Members present:

Dr Hendron (Chairperson)
Mr Berry
Rev Robert Coulter
Mr J Kelly
Ms McWilliams
Ms Ramsey
Mrs I Robinson

Witness:

Mr R McConaghy ) Assembly Research Services

The Chairperson: I should like to welcome Mr Rab McConaghy, an Assembly researcher.

Mr McConaghy: This will be a short briefing; I do not intend to look at the Bill clause-by-clause, especially as the Committee is meeting officials later. Everyone should have received the research paper that the Assembly’s research section has produced, as well as the explanatory and financial memoranda.

The Children (Leaving Care) Bill was introduced on 4 March 2002, and the Second Stage was agreed on 19 March. On 7 May the Committee sought, and gained, approval for an extension. The period for Committee scrutiny will end on 26 June.

The Bill is aimed at ensuring that children who are 16 or 17 years old and who have been in care are given adequate support that will allow them to adjust to life outside a care environment. The duty extends to the age of 21, but can go beyond that if the young person receives assistance for training and education.

The Bill will amend the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, specifically article 35 of that Order. The 1995 Order allows and requires authorities to offer advice and assistance to young people once they have left care. However, the proposed legislation is a positive step aimed at enhancing that support framework. It will effectively tighten up and formalise the current legislation on the obligations that an authority has to young people leaving its care. Certain things are specified in the legislation, such as a formalised needs assessment; the development of pathway plans to help young people in their last period in care and in leaving care; and the appointment of a personal adviser. There are also specific requirements for the authority, in this case the trust, to look at accommodation needs and the suitability of accommodation in relation to the young person.

A major element of the new legislation, and perhaps one of the more controversial elements, relates to clause 6, which provides for the removal of care leavers’ entitlement to standard benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance, income support and so forth. Those would be replaced by a package arranged by the trust, using funds that have been transferred from the Department for Social Development. The rationale is that that package would be better tailored to meet a young person’s needs. Some people would be excluded from that and would stay on the main benefits system — primarily young care leavers who are lone parents or who are disabled.

The Bill effectively mirrors the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 in England and Wales, which amended the Children Act 1989. The background in GB has been quite complex and goes back to the early and mid-1990s, when there were different reports about childcare, such as that on the scandals in north Wales, and so forth. A lot of work that was done at that time was broadened out to focus on what happens to children not only in homes, but also once they leave.

The Social Services Inspectorate produced a report in 1997 that looked at young care leavers’ specific problems, and it mentioned a few pointers, such as lack of academic qualifications and consequent higher unemployment rates, greater propensity to go into more serious adult crime, higher levels of homelessness and frequent changes of addresses.

The Utting Report, which reviewed the safeguards for children living away from home, was a key document at that time. It was produced by a committee chaired by Sir William Utting. It confirmed a lot of the findings of the Social Services Inspectorate. The new Labour Government of 1997 looked at other aspects of childcare and social work and introduced the "Quality Protects" programme and the White Paper, ‘Modernising Social Services’. A range of things was introduced at that time, and there was a desire for streamlining. A consultation on the needs of carers went out in 1999, and that led to the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 in England and Wales.

Although the Utting Report, which was the basis of the legislation, applied only to England and Wales, John McFall, who was the Minister responsible for health in Northern Ireland, welcomed it. The point was made that because Northern Ireland had more recent legislation in the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, there was a lack of urgency, and less perceived need to develop new legislation. However, it was recognised that the position should be monitored.

The Northern Ireland Social Services Inspectorate conducted similar work to its British counterpart and produced the report ‘Promoting Independence’, which mirrored the GB findings and was essentially a matter of catch-up work. The report recommended the application of the English and Welsh legislation.

Ms McWilliams: Are we able to follow what you are saying in your written paper?

Mr McConaghy: Yes, most things are covered in the paper.

Ms McWilliams: You are speaking from a set of notes prepared on your research paper.

Mr McConaghy: It is just the summary around that.

Ms McWilliams: I am trying to key in and flag up some of the points as you are going through the paper.

Mr McConaghy: I have tried to keep them in sequence. However, some of the issues that I thought might be better for discussion are re-sequenced slightly in the briefing.

Ms McWilliams: OK.

Mr McConaghy: The Social Services Inspectorate report in Northern Ireland directly recommended the application of the GB legislation. A major research project at that time was the Northern Ireland leaving care project, which was initiated in 1996 and which confirmed many of the research findings in Britain. The statistics showed that one in two young care leavers in Northern Ireland left school without any qualifications, compared to only one in 14 in Britain. Six months after leaving care, a young person was four times more likely to be unemployed than the general population average. That represents the background to the Bill. It is paralleling what is happening in England and Wales.

The legislation is only part of the story. Detailed regulations and guidance will be needed if the Bill becomes law, and there will be a further consultation period for that. The regulations must address the basics in the Bill, such as the prescribed age, and how long a child has to be looked after in order to become eligible. The Committee may find that it has a heavier workload when the regulations and guidance go out for consultation. The needs assessments and pathway plans, along with the personal advisers, will also have to be addressed in the guidance and detailed regulations.

The explanatory memorandum with the Bill shows that there was a positive feedback from the consultation phase held by the Department. There has been some criticism about how these provisions operate in England and Wales, although there has not been time for a full evaluation. The primary criticism was that the language used in the legislation, such as "keep in touch" — a trust would have an obligation to "keep in touch" with someone once he or she has left care — is quite woolly. How would that operate in practice? There is a very open tone, and that is probably necessary in social welfare legislation. However, there is a concern that the language lacks rigour. How would individual trusts and authorities follow it up?

Clause 6 is one of the main clauses concerned with the withdrawal of benefits. There has been criticism about how that would be implemented consistently across different trust areas and how other benefit channels would be placed in relation to young people. For example, in cases where a young person is currently eligible for free prescriptions, would that be taken from them? If they lose other income benefits, they will no longer be making national insurance credits. Such issues have been raised in relation to the English and Welsh legislation.

During the consultation phase, some people asked that more time be given to allow evaluative work to emerge from England and Wales. The Committee must strike a balance between waiting for that work and pushing forward with what is generally seen as a strong piece of legislation.

Legislation on this aspect of childcare in the Republic of Ireland is found in the Child Care Act 1991. That Act loosely states that authorities and boards "may" follow up with young care leavers. However, with the resource constraints in the South, there is a feeling that that is not being carried through to the extent desired by the voluntary sector. There has also been a tendency in the South to focus on homelessness; there is a strong homelessness lobby there. Some good legislation and policy guidance is emerging on homelessness prevention strategies and so on.

The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 also allows for trusts and boards to follow up, but it does not put a requirement on them to do so. Research is ongoing to gauge the success of boards and trusts in carrying that through. Section 6 of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, relating to benefits, extends to Scotland. The benefit shift will be away from social security to a package delivered by the appropriate trust.

The feedback seems to be that this is seen as a positive development and that it strengthens existing legislation. The wording is still open, and detailed guidance and regulations must be developed afterwards. During that period, there will probably be a chance to see some evaluative work from England and Wales. Again, there will have to be a balance between the speed of implementation and allowing that work to feed through.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

Ms McWilliams: One of the issues that seems to be coming up — and I do not know how familiar you are with it — is eligibility for benefits. What does that package look like? Has any work been done in Scotland, England or Wales on the support package?

Mr McConaghy: I am not sure that the package is fleshed out in the guidance. It would be up to individual trusts to work on their own to develop specific packages. Thus, one of the criticisms relates to how consistent those packages would be across different authorities. You may wish to check with the Department, but I do not think that that has been addressed in the guidance. There would be quite a bit of freedom for the trusts to develop those packages. In our search for work from England and Wales, we were unable to get details on this.

Ms McWilliams: There are variations between trusts in Northern Ireland depending on what support and resources they have available. That has been demonstrated in community care. Would this lead to huge differentials depending on what trust you were in, or is there some kind of bottom line?

Mr McConaghy: The Department has drawn down £400,000 a year over the next two or three years from the Executive programme funds. That will be used to look at innovative leaving care packages. The Department sees the rest of the funding as coming from within the existing baseline. However, there is £400,000 a year to develop different packages from within the trusts. There is no detail on the allocation of that money between trusts.

Mrs I Robinson: Does that mean that there would be differentials? Would different amounts be paid? We are again talking about postcodes; different trusts could have different levels of payment. Surely, that would be wrong, morally and in every other way?

Mr McConaghy: Certainly, there is the potential for a postcode lottery, and it has been criticised.

The Chairperson: A postcode lottery would be terrible. You can elaborate on that point afterwards.

Ms Ramsey: The explanatory memorandum says that during the consultation period, the issue of uniformity across trusts was raised. The cost of living in some areas must be taken into account. I am not suggesting that because someone lives in a certain area they should get more or less than someone else. We must ensure that there is consistency. For example, it might cost more to live in Belfast than in another area.

The Chairperson: Clarification on that must be sought from departmental officials.

Mr McConaghy: There may be an issue regarding the cost of living. It is clear from the legislation that practical cash assistance would be available for training, education, travel to and from places of training and education, and so on. The cost of living does not emerge specifically. That might be worth pursuing — what the margins are, and what the possible additional allowances for cost of living might be.

Ms McWilliams: I have read some of the submissions — only a few have been sent in — and there appears to be concern about the provision of personal advisers, such as when they would be appointed, and by whom.

Mr McConaghy: Clause 5 of the Bill allows for representations and a complaints procedure. There was criticism in England and Wales that the balance of power always lay with trusts. That was not clarified in relation to representation — how much input a young person would have in the appointment of an adviser, or in a situation in which they were being pushed down a particular road or pathway plan that they did not think was appropriate, but the trust perhaps wanted to pursue because it was cheaper. Although there is an allowance for a complaints procedure, there may be a feeling that it is not strong enough. The balance of the young person might be in the other way.

The Chairperson: Thank you.