Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I support the amendment. I am sorry that it is there, but I am not surprised, because when, in the context of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, we were able to prevent the Government from forming the monster inspectorate of criminal justice, custody and whatever, and allow the retention of independence in inspection of prisons and probation, it was precisely because experience had shown that it was much better to have single-issue inspectorates to focus on particular aspects that could form conglomerates and inspect particular experiences. In speaking on that matter, I was minded of the inspection of safeguarding children, in which I had readily become involved when the then Chief Inspector of Social Services had been charged with doing that. She asked all the associated inspectorates to join her, because they each had a different aspect to bring, and therefore there would be a holistic outcome. Education and prisons inspectorates joined, and so on. My worry about this monster, the CIECSS, is that actually it is education-based and education-focused. Under its remit, education is the main task of that chief inspector. I am concerned that this amendment refers to something that would have naturally fallen under the Chief Inspector of Social Services, had it been there, and then need not have been seen as necessary. However, it is required, because the current arrangements leave people to doubt that the new arrangements allow that focusing on this very important aspect. Indeed, I suspect that, had the old arrangements continued, the current Chief Inspector of Social Services would have been noting with great care the points made throughout our Committee proceedings, many of which he would have felt it incumbent on him to monitor in future. I wonder whether those issues could be monitored by a CIECSS, which would have so many educational distractions from the supervision of all these aspects of care.