Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I speak to Amendments Nos. 58 and 59, and give notice that I shall not be moving Amendment No. 60. We endorse the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. It is vitally important that the independent reviewing officer is just that—independent—and therefore not a member of a local authority or associated with it in any way, or a member of or associated with the organisation that provides residential care for the child. Amendment No. 55A covers much the same ground and we have sympathy with it, but our names are attached to Amendment No. 58 and I therefore place my emphasis on that. On Amendment No. 59 and whether Clause 12 should stand part of the Bill, we have doubts about Clause 12 as a whole. It enables the Secretary of State to establish a new body to discharge the independent reviewing officer’s functions. This undermines the commitment in Clause 11 to establish the existing statutory framework for independent reviewing officers in order to achieve improvements in the outcomes for looked-after children. The case is not made for setting up a new body. It has been suggested to us that the experience of dealing with a number of such moves, including transfers of staff to CAFCASS, the National Care Standards Commission and Ofsted has demonstrated that they cause considerable destabilisation of existing local authority staff and their services. The new bodies often take quite a few years to settle down. Moving creates increased bureaucracy, with yet another agency with its own management structure, accountability and ways of working—and, of course, it requires yet more resources to run. Such decisions should therefore not be taken lightly. Clause 12 should not stand part of the Bill, and the Government should focus on building and strengthening the role of independent reviewing officers within local authorities. However, should Clause 12 stand, Amendment No. 59 proposes two conditions. First, it proposes in new subsection (10) that before setting up such a body the Secretary of State should consult widely among local authorities and the independent reviewing officers themselves, as well as other professional bodies involved with looked-after children and independent reviewing officers. Secondly, new subsection (11) says that the Secretary of State should commission a wide-ranging review of how the whole independent reviewing officer set-up is working under Clause 11. As indicated, it takes time for any such changes to bed down. Any such review could take place only once this had happened. It is also important that rigorous criteria are set for any evaluation, which would consider the impact of Clause 11 on the role, powers and autonomy of independent reviewing officers.