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Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I understand completely the point my noble friend makes, but the issue here is not about the need for IROs to be independent of the management of the cases they are responsible for reviewing, but the precise steps we take to guarantee that independence and whether we should—if I may put it this way—be migrating to models that do not involve local authorities themselves employing IROs at all. I accept the strength of the case for that, and as I say, we wish to reinforce the guidance in that respect. However, the existing guidance is very clear: "““The IRO must be independent of the management of the child’s case and independent of the resources allocated to that case””." The guidance also makes it clear that, "““IROs should not be directly line managed by a manager with responsibility for resource allocation to the case””." Two of the four models that involve IROs being employed by the local authority they are reviewing involve, in one case, IROs as part of the social services quality assurance function and in the other, IROs coming from the chief executive’s department, thus keeping them clear of direct line management relationships with those they are responsible for reviewing. We are moving in the direction my noble friend wishes to see, but as I said at greater length in my earlier remarks, the question is whether a further major structural upheaval at the present time would be in the interests of the children we are dealing with. Our view, on the best advice, is that we should strengthen the requirements for IROs to operate in an independent manner, but not at the moment take steps that would effectively be a further revolution in the IRO service. That might have the effect of taking the eyes of many IROs off the ball in terms of promoting the interests of the children we are concerned about.