My Lords, I will respond to Amendments 91 and to Amendments 92, 94 and 96 to 98, which are grouped with it. These clauses address a number of topics, relating to maintaining a child’s relationship with the birth family or keeping them within that family, promoting the educational achievement of children living away from their birth parents, providing support to family and friends carers,
reporting on the outcomes for vulnerable children and applying Clause 9 to cover Wales. I thank all noble Lords for raising several important points and for the moving and high-quality contributions that have been made.
Amendments 91, 92 and 94 all seek to maintain a child’s links with their birth family where they are unable to live with their birth parents. The Government absolutely agree that a child maintaining contact with their birth family wherever possible can provide continuity and stability at a time when other aspects of their life can be subject to uncertainty. Guidance under the Children Act 1989 and the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 is clear that,
“wherever it is in the best interests of the child, siblings should be placed together”,
and that if siblings have not been placed together, arrangements must be made to promote contact between them if that is consistent with welfare considerations. On top of that, it is also set out in the regulations that arrangements must be made to promote contact with siblings unless it is not in the child’s best interests to do so.
No one could help but be moved by the contributions particularly of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. However, we believe that the issue is not about what the law says. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, said, it is about poor practice on the ground. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, highlighted the findings of the Family Rights Group which further emphasise the issue. We have asked officials to meet representatives of the Family Rights Group to discuss its findings, and if necessary we will look to strengthen the statutory guidance in this area.
As for ensuring that grandparents are considered as possible carers at the point when adoption decisions are made, the law already provides for this in the Children Act 1989. Where courts and adoption agencies feel that there is a significant relationship between a child and their grandparents, they have the authority to consider a grandparent to be a “relevant person” and take that relationship into account. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, rightly raised the deeply tragic case of Ellie Butler. We welcome the fact that a serious case review has been carried out. It is absolutely vital that lessons are learned. That is why we are establishing the new Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, which we will be discussing later, to identify and undertake reviews of the most serious incidents that raise issues of national importance, so that learning from them can be properly understood and shared.
However, noble Lords will of course recognise that, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, unfortunately not every child will have an existing, positive relationship with their grandparents. That is why we do not believe that it would be the most effective use of courts’ and adoption agencies’ time to legislate that grandparents must be considered in every case. Rather, we believe that courts and agencies should retain the freedom to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a child’s relationship with their grandparents may be relevant, depending on the facts of the case.
Amendment 94 seeks to place a duty on local authorities, at the point when they feel that a child needs to enter care, to consider family and friends as potential carers for that child. Again, I wish to reassure noble Lords that the requirement for authorities to demonstrate that they have considered family members and friends as potential carers at each stage of the decision-making process already exists in the legislation framework. Section 22C of the Children Act 1989 makes clear that local authorities must give priority to parents, persons with parental responsibility and placements with local authority foster carers who are relatives or friends of persons otherwise connected with the child. We feel that this amendment would largely if not completely replicate the existing duty and practice that local authorities should already follow.
While on the topic of family and friends carers, I will address Amendment 97 which seeks to place a duty on local authorities to provide support services for family and friends carers of children who are not looked after. I reassure the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that the Government fully recognise the invaluable contribution made by many family members and friends up and down the country who are caring for children. The Children Act 1989 sets out the duties and responsibilities of local authorities to support the needs of all children living with family and friends carers. Statutory guidance published during the previous Parliament strengthens these requirements on local authorities.
As noble Lords will be aware, because we have discussed this previously, family and friends care, or kinship care, covers a wide range of arrangements, both formal and informal. How kinship carers are able to access financial support depends on the individual circumstances of the carer and the child. Local authorities have the power to provide financial and other support to those looking after children in informal relationships following an assessment of needs. Statutory guidance on family and friends makes clear that children and young people who are living with relatives or friends should receive the support they and their carers need.
We do not believe that adding to the legislative framework will be effective in driving improved practice in this area. Rather, it is through ensuring that we have a highly skilled and expert children’s social care workforce that we can ensure that those in kinship care arrangements have access to the support they need. That is what we are trying to achieve through our social work reform programme. My noble friend the Minister has agreed to meet with the Kinship Care Alliance to discuss how we can support kinship carers and to discuss the range of issues that noble Lords have brought up during our discussions so far. That meeting will happen next week, and I am sure that this issue will be one of those that we discuss.
Amendments 96 and 98 seek to protect the educational and wider outcomes of vulnerable children. Amendment 96 seeks to place a duty on local authorities and schools to provide a virtual school head and designated teacher to all children living permanently away from their parents who are cared for by a family under a special guardianship order, a child arrangement order or an adoption order, where the child has not been in care.
Our intention with Clauses 4, 5 and 6 is to place a duty on local authorities to extend the duties of virtual school heads and designated teachers to support looked-after children who have left the care system under a permanent order. The aim is to ensure that children do not lose the support they received while in care when they move to their permanent family. This amendment would extend that support to a new group of children who have not previously been in care.