services to young offenders are best
provided under the aegis of Children's Services.
6.1.8 The policy thrust of the DfES/DCA
Parental Separation Consultation Paper is too late in the process
to meet the outcomes of Every Child Matters. What is needed
is a more systematic set of services available to intact families,
those breaking up and those re-forming.
6.1.9 We believe the process by which the
Government intends to review its proposals on "reasonable
chastisement" over the next two years would benefit from
parliamentary scrutiny.
November 2004
56 http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/5yearstrategy/docs/DfES5Yearstrategy1.rtf
Back
57
The Bichard Enquiry Report http://www.bichardinquiry.org.uk/10663/report.pdf Back
58
Kelly, Sir Christopher (2004) Serious Case Review: Ian Huntley:
North East Lincolnshire 1995-2001. http://www.nota.co.uk/pdffiles/seriouscasereviewreportfinal.pdf
Back
59
Got your back . . . What do you want from the children's commissioner?
http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/assets/HeadsUpCCSummary.pdf Back
60
Department for Education and Skills (2004) Information Sharing
Databases in Children's Services: consultation on recording practitioner
details for potentially sensitive services and recording concern
about a child or young person. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/InfosharingConDoc271004.doc Back
61
Hansard Col 263, Standing Committee on the Children Bill, 21
October 2004. Back
62
Information Sharing Databases in Children's Services: consultation
on recording practitioner details for potentially sensitive services
and recording concern about a young person, DfES, 27 October 2004. Back
63
Para 1.5, "DfES: Information Sharing Databases in Children's
Services: consultation on recording practitioner details for potentially
sensitive services and recording concern about a child or young
person." Released 27 October 2004. Back
64
See, for example, Dennis, J, 2002, "A Case for Change:
How refugee children in England are missing out" The Children's
Society, Save the Children, Refugee Council; Stanley, K, 2001
"Cold Comfort: Young separated refugees in England"
Save the Children. Back
65
Every Child Matters, CM 5860, September 2003. Back
66
Parental Separation: Children's Needs and Parents' Responsibilities.
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childrensneeds/docs/DfESChildrensNeeds.doc Back
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