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Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

From these Benches, I shall speak in support of Amendment No. 20. I shall speak also to Amendment No. 23 in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. In relation to Amendment No. 20, we endorse all that has been said before. We feel very strongly that, although the Minister has made it clear that stress will be put on the independent role of the IROs, given that their function is to support and challenge the social worker to ensure that the voice of the child is heard and respected in the authority’s decision-making, it is particularly important that the IROs are independent in fulfilling that role. How can people who are employed and paid by a local authority act as the critical friend that they have to be on occasion? It seems to us that they ought to be what the name says—namely, independent. Given the need for these officers to be free to criticise the local authority if they feel that it has not fulfilled its duties in relation to the looked-after child, IROs should not only not be connected with the management of a case but also should not be connected with that local authority. We had extensive discussion in Grand Committee on the issue raised by Amendment No. 23, on Clause 12 and whether and when it might be invoked. The Minister made it very clear that the department saw Clause 12 as a measure of last resort. Nevertheless, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, mentioned, in his letter to us the Minister makes it clear that there is a question of looking to CAFCASS to resolve some of those issues. We noted the not wholly uncritical report from Ofsted about CAFCASS last week and wondered whether it was an appropriate resort for these issues. When we had the discussion in Grand Committee, we were especially unhappy about the prospect of, in effect, nationalising the IRO service, with it being run centrally from Whitehall. That is why we support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, because it removes the offending line—subsection (2)(c)—which talks about appointing people to be IROs, and leaves the organisation, like the General Teaching Council, as an overseeing, accrediting and training organisation. We would be very happy to have such an organisation involved with the IROs, but we do not want it to be nationalised.