Margaret Hodge
Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service
This speech was given as part of a debate in the House of Commons.
Margaret Hodge: I warmly congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and his Committee on an excellent piece of work. It is a very comprehensive report, and was my learning document on CAFCASS [Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service] when I was first appointed to this job. It seemed that the Committee might have known something that I did not know - namely, that a Minister for Children with responsibility for young people and families was to transfer to the Department. It wanted to set me a challenging agenda, and it has done that very effectively. I concur with the view that the Education and Skills Committee should pursue some of the critical issues seriously as it monitors our Department's work.
Like all Members who have spoken in the debate, I acknowledge the commitment and knowledge of all the front-line CAFCASS court welfare officers and the work that they do in such a critical area. In any discussion on the organisation as a whole, everyone who has had a part to play in where we have got to has acknowledged that extremely good work.
It may be because I am married to a lawyer, but in the very early days of my appointment I got more representations on the service of CAFCASS than I did on many other areas. Many of the letters from friends and colleagues when I was first appointed asked me to improve the quality of service from CAFCASS. I take the matter extremely seriously. I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) said. We should have the interest of children at the heart of what we do, which is what the new directorate in our Department and my job are about. We should ensure that children at this most vulnerable part of their lives are given the necessary good-quality support swiftly - whether it is a public or private law case. That is an essential way of measuring whether we are doing what we ought to be doing.
When I first considered some of the issues involved, I was quite shocked at how long the delays were, and the length of time taken by court proceedings in public law. A week is long time in a child's life, but a year is a heckish long time. The fact that the protocol on public law cases is now set at 40 weeks seems to me far too long for vulnerable children who are at a vulnerable stage of their lives. Although we shall work to that protocol, it is my ambition to re-examine it in order to see whether we can do more.
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): I see that the Minister has only 65 minutes left to complete her summing up, so I shall be brief. On the crucial point about delay, what does she make of the response of CAFCASS that it will find it difficult to allocate cases within 48 hours?
Margaret Hodge: I shall not promise to resolve the matter overnight. The problems are complex, and I shall allude to some of them. We are attempting to recruit some highly qualified, highly experienced staff, with the appropriate experience to do the sensitive task that is required of them. Many of us are fishing in the same pool, so the challenge of making that pool larger will not be resolved overnight. I want to focus on that area, and put a lot of energy into it. In the Green Paper "Every Child Matters" we talk about investment in the work force, and the importance of recruiting, training, keeping and maintaining highly qualified social workers to work in the front line, in the voluntary sector and in all the new agencies the Government have established, such as the youth offending teams. We have created a whole new set of environments in which social workers can support children's behaviour and attendance at school - and work has already been done. We cannot resolve the problem of staff growth overnight, but we are doing everything we can to speed up the process. I can and will give immediate attention to providing high-quality staff.
I can assure the House that CAFCASS will be a child-centred organisation; its business is to protect children's interests and rights at the most vulnerable point in their lives, when they are facing huge change. The Department will give that priority. It is early days, and I am trying to settle into a new job. In my new role, I have identified that as an area on which I must focus.
This has been a good, non-confrontational debate, and I welcome that. Several hon. Members talked about the problems that were created. Looking back may not be helpful, although we must learn from past mistakes. The problem of staffing in the organisation and the dismissal of the chief executive was one thing, but not having enough time to launch it properly was another. The dispute with the self-employed guardians, which the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) spent some time taking about, was a damaging period in CAFCASS's development.
There are other issues, such as poor accommodation, where children are often on the same premises as offenders. Such problems became part of CAFCASS's legacy and we must deal with them. Harmonising everything across 117 organisations into one body is a huge, awesome task, and we probably did not realise that it would be quite so difficult. I do not know whether the statistics I have seen are wrong or right - all I can do is use them in this debate. Everything in the garden was not desperately rosy before CAFCASS came into being. In the years leading up to its establishment, there were growing delays in turning around public law cases. In 1996, it took 46 weeks on average to complete a case. By 2000, the time had risen to 50 weeks. By 2002–03, the last year for which we have proper statistics, the average had come down a little to 48 weeks. That is far too long. Nevertheless, the legacy was not good.
The number of applications to the courts have also massively increased and are again increasing in this financial year. In 1996, there were 16,000 such applications, and by 2000 that had risen to 22,000. In the six months to March 2003 there was a 15 per cent. increase in care case requests - and those were the more complicated cases.
Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre): As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, a number of hon. Members visited our local offices. The figures quoted on the increase in cases were reflected in my local office, although it was felt that a large factor in that was the revocation of care orders. This does not necessarily have anything to do with the problems. It could be about good practice.
Does not the first figure on the length of cases go beyond the influence of CAFCASS? Is it not to do with how court procedures operate? Nevertheless, that does not detract from the fact that a guardian should be appointed within 48 hours.
Margaret Hodge: I take that point entirely. Although we will make every endeavour to support the CAFCASS's board and executive in improving the quality and speed of its service, they do not operate alone. Part of the answer must lie - certainly in public law cases - in how social workers deal with care cases that need to go before the courts, and in the time that the courts give to hearing cases. Members have mentioned examples of delays in allocating a CAFCASS officer, but I have also heard of examples of horrendous delays in identifying sufficient court time to hear cases that CAFCASS has prepared. I hope that the Select Committee that monitors the work of the Department for Constitutional Affairs will continue to examine this aspect of its work. I work closely with my fellow Ministers in the Department so that we take an holistic approach, particularly to public law cases, which is where the delays are particularly difficult.
Things are getting better, although they are still not good enough. By July 2003, more than 96 per cent. of private law cases had been allocated 10 weeks before the case was filed. In public law cases, we still have a long way to go, and my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, North and for Lancaster and Wyre talked about examples of unacceptable delays in London and Wales. Currently, 69 per cent. of public law cases are allocated in seven days, which is below the current target of 80 per cent.
There are huge regional variations: I have no doubt that when the Committee examined this subject it noticed that. In public law cases, there is no delay in the south-west, but there is enormous delay in the north-east. We need to understand better why those regional variations in allocations occur, and try to address that.
Another and more difficult issue, which has not been mentioned this afternoon, is that there are huge regional variations in the number of hours that an individual court welfare officer spends on a case: in Surrey, the average is 182 hours per case, in south-east Wales it is 69 hours per case - that might interest the hon. Member for Cardiff, North - in Merseyside it is 76 hours, and in Devon it is 178 hours. There may be good reasons for these variations, but we need to do more work to investigate why resources are being used in different ways in different areas, and whether there is anything that will support our efforts to try to speed things up.
Mr. Dawson: In doing that work, I accept that it is legitimate to ask such questions. Can the Minister assure me that that will not be a top-down paper exercise, and that it will involve genuine discussion with the people who are doing the hard and sometimes very time-consuming and good-quality work on the ground?
Margaret Hodge: I completely agree that it would be appalling if that were a paper exercise. For us to be able to take any action in respect of those differences, we must have a proper understanding of what is happening in individual cases.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) also talked about that work not being a tick-box exercise. I strongly take that point on board. When there are targets, there is always a danger that people will feel impelled to meet them mechanistically, rather than in a way that reflects the quality of service that we want. As we advance, we must be careful that the allocation of cases does not become a tick-box exercise that merely shows well in terms of the statistics.
The quality of court welfare officers was raised by several Members, particularly by my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and for Lancaster and Wyre. I agree that those social workers deal with children at one of the most vulnerable points in their lives. Therefore, ensuring that we have high-quality front-line officers must be a central part of my work as we try to improve the quality of service offered by CAFCASS.
The issue relates partly to pay - there has been a better pay deal - and partly to training. I welcome the work that CAFCASS has done in introducing a training programme for staff. Good progress has been made on some of the Select Committee recommendations on the training fund. Morale is another difficult issue that we must now confront. The morale of the organisation must be raised so that it can move forward. I accept that we need staff who are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre said, steeped in an understanding of children and who have appropriate expertise.
Several Members mentioned funding. I find that a difficult issue. The predecessor bodies costed their services at £66.5 million. CAFCASS therefore appeared to be properly funded in its first year. I shall not delve into the history to determine whether it was, but we cannot move away from the fact that it started with a baseline budget of £71.7 million, which has risen to £95 million in 2003–04. That is a considerable increase, but frankly, it is too early for me to know whether the budget is sufficient for the organisation to undertake the job that we have entrusted to it. We will do more work on that. The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) said that we cannot write blank cheques. We are in a tight spending round, and I have a huge range of priorities in which to invest money for children, young people and families. We must be certain that that CAFCASS's massive budget increase is being properly used.
We are holding discussions with CAFCASS. It faces real difficulties, which some hon. Members mentioned. For example, it does not control demand but is a demand-led organisation. When the service was dispersed among 117 different bodies, it was easy to subsume an extra case or two in a larger local authority social services department budget. It is much tougher for a stand-alone non-departmental public body to do that. We must think through the implications of the demand and determine what is happening. Equally, we must ensure that the money is properly spent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford said, I must assure myself that I know what is really needed by the organisation. I am putting my mind to that.
Several Members spoke about corporate governance. I wish to put on record my thanks to Anthony Hewson for his work in very difficult circumstances as the first chairman of CAFCASS. I have known him for some time - he worked for Scope when I had responsibility for disability issues. He is a very honourable man who puts in a great deal of effort and who cares very much about children. He gave his best to the organisation in its early days.
We appointed Clive Booth, who was chairman of the Teacher Training Agency, to review the membership. He will report to me quickly, and I shall take swift action based on his report. The Select Committee suggested, and we endorse, that necessary aspect of moving the organisation forward.
Mr. Dawson: The website of The Guardian - a newspaper that I try never to read - reported yesterday that Sir Clive Booth
"has been appointed to look at how the board operates, it has nothing to do with families and children."
Is the Minister able to disabuse The Guardian of that notion?
Margaret Hodge: I, too, noted that little item on the website - it was drawn to my attention; I did not identify it myself. I do not think that that is a valid criticism. Clive Booth has enormous experience of how organisations are run and what makes for good corporate governance. We do not look for detailed knowledge of the specific issues in the corporate governance of the organisation. We look for the appropriate skills and qualifications that will make for a good body. However, we are discussing a non-executive body; the executive is where a lot of experience is needed. I have full confidence in Clive Booth, and I think that he will do a good job for us. I hope that hon. Members present endorse the work that he is doing.
We will also review the framework document when those issues are transferred to my Department - I was unsure whether the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed understood that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North raised some issues about CAFCASS in Wales. As she knows, we are reviewing the matter with the Secretary of State for Wales, his colleagues and colleagues at the Welsh Assembly. We will try to come to a swift decision on how to ensure that children's interests are protected. That is the prime objective in my mind as we move forward with the organisation. My hon. Friend also talked about the importance of a language Act; I understand that CAFCASS is developing a Welsh language scheme and has increased the number Welsh-speaking front-line court welfare officers - I hope that she welcomes that. She also talked about the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and differences in how it will be implemented in England and Wales, and "Every Child Matters". I take the point entirely; we need to reflect those issues in the training that we give to court welfare officers working in Wales.
A number of hon. Members talked about support services; that was an interesting part of the debate. In these early days we need to focus CAFCASS firmly on its core business. However, one of the joys of bringing all the services that impact on a child's life together is that in time we will be able to use our experience and expertise to reflect more widely on issues surrounding contact, for example, and how best to support children as they go through the court processes. I talked to many of the non-statutory organisations referred to in the debate about those and other issues.
Mr. Dawson: One of the really welcome things in the report is the professed support that CAFCASS gives to the participation and involvement of children. However, could it not become involved with organisations such as A National Voice, the Who Cares? Trust and Voice for the Child in Care, which are already doing extremely valuable work in that area? CAFCASS does not need to reinvent the wheel and erect another structure.
Margaret Hodge: Yes, I completely take that point and will reflect on it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford talked about the early intervention schemes in Florida and referred us to the article by Mrs. Justice Bracewell in The Guardian yesterday, which I managed to read during the debate. I have looked at the scheme; it is extremely interesting and we are considering whether we can take it forward with Mrs. Justice Bracewell. As with all such things, it would cost money, even on a pilot basis. We have to see whether we can identify the appropriate resources.
Mr. Kidney: As the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) said earlier, some responsibilities are for other people to assume. For early interventions, parents need access to information as soon as an application is lodged. They also need access to specialist parenting programmes and to parenting mediators with special expertise and contacts. Those are the responsibilities of others, not CAFCASS, but we should link them together.
Margaret Hodge: Again, I completely take that point. Those who have heard me talking about the Green Paper in various contexts know how important I think parenting is to children's lives. That is a subject on which the Government need to do a lot more thinking and on which there should be a great deal more policy development. Much more appropriate support should be available to all parents. I was interested to hear about the positive parenting experiment that my hon. Friend is pursuing in Stafford, and would welcome a more detailed briefing from him.
I take also the point made by the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) that our ambition must be to reduce the number of children that go anywhere near the court system. I hope that, when the hon. Gentleman has read the Green Paper - perhaps he has already done so - he will see that, in evolving and developing services for children and young people, our emphasis is on trying to intervene earlier in their lives, to enable children to develop their potential and to stop them falling through the net and therefore into the court system. That involves the sort of programmes, such as sure start and home start, that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and that I think are extremely important. The aim is to identify problems early, so that we can intervene swiftly before a problem becomes a crisis as a child grows, develops and encounters certain issues.
Peter Bottomley: Will the Minister allow me to add a brief point? Most of what most people know comes from the ordinary media. The Minister may remember - we are probably about the same age - the time when the media gave practically no coverage to people's working lives, whereas now, business and what we do at work are given media coverage. Yet although there are television and radio programmes about gardening, cooking, housing, and antiques, we have no equivalent depicting the ups and downs and ins and outs of ordinary family life. The media should turn their undoubted talents not to the public service message but to some of the excitements of family life. We know how to fix a car, but we do not know how to fix a family or marriage, or care for children when their parents are in trouble.
Margaret Hodge: While the hon. Gentleman was speaking, I was thinking about the soaps and how all we see on television is things going horribly wrong and the rather vile aspects of family life.
Good parenting in the home has a greater positive impact on a child's life than the most wonderful teacher in the most excellent school. We all know that, and research confirms it. Armed with that knowledge, it behoves all of us to think how we can best support parents in their most difficult task. When I came home with my first bundle of joy in my arms, I was completely at a loss. We are given lots of antenatal advice, but we are not given a huge amount of post-natal support, except - I should say before I am attacked for making that remark - the support provided by the valuable services of the health visitor.
This is a difficult area of public policy for politicians at central and local level, because they are quickly accused of interfering in private family life and the Government are quickly accused of running a nanny state. Equally, however, I think that it is an abrogation of our duty not to acknowledge the importance of parenting and provide opportunities for support. There is not enough of that in the public domain.
Mr. Kidney: On the media, it is not a question of Government nannying. Members of the all-party group on children had a presentation about Australia's "triple P" - positive parenting programme - during which we watched an edition of a magazine-style programme about children's issues. The one we saw was about preparing a five-year-old child for their first day at school. It was a super, natural, entertaining piece of television. That is the kind of thing that we should appeal to our media to take an interest in.
Margaret Hodge: I could not agree more. The transition points in children's lives are particularly important, but we find that that is what there is least support for parents in. We want to focus on the transition from hospital to home, home to nursery, nursery to primary school, primary school to secondary school and beyond that. I also completely concur with what the hon. Member for Epping Forest said about the need for early intervention.
I should say to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre that we are planning to implement section 122 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 by the end of 2004. Apparently, I am shortly to receive the submission that will tell me all the details of implementation.
In discussing some of the difficulties that confront CAFCASS, we should not lose sight of the achievements, and I hope that all Members acknowledge them. We have terrific front-line practitioners, and we should celebrate that and acknowledge the extraordinarily good work that they do in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. We have more of them: CAFCASS has recruited 174 more practitioners just in the last financial year. The organisation should be commended on that. A comprehensive training programme is in place for front-line officers, which is good. There is a better response to an increase in referrals, and that, too, needs to be celebrated. Money is going to the support services. The new organisation can, because it is unified, focus on vulnerable children. It has a specific remit to promote the welfare of children through its services. We should celebrate all of that.
What are our aims? We want to get to a situation in which cases are speedily allocated and promptly dealt with by an extremely high-quality service. We want all those who work on the front line to enjoy the best training and support, and work through what is a difficult period of bringing together many disparate organisations harmoniously, with national standards of practice. We want to see how CAFCASS can better support children and their families at a time of greatest need. We want not only to ensure that we meet the requirements of the protocol that has just been signed by all the organisations that deal with public law cases, but move beyond that if we can.
As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said, we want to get behind CAFCASS. With the transfer of responsibility, we have an opportunity to make a fresh start. I am determined to grasp that opportunity because, like all Members who have spoken in this afternoon's debate, I believe that our children deserve nothing less.
