Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I shall come back to the noble Earl with a specific answer to his question. On Amendment No. 96, the national minimum allowance for foster carers, which we announced in July 2006 and which has been warmly welcomed by foster carers and their organisations, was introduced to help to ensure that no foster carer was out of pocket as a result of caring for a looked-after child. Our good practice guidance, which was published alongside the national minimum allowance, was intended to support fostering services in improving their payment systems. In addition, the recent White Paper Care Matters includes a further commitment aimed at improving transparency around payment systems and foster carers’ eligibility for payments; that is, their allowances and their fees. We announced in the White Paper our commitment to require all fostering services to publish details of their payment structures for foster carers in relation to the task undertaken by carers and the level of training required. It is essential that every fostering service provider has in place an effective policy on payments to foster carers and that that policy is available to carers. By requiring local authorities to publish full details of their payment structures, including allowances and fees, we will ensure that that is the case and therefore meet the objective of this amendment. Amendment No. 98 seeks to ensure that foster carers continue to receive a fee until a qualifying determination has been reached. Where a fee is paid, a decision by the fostering provider to cease payments pending formal termination of approval, as the noble Baroness said, leads to a sudden loss of income, and that can be difficult for carers to manage. There may be a number of reasons why that happens. It may be that an allegation of abuse has been made against a foster carer and an investigation is taking place. In those cases, it may be appropriate for a fee to be paid until there is a qualifying determination. I fully take on board the points that the noble Baroness and other noble Lords have made about the need for the timely investigation and determination of such complaints. We believe that this is an issue of great significance to foster carers, and we will be looking at the timescales for allegations as part of our review of the national minimum standards for fostering providers with a view to promoting best practice in this area. However, there may be other reasons why a fostering provider makes a decision not to continue to approve an individual as a foster carer. For example, the welfare of a child may have been put at risk in some way by the carer’s actions, or it may be that the foster carer, or an adult member of the fostering household, has been convicted of an offence which would automatically bar him or her from fostering. In such cases, it may be entirely inappropriate for the carer to continue to receive a fee until such time as the decision to discontinue a carer’s approval has been formalised, taking account of any recommendation by the fostering panel. Amendment No. 94 seeks to bring foster carers within the group of social care workers registered by the General Social Care Council in England and the Care Council for Wales in Wales. Foster care is a truly unique occupation, and foster carers are substantially different from other groups that are registered and regulated by a central body. Therefore, we are not sympathetic to proposals for a national registration scheme. The fostering services regulations and national minimum standards set out clearly the basis on which an individual should be approved as a foster carer and the comprehensive range of information that must be taken into account in deciding whether an individual is suitable to be a foster carer. They also set out the Government’s expectations of the fostering service and its carers in improving outcomes for individual children. Under existing legislation, carers’ performance must be reviewed regularly, and the Government have funded the Children’s Workforce Development Council to develop a set of training and development standards for foster carers that illustrates clearly the standards expected of every foster carer. These standards were published in May 2007, and we have already announced our intention to link them with the revised national minimum standards for foster care to improve the training and development that all foster carers receive. This framework is appropriate, and we would not wish to change it at present. Finally, on Amendment No. 97 on the delegation of responsibility to foster carers, it would not be appropriate for the Government to prescribe centrally the precise circumstances in which responsibility should be delegated to carers, as this will depend on the needs and circumstances of the individual child. Schedule 6 to the Fostering Services Regulations sets out, for example, the matters that should be covered in the foster placement agreement, which the responsible authority must enter into with the foster carer before a child may be placed with that carer. These include the circumstances in which the carer must obtain in advance the responsible authority’s approval for the child to take part in school trips or to stay overnight away from the carer’s home. The placement information record, which should be completed for all children living away from home, details the arrangements for meeting the child’s needs where responsibilities are divided between a number of people. It must, for example, set out where the responsibility lies for taking a child for routine medical or dental treatment or for giving consent for medical treatment. Existing legislation and statutory guidance are clear about how the local authority’s duties in respect of looked-after children should be discharged and about the need for clarity around the delegation of responsibility.