---

Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken, I completely appreciate the concerns which have led the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, to table the amendment. I pay tribute to her for the consistent attention she has paid to this important issue during the passage of the Bill through the House. My reply was in fact largely given by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I hope I do not need to repeat it all, but I feel it incumbent on me, given the gravity of the issue, to set out the Government’s position properly. The noble Baronesses, Lady Buscombe and Lady Walmsley, met my honourable friend Jim Knight, along with Members of the House of Commons and representatives from the NSPCC and the NASUWT, in July. My honourable friend agreed to give the issue further consideration over the summer and has recently written to the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, to follow up the points raised at that meeting. It may be helpful, since that letter was not circulated to all noble Lords, if I reiterate the key points. I stress—as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has—that because we are not able to give a statutory right to anonymity, although we have given it a good deal of consideration, that does not mean to say that we have been satisfied with the status quo and have not made changes. We have made changes, which I will set out. We believe, however, that to give a statutory right of anonymity is a step too far, given all the considerations that need to apply. First, our new guidance on allegations was issued less than a year ago. Since then, we have included overarching guidance on handling allegations against all people who work with children, in Working Together to Safeguard Children. That was published in April, and applies from October this year. Taking up the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, a key feature of that advice is that all allegations should be dealt with as expeditiously as possible. One of the biggest concerns the teaching unions have rightly had on this is that too many cases were dragging on for an unnecessarily long time. Each continuation of the investigative process is more time when a teacher is, perhaps unfairly, in the spotlight and unable fully to clear their name—if, indeed, they are innocent of the allegations. The safeguarding children guidance makes emphatic the need for speed in dealing with allegations. At paragraph 6.21 on page 152 it says: "““In evaluating the effectiveness of local procedures””—" including procedures applying in schools— "““local safeguarding children boards should have regard to the need to complete cases expeditiously. Data about allegations made against education staff show that it is reasonable to expect that 80 per cent of cases should be resolved within 1 month, 90 per cent within 3 months and all but the most exceptional cases should be completed within 12 months, although it is unlikely that cases that require a criminal prosecution or a complex police investigation can be completed in less than 3 months””." That is clear in setting actual timeframes within which allegations should be investigated and decisions taken about whether charges are to be brought. Secondly, we now have in place the new network of allegations management advisers, who took up their posts in April. They work with the local safeguarding children boards to ensure that effective arrangements are in place for dealing with allegations of abuse against people who work with children. Part of the work of these new allegations management advisers will be to help organisations avoid allegations arising in the first place, through safe recruitment processes and advice on staff behaviour when working with children, precisely of the kind described by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. They will also help local safeguarding children boards and other organisations to develop and implement effective arrangements for collecting data on allegations, including data on how quickly the allegations are dealt with, so that we can monitor the effectiveness of local arrangements in meeting the guidance timeframes I have just set out. We have undertaken formally to review the impact of the guidance next year with the involvement of all stakeholders and will reconsider what further measures may be necessary in the light of that review. On the issue of a statutory right to anonymity, we remain of the view that legislation on this issue now would raise important principles about the freedom of the press and the public interest and that the crucial issue is to deal with cases quickly. We agree with the NSPCC that we should not do anything that would discourage children reporting concerns, and we believe that to introduce anonymity for teachers, but not for other professionals who have contact with children, would create an undesirable two-tier system. Although I cannot go the whole way with the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, I thank her for raising these issues again and giving us a chance to discuss them. I hope she will accept that the measures I have set out will go some way to dealing with the issue.