Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]

I do not have them to hand, although I have the report, which I shall be happy to pass on to my hon. Friend. But the figures speak for themselves. The fact is that professionals gave that response, and it is terribly alarming to think about what on earth they thought private fostering was. It would appear from that evidence that the publicity information on the existing notification process has been an abysmal failure. How much money was spent on it, and what results do the Government think have been gained? The surveying of key target audiences has shown that if it has had any impact, it has been a negative impact. The time has surely come for a proper formal registration scheme for private fostering arrangements. I do not claim that it would be a universal panacea. It would not be easy to police and it would not be foolproof. I certainly do not want to play the nanny state card by having the state interfere with children who legitimately attend boarding schools or language schools or children on holiday exchanges, who have often been cited as a potential problem as regards such legislation. The point is that we need a private fostering registration scheme, which the un-sunsetted new clause would provide. That national register of private foster carers would be available to birth parents who wish to pursue a private fostering arrangement, and it would enable local authorities to ensure that standards of care were suitable and appropriate and that suitable and appropriate help and support was offered. Such a scheme could also deter private foster carers who had fallen foul of local authorities or authorised foster agency inspections but had not committed offences sufficiently serious for them to be put on the Department for Children, Schools and Families watch list. The Government have not made the case for why the scheme should not now come into force. In our deliberations on the Children Bill in 2004, the then Minister with responsibility for children said:"““we will…require the local safeguarding boards to have regard to how well or otherwise private fostering arrangements are being implemented.””" I would like to hear whether the findings of those local safeguarding boards have coloured the Government's thinking in not going ahead with the scheme. The Minister continued:"““the notification scheme has not worked—there has not been compliance with the regulatory framework…if this final attempt to get the notification scheme to work is not successful, we would have to examine an alternative, despite the many concerns that we have about the alternatives.””" She described the positive disincentive of the scheme as it then stood, and finally said:"““if we fail in our endeavours to make the notification scheme work, we will not need to return to the House with primary legislation and we will implement the registration scheme, despite our concerns about whether it will work as well as everyone would like it to.””—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21 October 2004; c. 289-291.]" Those words were pretty categorical. It was clear four years ago that unless there was overwhelming evidence to show that the notification scheme was working, this section of the Children Act 2004 would come into force. Why, therefore, are the Government seeking to extend the sunset clause yet again? When is a sunset not a sunset? How many more chances will they give it to show that the notification scheme works—or that, as we think, it does not work—before we have the private fostering registration scheme for which a wide cross-section of people have been calling for many years? On that basis, I am keen to commend new clause 7, which is long overdue. New clause 23 proposes foster carers charters. We are all acutely aware of the shortage of foster carers, particularly those with specialisms. All the evidence shows great variety and contrasts in the experiences of foster carers and their relationships with local authorities, so we need to have a level playing field. Foster carers often say that they lack support from their local authority when they need it. Children with complex needs may be placed with them, but the necessary accompanying package of support—specialist professionals, speech and language therapy, children and adolescent mental health services, or whatever it may be—is not forthcoming, and they have limited access to specialist services. The foster carers charter is all about a fair deal for foster carers. The purpose of the new clause is to ensure that local authorities do the right thing by foster carers and their authority, that the means by which local authorities will support kinship carers are set down in writing, that variations in regional practice are made more transparent, that local authorities are made more accountable to foster carers, and that prospective foster carers are given a better sense of what to expect. That proposal was put forward in the Centre for Social Justice report, ““Couldn't Care Less””, which reveals a wide variation in conditions for foster carers across the country. Too many foster carers are unsure of their status, entitlements and responsibilities. We believe that local authorities should devise and publish a simple fostering charter to which they sign up, and which should specify the basic support that all fostering kinship carers should receive. It should provide a kitemark that would allow foster carers to know whether they were receiving the help to which they were entitled, and it would hold local authorities to account.