Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

The Government are deeply committed to ensuring that looked-after children and care leavers are properly consulted on the services that they receive and are involved in helping to shape and improve them. That is a major theme of the Care Matters White Paper. A set of proposals is set out on page 22 of that document. I am responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, on the basis that I assume from her remarks that Amendment No. 15 intends to enshrine in legislation the proposal set out in the White Paper for every local authority to develop a pledge to the children in its care. The intention behind the White Paper’s proposal is that looked-after children should be made aware of the services that are available to them. The pledge proposal is a central part of our overall strategy for improving corporate parenting and it has been widely welcomed, particularly by young people. However, we do not consider that further primary legislation is required to achieve these aims. We have provided local authorities with funding to help them to develop pledges and we will, in the revised Children Act 1989 statutory guidance, set out our expectation that all authorities should have developed a pledge by the end of 2009. As the noble Baroness said, many local areas are already developing pledges, working in some cases with voluntary sector partners. Others are working collaboratively across regions to ensure a consistent approach. We intend to provide some good practice examples in the Care Matters implementation plan, which we are due to publish shortly and which we hope will encourage all local authorities to aspire rapidly to best practice in this area. However, I stress, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that these pledges are intended not to set the standards by which services will be regulated but to meet the need for children to have clear expectations of the services that they receive and to involve those children in developing the services. Standards for service provision in relation to fostering and residential care for looked-after children are set out in the regulations and national minimum standards that are underpinned by the Care Standards Act. Amendment No. 52, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and Amendment No. 88, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, are concerned with establishing a collective mechanism to ensure that children and young people who are looked after are able to put their experiences of the care system directly to those responsible for service delivery. This important priority is already enshrined in legislation. For example, there are requirements under the Children Act 2004 to consult children and young people generally, which includes looked-after children and care leavers, about service provision in their area. The Children and Young People’s Plan (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2007 also include a specific requirement to consult children and young persons when the plan is developed and a more general duty to consult when the plan is reviewed. Local authorities are, of course, already required to take account of the wishes and feelings of looked-after children when planning for their care at an individual level. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we are building on these requirements by taking forward the proposal in the Care Matters White Paper to spell out in statutory guidance our expectation that every local authority should have a children in care council or equivalent structure. We intend to set out the requirements in guidance that representation on children in care councils will not be limited to looked-after children but will also include care leavers, who of course have an enormous contribution to make from their own experience to the shaping of services for looked-after children. In this respect, our requirements will go wider than the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, contemplates in Amendment No. 52. While we believe that it is right to focus on ensuring that children in care councils are representative of the children who are currently looked after, we also believe that it is right to consult those young adults who have left care about the services that they received while they were looked after, as their contribution will help to improve the experience of those who come after them. I hope that in all these respects we are meeting the ambitions set out by the noble Baronesses.