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Looked-after Children

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). I think that the Prime Minister should answer his question. The Prime Minister does seem to have problems with increases in spending. He has said, for instance, that""total spending will continue to rise, and it will be a zero per cent. rise in 2013-14."—[Official Report, 1 July 2009; Vol. 495, c. 294.]" Perhaps that is the spending rise that the right hon. Gentleman was told was taking place. He is absolutely right to push on that point. I wish him every luck, because I agree that it is extremely important. We all want our children to get the best start in life by having the right support, food, nutrition, shelter, education, mentoring and emotional support. That is what is needed in order for them to grow up and develop into responsible, independent adults. Looked-after children consistently do not get the same levels of support and care that children in families receive. Looked-after children under-achieve in education—just one in eight gets five good GCSEs. They are twice as likely to be convicted or cautioned; almost a quarter of prisoners have been in care. They are also four to five times more likely to have mental health problems; one third of homeless people have been in care. One fifth of women who leave care between the ages of 16 and 19 become pregnant within one year, compared with just one in 20 in the general population. They are also far more vulnerable to drug abuse, school exclusions, sexual exploitation, truancy and other symptoms linked to social breakdown. They are also more likely to be NEETs— not in education, employment or training. Being in care affects young people's life chances, and the Select Committee report into looked-after children has highlighted some of the weaknesses that need to be addressed. On our estates and in our communities, we are seeing second generation looked-after children whose parents have also been through the care system. There are three crucial areas for improving the life chances of looked-after children: education, family, and the role played by the local authority, social services and their partners. When I read Dickens, I felt that things had moved so far forward, yet there is still a failure to deliver the sort of 21st-century changes that we all want and believe in. This is, therefore, a tremendously important subject. We need to improve access to education, because that is important and looked-after children need better chances and opportunities to succeed. Education and individual learning plans may need to be more tailor-made to suit individuals in order to encourage them to remain in education or some other form of learning or training. Having a good educational foundation can make a huge difference to job opportunities, as well as to a young person's confidence and self-esteem. Young people who have these challenging backgrounds need to be in environments where they feel valued and where their talents can be nurtured. The development of academies—and academies with residential facilities—will help to drive up the educational standards of those who are looked after. Mentoring in school makes a huge difference, and we also need to look at developing the role and expertise of school governors in matters concerning looked-after children so that they can oversee the performance of schools and how they are educating these young people. In Herefordshire, an education liaison support service is available to children and young persons looked after by the council. It offers advice and support to children and parents, it develops individual support packages and it provides information and resources to carers. Herefordshire has delivered positive outcomes, including the fact that 92 per cent. of its young people aged 16 or over leaving care managed to obtain a qualification, which compares with the average in England of 53 per cent. That makes the council the top-performing authority in England. Herefordshire's looked-after children are also healthier and they have lower levels of truancy from school and fewer criminal convictions than average. The council has a good record, despite receiving—this is a real shame—the third lowest school grant per pupil and despite the council's grant being 17 per cent. lower than the national average per head. Despite that financial disadvantage, the council is still achieving a fantastic outcome for these particularly vulnerable young people. Supporting families early on can prevent children from going into care, and we should take measures to prevent family breakdown. Where possible, and when it is safe and appropriate, we should try to keep families together. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) made the important point that that will not always be appropriate, and that is also mentioned is the Select Committee report. However, where it is safe and appropriate, that is what we should try to do. Strong families support vulnerable children and reduce the risk of children needing to go into care. I believe that the Government could do a great deal more to support families; parents are currently financially better off living apart, and that cannot be right. Health visitors can help families, particularly those with problems and those struggling with parenthood. Local authorities, health care professionals and schools need to be equipped with the expertise to be able to identify those families where there is serious and wilful neglect; those families where the parents and guardians are a danger to children and the children need to be brought into care; and those circumstances in which the parents need help and support to improve their parenting skills. There is a difference between the circumstances of a single mother with post-natal depression who is struggling to look after her children, wants to be a good parent and needs support, and cases such as those of baby P or Victoria Climbié where the children were the victims of despicable and sickening acts of neglect, harm, violence and brutality. The people committing those acts need to be identified earlier and they should feel the full force of the law. I come to local authorities, social services and their partners. Social services in local authorities throughout the country have a very difficult role in identifying when they need to intervene and the action that they need to take. It is through contact with social services and health and education professionals that vulnerable children can be identified and early intervention can take place. In these discussions, there is considerable emphasis on the importance of corporate parenting and multi-agency and partnership working, and that is an important framework. But however good the systems are on paper, we need to ensure that the individuals and professionals delivering the support services on the front line can take difficult decisions and feel confident in exercising their judgment. Inspections are important to raising standards. Can the Minister reassure me that the new Ofsted unannounced inspections, for which 30 minutes' notice is given, will not interfere with an authority's delivery of services? If a children's services director can get a call from the Ofsted inspectors saying that they are just 30 minutes away, we need to ensure that the inspections are done in a way that does not cause authorities to panic, and that while the inspectors are present for two days they are not interfering in the work of social services and causing resources to be used serving them rather than young people and families. Giving inspectors access to files and making staff available for interviews are important to assessing an authority's performance, but we must also recognise that that is time and resource-consuming for the authority. I hope that the Minister and Ofsted will be able to ensure that inspections are carried out in a sensitive and appropriate manner. It is good to have quick inspections, but they must be done right. Building strong and long-term relationships between looked-after children and those involved in delivering their care is essential. Children going through the care system can feel unsupported when their carers change on a regular basis, and the answer is as much down to the professionalism of staff as any legislative requirement. One area that needs strengthening is the support given to young people in the transition period from leaving care to becoming an independent adult. I asked the Committee Chairman about the need for support up to the age of 25, and his answer was compelling. Children who have spent most of their lives going through the care system can suddenly feel abandoned once they are no longer of school age and no longer within that system, whereas children who have not gone through the care system continue to get family support for many years, through university and beyond. One final aspect for the Government to consider is how often the child is consulted. Time and again, we see cases in which problems could have been avoided if only those involved had asked the child. The fear seems to be that children will not tell the truth, but in my experience it does not take Einstein to tell when a child is telling the truth. We need to be much better at listening to children as well as providing the support that the whole House agrees is so vital for these vulnerable young people.