My Lords, I am asking the Government to withdraw Clause 71 on social work services and registration. Clearly there is a history to this which I shall not spend a lot of time on, but I have to say a couple of things about it. First, the previous Labour Government issued a guarantee in 2008 that any delegated service would be required to register with the regulator. The Government propose to withdraw that provision. Secondly, in June last year the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee criticised the Government’s proposals to remove regulation of social work providers. It said:
“Registration would allow the imposition of national minimum standards and requirements as to the fitness of providers. It would also provide a mechanism for removing providers who are failing to meet standards”.
The Government subsequently retained separate registration but not inspection for external providers through the Providers of Social Work Services (England) Regulations 2013. The discussions are as recent as that. Now the Government are seeking to reverse that decision and to remove the registration requirement.
This is despite the fact that there was no clear support for removing regulation in the original consultation responses.
The Government did not consult on this issue as part of the consultation in April 2014 on extending outsourcing in children’s social work. During the debate in Committee in the House of Commons on whether the clause should stand part of the Bill, the Deputy Leader of the Commons, Tom Brake MP, acknowledged that there had been no clear support for removing the registration requirement.
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England raised concerns and stated:
“We consider all delegated social care services should be required to have formal registration with Ofsted in addition to an expectation that they will be held to account by rigorous and expert inspection, just as local authorities currently are”.
Ofsted conducted its own consultation on a regulation and inspection regime for social work providers. It consulted children and young people for their views, unlike the Government. Ofsted found that respondents to its consultation wanted thorough checks to be made on companies and applicants that plan to provide delegated functions. They also felt strongly that registration checks should be backed up by later inspection.
Local authorities thought it would be,
“important to ensure there is a proper, external-to-the-local-authority registration process to enable a local authority to be confident in using the services provided by the social work provider”.
I should, perhaps, remind the Committee that the Ofsted registration requirements cover important areas of social work provision, such as the “fit and proper person” test for those running social work providers, financial viability, registered manager, sufficiency of qualified staff, vetting checks and conditions of registration.
The Government propose that the external providers of social work services will not be inspected in their own right by Ofsted, and nor will they be registered as providers in the way that children’s homes and adoption societies are. There will be no overview of their activities across local authorities where they hold contracts and no visible assurances for the public about their financial viability, quality standards or working practices. Unison, the trade union that represents social workers, believes that the regulation and inspection of social care services are essential to safeguarding vulnerable children and their families. It also said that regulations should not be regarded as a burden in this extremely sensitive area.
Internal contract monitoring by local authorities cannot be relied on by itself to ensure that acceptable standards in the safety and quality of social work with looked-after children are upheld. By removing the separate registration of providers, the Government are relying on Ofsted to pick out issues about their fitness to operate as part of its inspections of individual local authorities. However, providers could operate across many local authority areas. Local authorities already face challenges because of funding cuts and it is likely that contracts will be held by larger private or voluntary sector contractors. Close ties with local authority teams and systems will be weakened; their interests and priorities will be different from those of the client
authority. The drivers of service provision will be cost driven. Relying on local authority inspection will be inadequate and emphasises the need for a single registration point.
The focus of the single inspection framework is the local authority, and this will necessarily limit the range of regulatory action Ofsted takes in relation to the failings of an outsourced provider. Ofsted needs to be able to focus on the provider in its own right, rather than on individual local areas of work. It also creates a lack of symmetry in the system by requiring providers of children’s homes and fostering and adoption placements to be registered and inspected in their own right while providers of social work services—which are exercising major statutory functions, taking sensitive and critical decisions about placements for children—are not required to do so. How can the Government defend such inequality? Do the Government think that providing social work services is somehow less important? Are the Government confident that this act of abandonment will not lead to a lowering of standards?
Finally, the College of Social Work is calling on the Government to pause, so that the service implications of these regulatory changes can be fully considered in the light of real evidence. There needs to be detailed consideration of potential conflict of interest in the provision of children’s services and the management of risk. The College of Social Work has stated:
“The proposals raise serious and important questions about how services to some of the nation’s most vulnerable children and young people may be delivered in future”.
I can only echo that statement and ask the Government to withdraw Clause 71 before it is tested on Report.