Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 5: 5: Clause 3, page 3, line 47, at end insert— ““( ) The provider of social work services shall have a duty to co-operate with other agencies in line with the provisions under Section 10 of the Children Act 2004.”” The noble Baroness said: We come back to an issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in the earlier discussion on social work practices: the degree to which they will be required to co-operate with other agencies under the Every Child Matters agenda. I have to admit that it seems rather odd to those of us on these Benches that within a month of the publication of the Bill the Government should also have published, on 11 December, their Children’s Plan, launched by no fewer than five Ministers and carrying forward the integrated programme, and the integrated services foreseen in that programme, of the Every Child Matters agenda. The establishment of the children’s services authority and the appointment in every local authority of a lead member and a director of children’s services was the Government’s direct response to the failures of co-ordination highlighted in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, following the death of Victoria Climbié. The whole structure of the Every Child Matters agenda, which underpins not only the Children Act 2004, but much of the education legislation that we have subsequently considered in this House, is predicated on co-operation between the different arms of government, and above all local government, dealing with children. It underlies the logic of the present Prime Minister’s decision to create a Department for Children, Schools and Families. It therefore seems slightly odd for the Government to be coming forward at this juncture with these proposals for social work practices. It is almost as if they have switched into reverse gear by mistake. We are worried by the fact that the new providers of social work proposed by the Bill would fragment social service provision and run counter to the drive for multi-disciplinary teams from health, social services and other agencies to work flexibly across organisational and professional boundaries. In addition, the proposal fragments the child’s journey through the care system and works against continuity, meaning in effect that a local authority social worker would hand over a child to new staff within a private practice at the conclusion of care proceedings. The amendment is intended to ensure that the new providers abide by the provisions under Section 10 of the Children Act 2004, which sets out the statutory framework for local co-operation between local authorities, key partner agencies and other relevant bodies, including the voluntary and community sector, to improve the well-being of children in the area. We see this as an essential element of any future structures that incorporate social work practices. They will have to conform to the partnership model that is all too slowly beginning to develop on children’s services. At a later stage—although we have already touched on this—we shall look at the provision of mental health services to young people and consider how difficult it has been to achieve the full integration of the PCTs and the children and adolescent mental health services into the Every Child Matters agenda. It will be vital to ensure that any development, such as social work practices, which effectively fragments the system is kept within the integrated framework. I beg to move.