Mark Russell, Lynn Perry and Katharine Sacks-Jones gave evidence.

If Members did not get in for a question last time but indicate that they would like to this time, I will try to call them. We now have witnesses from a number of children’s organisations. Could you just begin by introducing yourselves, please?

Lynn Perry:

Good afternoon. I am Lynn Perry and I am the chief executive at Barnardo’s. I am here this afternoon representing the Children’s Charities Coalition, which includes Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, the NSPCC, Action for Children and the National Children’s Bureau.

Mark Russell:

Good afternoon. I am Mark Russell and I am the chief executive of the Children’s Society.

Katharine Sacks-Jones:

Good afternoon. I am Katharine Sacks-Jones and I am chief executive of Become, which is the national charity for children in care and young care leavers.

Thank you. I will hand over to Neil O’Brien, the Opposition spokesperson.

Q Thank you for coming. Are there any things in the Bill that you think we should amend as it goes through? Are there things that you would like to improve further, or any ways that you would like us to change the Bill? Why don’t we start with Lynn?

Lynn Perry:

The coalition broadly welcomes the potentially transformational proposals that are contained within the Bill, including those for a single unique identifier, which is one of the things that the coalition has been specifically calling for over a period of time. Multiple reviews have found that information sharing between agencies is problematic, so that is one of the things that we think could really aid child protection, safeguarding and multi-agency working. I would say that to really shift the dial we need further investment in early intervention and early help across our communities, and much greater focus on embedding that consistently and universally. We also need some further clarification on some of the areas that the single unique identifier will need for effective application, I think it is fair to say.

Q Can you unpack that a little bit?

Lynn Perry:

Yes, certainly. I will raise the third area and then I will come back to that, if I may. The third area is mechanisms for ensuring that the voices, wishes, feelings and experiences of children and young people really influence the provisions in the Bill, and to put those at the heart of support.

On the single unique identifier, there are some questions that we think are worth some further scrutiny. The first of those is the question whether the single unique identifier would be assigned to all babies, children and young people, and a confirmation that that would be for children between the ages of nought and 18. We also think there is an opportunity to extend the use of the identifier, the scope of which is currently limited in the Bill to safeguarding and welfare purposes. A wider emphasis on wellbeing of children and young people and positive outcomes is one of the things that could be further considered here.

As ever, implementation cannot wait, and it would be helpful to have some indicative timescales for when the Secretary of State might introduce regulations for the consistent identifier and how people will be required to use it within their systems. Finally, while acknowledging the need for data protection, there is an opportunity to make better, data-informed decisions in the future about the commissioning and scoping of services that will effectively meet the needs of children and young people, as well as taking account of some of their emerging vulnerabilities and risk and need factors.

Q Mark, getting straight to the point, are there any amendments that you would like to see?

Mark Russell:

I associate myself entirely with everything that my colleague has said, but I have a couple of extra points. I would want the Bill to include a measurement of children’s wellbeing. I welcome the fact that the title of the Bill mentions children’s wellbeing, but we have no measurement of children’s wellbeing. We in the Children’s Society measure children’s wellbeing, but we are a charity; we are measuring a sample of children rather than all children. The Government talk about wanting to be child-centred. A measurement of children’s wellbeing would be real data on what real children think about their lives, and that would provide a huge amount of information for local authorities to ensure that local services meet the needs of young people. That is one thing.

Secondly, I would welcome schools becoming a fourth statutory safeguarding partner, because so many safeguarding challenges are first identified by schools—I speak not just as the chief executive of a charity, but as a school governor. Thirdly, I hugely welcome the breakfast clubs and the changes to the rules on school uniform; the Children’s Society has campaigned on school uniform for many years. Those will help families. I understand why the Government have made the breakfast clubs a universal offer, but with limited funds, I would like to see secondary school children included in it, but with the breakfast clubs available first to children from families receiving universal credit. The free school meal allowance has not gone up for a very long time. We think that around 1 million children in this country who are living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals, and we know that hunger hugely limits what children can do in school and their learning. If we can change that, we will improve the opportunities for, and wellbeing of young people.

Katharine Sacks-Jones:

I want to focus on the provisions on children in care and young care leavers. There are some welcome steps to better support care leavers. At the moment, young people leaving the care system face a care cliff, where support falls away, often on their 18th birthday. A huge number go on to face homelessness —one in three become homeless within two years of leaving care—and that has meant a big increase in statutory homelessness among care leavers: a 54% rise in the past five years. There is a real challenge to ensure that we better support young people leaving the care system.

In that context, extending Staying Close up to the age of 25 and making it a statutory provision is welcome, but we think the Bill could go further in strengthening the legal entitlement for young people leaving care. There are two areas in particular. The first is that we are concerned about the how the Bill assesses whether a young person’s welfare requires Staying Close support. Where you have those kinds of assessment, particularly in times of scarcity, the extra support is often rationed, which will mean that many young people are not eligible for it or are not assessed as being in need. We think that rationing needs to be removed. Instead, there should be an assumption that a young person leaving care does require some extra support; the question should be what that support looks like, and we would like to see the provisions in the Bill broadened to allow local authorities to provide other types of support beyond what the Bill provides for at the moment, which is largely advice and guidance.

We welcome the strengthening of the care leaver local offer to include provisions around housing and homelessness. As I said, those are big issues for young people leaving care. We also warmly welcome the Government’s recent amendment on homelessness intentionality, which would remove intentionality from care leavers. We hear from young people who have found themselves homeless because, for example, they accepted a place at university in a different part of the country, and they were then deemed by their home local authority to be intentionally homeless and so not eligible for further homelessness assistance. We think that needs to change. That is a welcome step.

We think the Bill could go further in looking at priority need for young people leaving care. At the moment, that goes up to 21; we think it should go up to the age of 25, in line with other entitlements for young care leavers. We are also disappointed not to see in the Bill the extension of corporate parenting—something that the Government have previously committed to.

There are some welcome measures that will increase oversight and accountability, and help with some of the structural challenges, in relation to the provision of homes for children. We do not think those go far enough in addressing the huge issue around the sufficiency of placements for children. That issue is seeing more and more children moved across the country, moved far from their local areas and being moved frequently—a huge amount of instability. That is a big challenge. We would like to see a requirement for a national strategy that looks at the issue of sufficiency and collects better data, as well as an annual report to Parliament on progress against that strategy. Finally, to reinforce the point made by colleagues, young people’s voices are really important. The importance of considering young people’s wishes and feelings is set out in other pieces of legislation, and there are a number of areas in the Bill that would benefit from the inclusion of that, too.

Q Thank you for being witnesses before the Committee today. My first question is to Mark and Lynn. Mark, you mentioned the benefits of breakfast clubs earlier. Could you say a bit more about what you think the benefits will be for families during a cost of living crisis?

Mark Russell:

Perhaps I should say that we are working with about 75,000 young people around the country, and so many more young people are reporting as being hungry than have been for quite some time. We know that families are under huge strain. We saw in our “Good Childhood Report” this year that 84% of parents were anxious about being able to pay their bills, and we also saw that one in three parents were struggling to pay for a hot meal every single day. As they are provided to all children in the school, I think breakfast clubs will provide a real sense of uniformity and equality, and will give every child the best possible start to the day. Children who are hungry cannot learn and cannot thrive. I have friends who are teachers, and they are telling me that in classrooms around the country they are seeing children who are hungry and living in homes that are cold. Anything that we can do to support families is really important, so I welcome breakfast clubs. As I said earlier, I would like to see secondary school children helped, and if the pot is limited, I would probably step back from universality and provide for those most in need.

Also, alongside that, this needs to link up with the Government’s child poverty strategy that is coming later this year, which we are very much looking forward to seeing, about how we lift more and more families out of poverty. According to the stats, there are 4.3 million children in this country in poverty, and those children will not get the best start in life or thrive in school if they are hungry and cannot succeed. I obviously very much welcome the measures on that in the Bill.

Q Thank you, Mark. I have a similar question to you, Lynn, but perhaps around the branded school uniform measures.

Lynn Perry:

Certainly. I am looking at Mark because I know that has been an area of campaigning and influencing for the Children’s Society. I will first touch on the breakfast clubs, without wanting to repeat what Mark has said; we do welcome those. We are concerned about poor health outcomes for children and young people and health inequalities, particularly for the 4.3 million children and young people who are living in poverty, 1 million of whom are in destitution and whose basic needs are not being met. That means that in the provision of breakfast clubs we would like to see some real guidance, and monitoring of the guidance, on healthy and nutritious food with which children can start their day. We know that they are unable to attain educationally if they are going to school hungry and coming home to a cold house.

I want to touch on child poverty, if I may, because there is a need to join this up with the work in the child poverty strategy. Those two things should go hand in hand on parallel lines. On school uniforms, there is a question of affordability for a lot of the families that we work with. We ran the attendance mentoring pilot in seven areas, and we have had families that have been unable to get their children to school, not because of school refusal but because they cannot afford the right uniform, they do not have school shoes or transport is an issue. All those things need to join up to get children into school and to get them a breakfast, which will not only allow them to learn but destigmatise some of their experiences when they do not have the right school shoes or uniform.

Mark Russell:

May I add something else? At the Children’s Society we have campaigned on uniform for about seven years, and we were very grateful to the previous Administration for backing a private Member’s Bill that we were working with an MP on, which placed the non-statutory guidance on school uniform on a statutory footing. That was designed to reduce the cost of uniform by providing for consultations with parents, using pre-loved items, reducing the number of branded items and not having one sole supplier. Since the Bill became law, our research has shown that a significant number of schools around the country have not changed their uniform policies. In our poll from last year, 60% of parents believed that their school uniform policy had not changed. I want to welcome the measures in the Bill that will tighten that further and reduce the number of branded items. Uniform should not be the thing that breaks the bank for parents. We know that children who are not wearing the correct uniform frequently end up being excluded from school and are then at a higher risk of being exploited by criminal groups.

Q That is really helpful. Briefly—Katharine, what impact do you think the measures will have on care leavers and the support that they receive?

Katharine Sacks-Jones:

They are very welcome. We would very warmly welcome the extension of Staying Close support, because we know that too many young people do not get the support they need at that point of leaving care. That can often literally be on their 18th birthday—we regularly hear from young people who are perhaps told 24 or 48 hours before their 18th birthday that they will need to leave on it. Often the planning is poor and support is inadequate, and sadly many go on to face homelessness. We would like to see the provisions strengthened.

Our concern is that at the moment the assessment made by local authorities will enable them to ration support, and actually this should be a provision for all young people leaving care who need it. It could be a small amendment which would really strengthen the support available to young people and make sure that it is sufficiently different from what is already available on a statutory footing.

Now Lib Dem spokesperson Munira Wilson.

Q Mark, you pointed out that this is a children’s wellbeing Bill but there is not actually much discussion about wellbeing in the Bill. You talked about a national wellbeing measurement. Beyond that, and if we had that data, could the Bill go further in terms of talking about the provision of services to support children’s wellbeing and mental health?

Mark Russell:

In a word, yes. A national wellbeing measurement would be a really good place to start, because it would give us the data showing how children’s lives really are, and would put the voice of children at the centre of this. In the meantime, there is the measurement we have. We are part of a coalition of charities, as well as the Children’s Charities Coalition, involving pro bono economics. Lord Gus O’Donnell said the national measurement is the missing piece in the Bill.

As a group of charities we have also been urging a wider improvement of early intervention support for young people around mental health. Young people too often wait until crisis before we intervene. In the period between when a GP diagnoses that a young person needs help and when they finally get it, that young person’s mental health spirals further out of control. That has an impact on their whole family and their ability to attend and thrive in school, and it means that more young people end up in the children’s social care system as well. An investment in early intervention is a long-term investment to improve children’s mental health, which, in my view, would create stronger adults as well.

Q Katharine, do you think we could go further with this Bill in terms of unregistered, unregulated accommodation for young people in care, which has been a topic of many a scandal in recent years?

Katharine Sacks-Jones:

There are some really welcome measures in here, and increasing Ofsted’s powers and increasing oversight, particularly of private providers, is all welcome. One of the challenges is the imbalance in the market and the fact that these private providers have so much power because they run over 80% of all children’s homes. There is nothing in the Bill that really increases sufficiency and brings on board more public sector provision and more charity sector provision. While you have that imbalance, some of these challenges will remain, so we think there needs to be more to address sufficiency and we would like to see a national sufficiency strategy to address that.

The provisions as set out also do not cover the providers of supported accommodation, which is accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds—children—who are still in care, and that can be hostels or bed and breakfasts. We would like to see these provisions extended to that group as well. The Government have previously said that that is something they would consider in time, but we think this is an opportunity to legislate to include the providers of supported accommodation to children in the provisions that are set out here, which would increase transparency and scrutiny of that section of children’s home provision—supported accommodation provision.

A number of Members want to get in. I ask Members to direct their question to whoever you think might be the most appropriate to answer it, and then if the other members of the panel say they agree, we will move forward. If they do not, of course they can say that.

I think this question is for Mark. Before I was elected, for five years, I ran a service in support of survivors of child sexual abuse. Hearing the Children’s Commissioner say, just before you, that every report makes the same set of recommendations and at the heart of that is better multi-agency working, would you talk about the ways in which the Bill helps to drive that integration at a local level, and helps facilitate that multi-agency working to keep children safeQ ?

Mark Russell:

Thank you, Tom; we have corresponded before about your previous work. I welcome a huge swathe of what is in the Bill on this. We have been campaigning on this for many years, including the identifier for young people to ensure data is shared. Home schooling is a really significant area. As the commissioner and Ofsted said earlier, a significant number of young people are home-schooled, which is really good and beneficial for them. It is also important to say that some are home-schooled because the school is unable to meet the special educational needs that those young people have, or they are struggling with their mental health. The measures in the Bill to provide for a register are really important. The local authority consent for young people is really important.

I also want to mention that we had an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, which was seven years long. We heard from more than 7,000 survivors of abuse, and there were a swathe of recommendations that have not been acted on. I know we have heard from the Home Secretary that there is a plan coming on that, which is really welcome, but time and time again we read the same recommendations, in report after report. We know that so many young people experience sexual abuse in family settings or in settings where there is an adult that they should be able to trust. There are clear things we can do to tighten safeguarding and minimise those risks. The Bill takes a step in the right direction. It is also really important because it has been quite a while since we had a piece of legislation entirely focused on children. That, in itself, is welcome.

Q Lynn, what is your view on the fact that the Bill does not contain provisions to give children equal protection from violence to adults?

Lynn Perry:

We think that this is an opportunity for that to be addressed in legislation. As a charity that works across the devolved nations, we have obviously seen change in other areas. Now is the opportunity for us to address the defence of reasonable chastisement in legislation and give children equal protection. It is important to note that values, public attitudes and the way in which we frame childhood have changed significantly, so to consider that further would be very welcome.

Q So you would like to see the Bill amended in that way?

Lynn Perry:

We would.

Q Keeping children safe and safeguarding are key priorities that you guys have a lot of expertise in. Many experts have talked about the widening attainment gap and the rising number of children out of school. Most of them are our most disadvantaged and vulnerable. What difference do you think the Bill’s provisions will make to those children on things such as admissions, the ability of local authorities to plan school places, and collaborative working across local authorities and across services, so that they have an appropriate and safe school place?

Mark Russell:

There is a great deal in the Bill that will improve safeguarding arrangements for children, which is really important. The role of the local authority is critical, and local authorities are under enormous pressure. We all work with local authorities right around the country. We hear from directors of children’s services and their teams about the sheer pressure.

Alongside that, we need to look at how local authorities commission services for children and young people. I always find it slightly bemusing that local authorities can commission a bin service for 10 years, but cannot a commission a children’s service for two years. That would not cost the taxpayer any more money. If we improved the length of the periods at which commissioning were done, it would allow organisations such as ours to invest in services and teams to build stronger services locally. The environment in which local government finance works does not make our lives any easier in supporting children and young people.

Lynn Perry:

We have to think about this pre-school. Early intervention in early years services is absolutely critical to ensure school readiness for children. That is not just for those children in educational terms, but for their families to be able to establish a network of support as a parent or carer and to access universal and targeted provision. We need to take a whole-family approach to support children to start well in school. What that requires, of course, is a significant shift in investment. Currently, most of the spending in the children’s social care budget is on late interventions and the children in-care population. We need to re-engineer and reset the system so that there is more investment at a much earlier stage. All of that helps with school readiness, attendance and attainment. As we know, schools are at the heart of a lot of that multi-agency working across communities and the safeguarding system, in terms of their opportunity to identify children, so it is important that children have a positive experience of starting school and staying in school.

Q I want to come back to breakfasts, if I may. I think this is a question for Mark. The Bill legislates for universal breakfast provision at primary school, but is silent on what happens at secondary school. We do not know what will happen. The Government have been asked, including by Government Back Benchers, to extend the provision to secondary school. They have made the point, which is not an unreasonable point, that you have to make choices in a resource-constrained world, and their choice is to go universal at primary, but with quite a small per child, per day cash allowance. Recognising the resource-constrained world, would you make that choice if you were in the same position, or would you say it was better to target according to how deprived an area is—not by individual child, but by area—regardless of the age of the child?

Mark Russell:

That is a very good question. I understand why the Government have taken the decision they have; I really do. Particularly in a primary school, you want to be as universal as possible.

It would be the whole school, as it is now under the school breakfast programme.

Mark Russell:

Yes. With limited resources, I would probably have targeted it more at those most in need and included secondary school children in that mix. We will continue talking to the Government about secondary school children; I am deeply concerned about them as well.

Q This is probably for Lynn or Katharine. In terms of trying to address mental health issues as they arise early on, before they become a crisis, following the change in Government, are you aware of any change in the approach towards mental health support in schools through mental health support teams for clusters of schools?

Lynn Perry:

I have not yet seen any change on the ground. We deliver a number of mental health support teams in schools. We consider them to be an effective way to reach children and young people at an early stage, and to intervene before they reach crisis point. There are often relationships of trust. Quite frequently, people know their children very well within the school context and can manage that supported and enabled engagement with provision in schools. I have not seen anything that has translated into a direct change in practice at this juncture, but we think it is a really important area of work. We think that there is potential to do more in that space, by looking at what might be described as an MHST+ type model.

Finally, Darren Paffey. We have about 90 seconds left.

Q Clauses 13 and 14 make provision for the financial oversight of care providers, and clause 9 looks at better regional arrangements for accommodation. What are your views on how effective that will be in improving provision for the care of children?

Katharine Sacks-Jones:

As I said earlier, these are welcome measures. There is very little oversight of the providers at the moment, so a number of measures will improve that oversight. The missing piece is that if you do not tackle sufficiency, the power imbalance will still sit in the hands of the providers who provide the majority of homes for children. Greater oversight needs to come alongside improving sufficiency. One way to do that is to have a national strategy, which is missing at the moment. We think the Bill is an opportunity to introduce that.

Q To what extent does the regional co-operation deal with sufficiency?

Katharine Sacks-Jones:

I think there are benefits to be had in regional commissioning. We are concerned to ensure that provision for children is not then condensed in certain areas of a region, which could mean children still being moved great distances. We would like to see a safeguard in the Bill around not moving children far from home unless it is in their interest, to go alongside the new regional co-operation arrangements.

Lynn Perry:

I echo some of what Katharine said there. There has to be a focus on outcomes for children in care, and in particular for all providers to be able to demonstrate that they are taking the sort of steps that Katharine describes, which would lead to better outcomes for children. We need to recognise that with 80% of existing provision being provided privately, any sudden exit might also cause some challenges for children. So, the sufficiency piece is really important, but we need to rebuild what I reluctantly describe as the market, to provide care for children in a different way. That will take some time.

I understand that this session should run until 3.15 pm.

Good afternoon. Can you tell us briefly, in your own words, about the urgency—in your view—or otherwise of the Bill? We all agree that your organisations do outstanding, amazing, essential work with vulnerable children and young people up and down the country. How has the landscape for children changed in the last decade? Have things got better for them or worse? Is the Bill needed or notQ ?

Lynn Perry:

As an individual charity, we run 800 services. However, right across the coalition, we are seeing an increased level of presenting need. A number of factors are influencers in that: of course, the long shadow of the covid pandemic and then, hard on its heels, the cost of living crisis, which has really impacted a lot of the families that we work with across our charities. Our practitioners across the charities also tell us that thresholds for services are getting increasingly high. Even within some of our early intervention services, we are working with increased complexity of need. That is a really important factor to recognise, because families are under pressure for much longer, which leads to issues that are much more intractable and difficult to address. That is part and parcel of the picture that we are seeking to address.

Without a significant investment in early intervention and early help—the level of spend—I do not think we will be able to achieve the radical transformation that the Bill aims to achieve. We have been doing a report since 2010 that looks at children’s services and funding and the spend on them. We are now seeing a tipping point. If we do not invest now in early help, it will be very difficult for the pendulum to swing back.

Mark Russell:

I absolutely endorse all of that. The data in that report shows that councils in England spent £12.2 billion on children’s services, and that is an increase of £600 million on the previous year. However, expenditure on early intervention and support for families has halved during that period, and support for later interventions has doubled, so we are spending all the money at the crisis end. That is the first thing.

Allied to that, the cost of living crisis has hit families really hard around the country. My colleagues who work directly with children are having to buy food for children. We are having to buy shoes for children, duvets for children, and beds for children, who are struggling really deeply right now. I have always had a quote over my desk at home by an American writer called Frederick Douglass, who said:

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

I think he was right. I welcome the Bill and also the engagement that our organisations have had with the Government on its content. Thank you for having us along to present our voice to this debate today. However, we need to do much more to give every child in Britain the best possible start in life.

Katharine Sacks-Jones:

Just to add, children in the care system are some of the most vulnerable children in our country. We have more children in care than there have been historically—84,000 in England. The outcomes for them are getting worse on a number of issues, including more children being moved away from their local area, away from their family, brothers and sisters, and away from their school. Frequently, they are being moved just because there are not enough places for them to live closer to home. We are seeing an increase in young people leaving the care system and becoming homeless, so on all those issues the outcomes for children in the care system are getting worse. This is an opportunity to address some of those issues, and we very much welcome some of the provisions in the Bill, but there is an opportunity to go further to strengthen it and to really change things for children in the care system.

I thank all the witnesses for coming today and giving evidence to the Committee. We now move on to our next panel.