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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, we have over here the small corner of ex-directors of social services. I have huge regard for the approach that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, takes in many areas, but in this respect I must part company with him. We have talked a lot about integration of services in relation to this Bill. I used to have to try to balance, in a tightly constrained budget, the needs of protecting children with the needs of a growing elderly population; that is not easy to do. There have always been real issues about whether we could benefit children by integrating their services across departments. If Ofsted is not doing the inspections in the way in which it should, we should take that up with Ofsted. We should get the inspection right and should not try to put the clock back and reintegrate children’s services with adult social services. That would be a step backwards. The future of adult social care is much more related to integration and removing the barriers between adult social care and healthcare, particularly with an ever ageing population and many people with long-term chronic conditions. We do not want to go down this path but, if we do, and if we have concerns about the way in which Ofsted carries out inspections of children’s services, children’s social services and children’s social care, the evidence should be provided and the Government should be asked to look at that.