Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

I feel like reminding myself that I am a mere Cross-Bencher, looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and declare that I have an interest in CAFCASS. I stand here as a Cross-Bencher with that interest, and as a person who is a practitioner in the field who therefore sometimes finds it a little difficult to separate myself from policy. I put myself in that context. I have every sympathy with the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Speaking from the point of view of CAFCASS, the real worry is the resource-intensiveness of this method of social work, because that is what she is talking about. I would also ask the philosophical question about the intrusiveness of the state into families in every part of an order. Some contact orders quickly settle down; some become difficult in adolescence. It is a complex issue how you get in the right place in the family without becoming a real nanny state. We are all struggling with that. Later, when we talk about early intervention, we will struggle with some of those issues. However, it is essential that CAFCASS monitors those situations that are seen to be difficult, that have a high degree of aggression and bitterness and where it is clear that the parties will not easily meet the contact order. It has been shown in the work undertaken by staff that there has been a remarkable degree of success in enabling families to come together. Not all families will do that, but CAFCASS has had some success. So if we can provide the resources then success is possible. Later we will be considering family assistance orders that will be all about helping families to work through such difficulties. It is important that CAFCASS emerges from its past, into the present, and aligns itself with the Every Child Matters agenda so that it can link families in difficulties with other services. We are working with the Association of Directors of Social Services, so that social services’ intervention with some families at a different stage is more incisive and that when CAFCASS deals with such families it does not discover that there has been plenty of contact but no appropriate intervention to help the families in need. I am not talking about families who just have a bit of a row about contact. Many families, as we know from the East Anglia research, have serious needs. So I have every sympathy, but I would prefer the monitoring not to be prescriptive, as the noble Baroness’s amendment suggests. We are certainly encouraged to try to proceed with this task and we in CAFCASS should be doing that. It is also essential that someone looks at research from the point of view of the child. Noble Lords will have seen the document relating to intervention. That and much other research reveals that there is much information about what works in relation to parental contact and whether parents feel good, but there is little about how children perceive contact orders. I know, as someone who has listened to children on the Childline telephones for many years, that children have strong views about this issue and more research would be useful. Again, funding is the issue. Do we fund front line services where we know we are still not meeting demand or do we divert it into research? CAFCASS would be delighted. We have the material to do that research—so it is a resource issue. Regarding front-loaded proceedings—again much work is taking place in the central registry—the conciliation work being carried out by the judges is extremely successful, but is taking place in a small number of places and, again, we could move that forward. It links to the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that training and specialism are difficult areas. I should remind myself and noble Lords that CAFCASS works in the matrix of the courts and social care, so we cannot operate alone. Partnership is crucial. If the other parts of the service do not work CAFCASS gets the blame, although many delays relate to court listings. In fact, you can be told in court, as I have, that, yes, the CAFCASS officer can produce a report by November—and you think, ““November!””—and then you are told that the case cannot have a listing until December. You then realise that there are all sorts of complications in the system. We should examine those areas, but I hope that we do not end up, Minister, with prescriptive amendments that make the position impossible, because we know that at the moment both social services and CAFCASS are not meeting their present requirements. I am not saying anything that we all do not know. There is a personpower problem with social workers, there is a training problem and there is a problem about making the partnership work. What is important, however, is that the amendments are clearly there and pointing in the right direction. I hope that I have helped, and look forward to what the Minister has to say.