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Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend has raised a good point, which she also raised—and we discussed—in Committee. It is a complicated problem, but I think that ultimately it is simply easier to place a child with a non-connected foster carer who may be on the local authority's books, and whom a social worker may know to be a safe pair of hands. The extra work involved, and the extra risk that may be involved, in taking on a new and unknown quantity in the form of a kinship carer can be enough to tip the balance. I am not trying to attach blame to social workers; the blame lies with the system. As we know from last year's report by our own Commission on Social Workers, they are still under severe pressure. The lack of continuity among them makes it very difficult for them to form the close attachment to a case that should be required for, particularly, very vulnerable children. In Denmark some 40 per cent. of placements are made with kinship carers, which shows that it can be done, but for some reason our system militates against it. All the evidence shows that that lack of investment is a false economy, and that children placed with kinship carers fare as well as, if not better than, children raised by unrelated foster carers.