RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
16 JUNE 2000
The Children Leaving
Care Bill [HL]
Bill 134 1999-2000
The Bill extends the duties of local authorities to care
leavers and removes the entitlement of 16 and 17 year
old care leavers to the main income-related benefits. It
makes the authority that last looked after the young
person responsible for the after-care duties rather than
the authority in which the young person is living. Local
authorities will have a new duty to keep in touch with
care leavers, to provide them with a personal adviser
and to prepare pathway plans mapping their route to
independence, including support to be provided by the
local authority.
The Bill applies to England and Wales except for
Clause 6, which deals with social security benefits and
therefore also applies to Scotland.
The Second Reading in the House of Commons is due
on 21 June 2000.
Jo Roll
SOCIAL POLICY SECTION
HOUSE OF COMMONS LIBRARY
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Summary of main points
The main purpose of the Children (Leaving Care) Bill is to
extend the duties of local
authorities to care leavers. The Bill does this by amending
the Children Act 1989. It also
removes the right to certain social security benefits of 16
and 17 year old care leavers, whose
entitlement was already relatively limited compared with
that of older claimants. The Bill
incorporates existing provisions for care leavers as well as
adding new ones. This summary
focuses on the main new provisions.
The Bill defines three groups of care leavers who are
covered by the new provisions in
slightly different ways. They form a more closely defined
group than those covered by
existing provisions for care leavers although precise
details of the definitions are likely to be
covered in Regulations. The three groups are: Eligible
children, who are those in care aged
16 and 17, relevant children who are those aged 16 and 17
who meet the criteria for eligible
children but have left care, and former relevant children
who are aged 18+ and were relevant
or (if aged 18 on leaving) eligible children.
The Bill also changes the authority responsible for care
leavers from the one where the child
is living to the one which last looked after a relevant or
eligible child.
Clause 1 of the Bill (includes new Paragraphs 19A-C of the
Children Act Schedule 2):
defines and covers eligible children. It provides that local
authorities must: assess the needs
of eligible children with a view to determining what advice,
assistance and support they
should provide; prepare a pathway plan for each child and
keep it under review; and arrange
for each child to have a personal adviser.
Clause 2 of the Bill (includes new Section 23A-C of the
Children Act) can be divided into
two: the provisions that apply to relevant children and the
provisions that apply to former
relevant children.
Clause 2 defines relevant children and provides that the
local authority that used to look after
a relevant child must: keep in touch with the child whether
he is in their area or not; reestablish
contact if it looses touch (and keep trying until it
succeeds); if it has not already
done so, appoint a personal adviser, prepare a pathway plan,
which it must keep under
review, and carry out an assessment of needs as for eligible
children; unless satisfied the
child does not need it, maintain him by providing him with,
or maintaining him in, suitable
accommodation and providing such other support as may be
prescribed. This support may be
in cash and existing provisions relating to means-testing,
as well as those relating to whose
wishes must be taken into account, are carried over.
Clause 2 also defines former relevant children and creates
new duties that apply to them up to
the age of 21 (and beyond in the case of education and
training). It provides that the local
authority that used to look after the child must: keep in
touch and re-establish contact if it
looses touch; continue the appointment of a personal adviser
and keep the pathway plan
under review. New duties added during the Bill’s passage
through the Lords are to: provide
assistance with expenses associated with employment; provide
assistance with expenses
associated with education and training (and as long as the
course continues, a personal
adviser, pathway plan and vacation accommodation where
necessary); and provide general
assistance where the welfare of the young person requires
it.
Clause 3 of the Bill (includes new Sections 23D-E of the
Children Act): provides for the
Secretary of State to be able to require local authorities
to provide personal advisers for other
classes of children. It also sets the main areas to be covered
in pathway plans (provision for
details and reviews to be prescribed in Regulations)
Clause 4 of the Bill (includes a rewritten Section 24 and
new Sections 24A-D of the Children
Act): rewrites the existing Section 24 and covers a wider
range of care leavers than those
defined in Clauses 1 and 2, as well as, for some purposes,
young people leaving certain other
institutions. New provisions include enabling local
authorities to provide assistance with
education and training under this Section up to the age of
24 regardless of when the course
started. (Currently the course must have been started before
the young person was aged 21.)
The Clause also requires local authorities to provide, or
pay for, vacation accommodation
under Section 24 for care leavers (in the wider sense).
Clause 5 of the Bill provides for representations and
complaints procedures for care leavers
(with details to be set in regulations).
Clause 6 of the Bill excludes eligible and relevant children
from claiming Income Support,
Income-related Jobseekers’ Allowance and Housing Benefit
(with provision for exceptions in
Regulations).
Clause 7 of the Bill deals with minor and consequential
amendments.
Clause 8 of the Bill deals with interpretation commencement
and extent. The commencement
date is not specified in the Bill but the Government has
said that the provisions and associated
Regulations (not all mentioned in this summary) will come
into force in April 2001, with the
possible exception of the new provisions that were added for
older care leavers during the
passage of the Bill through the House of Lords. Except for
Clause 6, which covers social
security benefits, the Bill applies to England and Wales
only. As social security benefits are a
reserved matter, Clause 6 applies to Scotland as well.
CONTENTS
I Introduction 7
II Background 7
A. The Utting Report 7
B. After the Utting Report 10
1. Quality Protects 10
2. The Government’s Response to Utting 13
3. The Health Select Committee and the Government’s Reply 14
C. Government Consultation on legislation for care leavers
16
D. Existing Provision for Care Leavers 19
1. The Children Act 1989 19
2. Social Security Benefits (by Kim Greener) 21
III The Bill 23
A. The Bill as introduced in the House of Lords 23
B. Issues raised in the House of Lords 27
Appendix 1, Children Act 1989: The Existing Section 24 39
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
7
I Introduction
The Children (Leaving Care) Bill was introduced in the House
of Lords on 19 November
1999. As originally published, it focused on 16-17 year
olds. It was amended in the House
of Lords to include more provision for those aged 18 and
over and the amended Bill is
due for its Second Reading in the House of Commons on
Wednesday June 21 2000.
II Background
The Bill is based on the 1997 Utting Report’s recommendation
that the duties of local
authorities relating to children leaving the public care
system should be extended. This
general recommendation was supported by the Health Select
Committee, which made
more specific and further-reaching proposals for amending
existing legislation in order to
help care leavers. The Utting Report’s general
recommendation was accepted by the
Government in its formal response to the Report and in its
reply to the Health Select
Committee, both published in 1998. The Government's
commitment to legislate in this
area was also made in the White Paper on social services of
that year. The Government’s
more detailed proposals for changes in legislation were
published in its consultation
document, Me Survive, Out There? New Arrangements For Young
People Living In And
Leaving Care, published by the Department of Health in June
1999.
A. The Utting Report
A series of scandals in children's homes led the previous
Conservative Government to set
up two enquiries relating to children in the public care
system. One was the judicial
enquiry headed by Sir Ronald Waterhouse specifically into
the abuse of children in care
in North Wales and the other was the wider-ranging review
into safeguards for children
living away from home, headed by Sir William Utting. These
were both set up in 1996
and were announced by John Major, who was then Prime
Minister.1
The Waterhouse Report was not published until February 20002
but the Utting Report
appeared in November 19973 and, among its many
recommendations, it said that local
authorities should not forsake their responsibilities as
parents until the child that they
were looking after had reached the age of 18.4 To this end,
existing legislation should be
amended:
1 HC Deb 13 June 1996 c 421
2 Lost In Care, Report of the Tribunal Of Inquiry Into The
Abuse Of Children In Care In The former
County Council Areas Of Gwynedd And Clwyd Since 1974, HC 201
of 1999-2000, February 2000
3 Sir William Utting, Safeguards for Children Living Away
From Home, Department of Health and Welsh
Office, 1997.
4 Sir William Utting, People Like Us, The Report of the
Review Of The Safeguards For Children Living
Away From Home, The Department of Health, The Welsh Office,
November 1997 paragraphs 8.54 -
8.64
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
8
Local authorities are required by Section 24 of the Children
Act to advise, assist
and befriend each looked after child with a view to
promoting his welfare after he
ceases to be looked after. They also have a duty to advise
and befriend children
they have looked after beyond their 16th birthday until they
reach 21, but they
have only a power - not a duty - to assist them in kind or,
exceptionally, in cash...
…The Review is forced to conclude that Section 24 of the
Children Act should be
amended to extend the duty of local authorities to give
assistance to young people
they have looked after, including helping foster carers to
continue providing
support. This appears to be a significant extension: the
Inspectorate estimated that
33,450 young people were eligible for leaving care services
at 31 March 1995.
Nevertheless, additional investment in this highly
vulnerable group at this critical
stage seems entirely justified. Amendment to the Act should
also make clear that
provision is the responsibility of the 'looking after'
authority.
The problem, as seen in the Utting Report, was the
vulnerability of care leavers, many of
whom were poorly equipped to lead an independent life, the
poor level of services for
care leavers, and the practice in some local authorities of
encouraging young people to
leave care prematurely. The Report’s recommendation was
based on the findings of
several other reports. One of these, a report by the
Department of Health's Social Services
Inspectorate (SSI), summarised key findings of these studies
and reports. A summary is
set below. Due to the lack of official statistics on this
subject they have been frequently
quoted in Government statements since then.5 (More facts and
figures are provided at the
end of Section C below.)
• More than 75% of care leavers have no academic
qualifications of any kind6
• More than 50% of young people leaving care after 16 years
are unemployed7
• 17% of young women leaving care are pregnant or already
mothers8
• 10% of 16-17 year old claimants of DSS severe hardship
payments have been
in care9
• 23% of adult prisoners and 38% of young prisoners have
been in care10
• 30% of young single homeless people have been in care11
A summary of the Social Services Inspectorate’s own findings
is reproduced in Box 1.
The Inspectorate found examples of good practice in some
local authorities but reported
that there were areas where not even the minimum statutory
regulations were being
5 Social Services Inspectorate, "…When Leaving Homes Is
Also Leaving Care…" An Inspection Of
Services For Young People Leaving Care, Department of
Health, 1997
6 Biehal, Clayden, Stein and Wade, Moving On, HMSO 1995
7 I Sinclair and I Gibbs, Quality of Care in Children's
Homes, University of York, 1996
8 L Garnet, Leaving Care and After, National Children’s
Bureau, 1992
9 Carey and Stein, Leaving Care, 1996
10 MacLaglin, Four Years Severe Hardship, Barnado’s and
Youth Aid, 1993 (This refers to people who had
once been in care but were not necessarily ‘care leavers’ as
defined in Box 2)
11 The Indentitac Prisoner, Prison Reform Trust, 1991 (This
refers to people who had once been in care but
were not necessarily ‘care leavers’ as defined in Box 2)
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
9
followed. The Utting Report referred to this, adding that
"a whole series of reports in the
previous decade highlighted concerns about the inadequacy of
the support offered to care
leavers at this critical stage of transition."12
The Utting Report also noted the views of care leavers. They
expressed reservations about
being compelled to live independently at 16 or 17 before
they were ready, losing
relationships with carers and friends, the hazards presented
by unregulated lodgings or
flats in hard to let areas, the loss of continuous social
work support, and not being able to
return to care.13 The Report expressed particular concern at
the volume of anecdotal
information about young people ceasing to be looked after at
the age of 16, "which
12 The Bibliography at the end of this Paper lists some of
these reports, together with others that have
appeared since the Utting Report was published.
13 These views were expressed in groups from 20 local
authorities convened by the organisation, FirstKey
(see paragraph 8.60 of the Utting Report)
Box 1 The Inspectorate’s own report
When leaving care is leaving home: The Inspection of Leaving
Care Services, Social
Services Inspectorate,1997 :
• some SSDs assumed that to be prepared for leaving
statutory care meant changing
placement to live in specialist resources. This made foster
carers wary of services from
leaving care teams
• that even if living with their family or friends, the
level of support needed is as great as
being in care. Those in supported schemes got excellent
support and appreciated it
• there were few opportunities for education and social care
and there were missed
opportunities relating to health needs. Where there were
facilities for information and
advice this was welcomed
• there were considerable variations in psychology and
psychiatry services available to
SSDs
• SSDs had difficulty getting useful agreements with other
agencies. Good examples of
housing and education schemes tended to be where there was a
sympathetic senior
manager in the other agency
• too often staff were satisfied if the young person had
accommodation and was signing
on. Where a team had responsibility for the 16 + year olds
they were better able to
negotiate schemes and individual packages
• SSDs did not have tracking systems for their care leavers.
Where an effort was made in
a friendly way to keep in touch, young people were more
likely to ask for help when
they needed it
• in some SSDs young people had to refer themselves as new
cases if they had lost touch
• some SSDs had provided very positive support for
counselling for 21 + years, who
were able to benefit and understand the reasons they were
looked after.
Summary of the SSI report reproduced in the Children Act
Report 1995-999, Cm 4579
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
10
suggested that some authorities operated informal policies
of encouraging premature ’
independence’."
The Report’s view was that none of the difficulties in
dealing with care leavers absolved
local authorities from scrupulous consideration of the needs
of individuals and attempting
to make provision for them:
That provision need not be expensive. It is plain from what
young people say
themselves that what they most lack is someone trustworthy
and resourceful to
turn to: a continuing role, in particular, for residential
and foster carers,
independent visitors and for social work.14
B. After the Utting Report
A few days after the Utting Report was published, Frank
Dobson, then Secretary of State
for Health, announced that he would lead a ministerial task
force to take forward the
recommendations.15 The next sections outline ensuing
developments.
1. Quality Protects
In September 1998 Frank Dobson launched a Government
initiative for children’s
services called Quality Protects.16 Although this initiative
covers all local authority
services for children, it contains within it particular
elements for care leavers and the
current Bill can be viewed as an element of this wider
initiative. The Quality Protects
programme has the following key elements:
• New national Government objectives for children’s services
that set out clear
outcomes for children and in some instances give precise
targets to be achieved
• A major role for local councillors in delivering the
programme (in line with guidance
issued to them) and, as the corporate parents of looked
after children, ensuring that
the children receive services of the highest quality
• A requirement that local authorities should submit Quality
Protects Management
Action Plans (MAPs) setting out how they intend to improve
their services, which
will be monitored and evaluated annually
• A new Children's Services Grant of £375 million payable
over three years, that is: £75
million in 1999/2000, £120 million in 2000/01 and £180
million in 2001/0217
14 Utting Report, as above, paragraph 8.63
15 Frank Dobson promises action on Utting Report, Department
of Health Press Notice, 19November 1997
16 Health Secretary Pledges to Transform Children’s
Services, Department of Health Press Release 93/288,
21 September 1998
17 Department of Health Press Notice, 12 April 2000 and
Department of Health Quality Protect website:
http://www/doh.gov.uk/quality.htm
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
11
The grants are subject to Parliamentary approval each year
and the relevant Special Grant
Report is debated in the Standing Committee on Statutory
Instruments. Payments under
the Children’s Services Grant are subject to the achievement
of satisfactory MAPs. In
1999-00 the special grant was targeted on six priority
areas. These remain priority areas
for expenditure in 2000-01. These include as one of the
objectives: Increasing the support
for those aged 16-18 living in and leaving care, including
steps to prevent inappropriate
discharge from care. Department of Health guidance to local
authorities says that they
should pay particular attention to arrangements for
increased support to those who have
left care.18
In the light of the findings from the evaluation of the
first round of Quality Protects
MAPs, the Government added two more priority areas on which
the children’s services
grant may be spent in 2000-01.19 These include one directed
at children still in care
designed to improve their long-term prospects: Improving the
life chances of looked after
children through expenditure on their education and health
needs, reducing offending
and more and better cultural, leisure and sports
opportunities.
Government guidance says that local authorities should take
full account of the needs of
black and minority ethnic children who are looked after.
They should also pay particular
attention to implementing the joint DH/DfEE guidance on the
education of looked after
children; and to reducing teenage pregnancy and supporting
teenage mothers and fathers
in the light of Teenage Pregnancy (SEU 1999). Expenditure
should not substitute for
services properly provided by local education authorities
and the health service.20
Earlier guidance to local authorities said that the special
grant for 1999-00 would be
payable only if the Quality Protects MAP provided evidence
that the local authority had
fully audited its services in relation to the objectives for
children’s services, and if it set
out with evidence how the authority would achieve progress
in relation to the six priority
areas.21 All 150 MAPs were evaluated by SSI Social Care
Regions and judged to be
acceptable. Grant was therefore paid to all local
authorities for 1999-00.
The special grant for 2000-01 will be made only to those
local authorities which
demonstrate satisfactory progress in implementing the plans
set out in the Quality
Protects MAP for 1999-00. In particular, satisfactory
progress will need to be shown in
relation to the six priority areas for grant and in relation
to the targets in the Performance
Assessment Framework and the National Priorities Guidance;
and satisfactory plans for
action in 2000-01 in the eight priority areas and plans to
secure the Government’s
objectives for children’s services.
18 Department of Health Circular LAC (99) 33
19 These may change next year.
20 Department of Health Circular LAC (99) 33
21 Department of Health Circular LAC(98)28
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
12
The Government’s objectives for children’s services were
announced by Frank Dobson at
the launch of the Quality Protects programme in September
1998. They were then
included in the Modernising Social Services White Paper of
November 1998, when the
original eight main objectives were increased to eleven. The
eleven main objectives
remain unchanged from their original version. There are,
however, some sub-objectives
which are now supported by performance indicators drawn from
the Social Services
Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) published in July
1999 and by additional
Quality Protects Indicators which local authorities will be
required to use in Quality
Protects Management Action Plans (MAPs). The Government has
brought these together
in one document called Government Objectives for Children’s
Services.22
Objectives relating to care leavers are reproduced below:
Objective: To ensure that young people leaving care, as they
enter adulthood, are
not isolated and participate socially and economically as
citizens.
Sub-objectives :
• For young people who were looked after at the age of 16 to
maximise the
number engaged in education, training or employment at the
age of 19. (For
the sake of clarity the Government intends to introduce an
additional target
each year for each cohort of young people.)
• To maximise the number of young people leaving care after
their sixteenth
birthday who are in still touch with the Social Services
Department (SSD), or
a known and approved contact, on their 19th birthday. (All
the information
required by the sub-objectives and performance indicators
will be routinely
available through the new collection on care leavers.
However this collection
has only just been introduced. By the very nature of the
indicators there is a
long lead in time and the first results will not be
available until 2002.)
• To maximise the number of young people leaving care on or
after their 16th
birthday who have suitable accommodation at the age of 19.
This information
will be available through the new collection on care
leavers. First results will
be available in 2002.
Indicators
Quality Protects Performance Indicator : The proportion of
children looked after on 1
April aged 16 who at the age of 19 are known to have
suitable accommodation. (“Suitable
accommodation” is defined in the glossary of the document)
Quality Protects Performance Indicator : The proportion of
children looked after on 1
April aged 16 with whom the SSD are in contact on their 19th
birthday.
22 Government Objectives for Children’s Services:
http://www.doh.gov.uk/pub/docs/doh/objcssmain.pdf
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
13
PAF Performance Indicator: Employment, education and
training for care leavers [joint
working]: The proportion of young people looked after on 1
April aged 16 who are
engaged in education, training or are employed at the age of
19.
National Priorities Guidance target: Demonstrate that the
level of employment, training or
education amongst young people aged 19 in 2001/02 who were
looked after by Local
Authorities in their 17th year on 1 April 1999, is at least
60% of the level amongst all
young people of the same age in their area.
2. The Government’s Response to Utting
The Government’s response to the Utting Report was announced
in the House of
Commons on 5 November 1998 together with a report of the
Government’s Response.23
Like the Utting Report, it covered a wide range of issues
relating to children in the public
care system. It contained a chapter on leaving care, which
said that the Government
accepted the conclusion of the Utting Report and was
determined to secure a better future
for care leavers. The Response amplified the Utting Report’s
basic recommendation with
specific suggestions, such as a requirement for care leavers
to have pathway plans
mapping their route to independence and a number of
proposals that did not necessarily
require legislation.
The Government’s proposals for care leavers, as summarised
in its Response to the Utting
Report, are reproduced below. The Government’s White Paper
on social services,
published about the same time also included a commitment to
legislate, when
Parliamentary time allowed, to create new and stronger
duties on local authorities to
support care leavers up to at least age 18.24
• Improving the quality of the care system so that young
people are better
prepared for adulthood
• Legislating when Parliamentary time allows to ensure that
the responsibilities
of local authorities for care leavers up to the age of 18
and beyond correspond
more closely with those of parents (including keeping in
touch with more
young people after they have left care); and ensuring the
responsibility for
providing after care is placed on the local authority which
has been looking
after the young person
• Improving the educational outcomes of looked after young
people and
encouraging post compulsory education
• Improving services on the ground by promoting the spread
and development
of specialist schemes for care leavers; and disseminating
good practice
23 HC Deb 5 November 1998 c1011-1023 and The Government’s
Response to the Children’s Safeguards
Review, Cm 4105, November 1998, chapter 4
24 Modernising Social Services, Department of Health, Cm
4169, November 1998
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
14
• Developing new arrangements for 16 to 18 year olds, for
announcement by
April 1999, aimed at developing life skills and clarifying
responsibility for
financial support so that young people are looked after
until they are
demonstrably ready and willing to leave care
• Improving assistance to care leavers to obtain suitable
and affordable
accommodation, including issuing guidance to housing and
social service
departments on the accommodation needs of care leavers and
the support
they require to maintain a stable tenancy
• Reducing the incidence of youth homelessness25
3. The Health Select Committee and the Government’s Reply
Before the Government’s Response to the Utting Report was
published, the Health Select
Committee had published its own report, in July 1998, on
children looked after by local
authorities, which also included recommendations relating to
children leaving care.26
These endorsed the Utting Report’s recommendation for
extending the powers of local
authorities under Section 24 of the Children Act 1989 and
contained additional points of
its own. It was more specific about the extensions to
existing legislation that it would like
to see and also recommended that statistical information
about service provision for, and
outcomes of, care leavers should be improved.
The Government’s Reply to the Health Committee was published
in December 1998. The
recommendations and the Government replies relating to care
leavers are set out below.
The main difference between them is that the Committee
wanted to see local authorities’
duties to help care leavers extended to age 21 and their
powers to help, to age 25 whereas
the Government was proposing to initially concentrate on 16
and 17 year olds.
The current care system provides deplorably little support
for care leavers
(Health Committee Recommendation 89)
142. The Government accepts that too many local authorities
fail to provide the
level of support which would enable care leavers to make a
successful transition
to adulthood. At the same time it is also true that many
examples can be found of
leaving care services, often provided by the voluntary
sector in partnership with
local authorities, which deliver a high level of personal
support to young people;
help them with accommodation; advise on education, training
and employment;
and give direct financial assistance.
143. The Government is intent on improving the life chances
of care leavers and
on driving up standards in the worst services to the level
of the best. To this end
we are brining forward a range of measures to improve the
quality of children’s
experience whilst being looked after; extending the
statutory after care
25 The Government’s Response to the Children’s Safeguards
Review (see above) paragraph 4.2
26 House of Commons Health Committee, Children Looked After
By Local Authorities, HC 319 of 1997-98,
paragraphs 313 - 316
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
15
responsibilities of local authorities; providing additional
resources to local
authorities to develop services; and issuing guidance on
good practice and the
need for agencies to work together. These measures are spelt
out in more detail in
the Government’s response to the Children’s Safeguards
review.
144. Under the terms of the Government’s Quality Protects
programme, services
for care leavers are one of six priority areas which will
attract the payment of the
Children’s Services Special Grant. The grant is intended to
assist local authorities
to increase the support provided for care leavers, including
steps to prevent the
inappropriate discharge of young people at 16 and 17.
145. The Government’s National Priorities for Health and
Social Services set an
overall objective of promoting and safeguarding the welfare
of socially excluded
children, and particularly children looked after by local
authorities. A specific
target has been set for local authorities to demonstrate
improvements in the level
of employment, training or education among care leavers by
2001/02.
It is clear that in many cases undue pressure is put on
young people to cleave
care as soon as they are 16, irrespective of how well or
badly prepared they
may be for independent living so early in their lives. This
should be
discouraged. (Health Committee Recommendation 90)
146. The Government accepts that too many young people leave
care at 16 and
believes that they should only leave when they are ready and
willing to do so.
There has been an increase in the proportion of 16 year olds
amongst those aged
16– 8 leaving care in recent years which is almost certainly
attributable to an
attempt at cost saving.
147. No ordinary parent would turn their children out to
fend for themselves at
the age of 16 and the Government will be laying great
emphasis on the parenting
responsibilities of local authorities in taking forward its
national campaign to
improve the quality of management and service delivery in
children services. In
doing so we will actively discourage the premature discharge
of young people
from care and will monitor local authorities’ performance in
this respect. To
support this objective, additional financial resources are
being made available.
148. In addition to the range of support outlined above, the
Government is
developing new arrangements for 16-18 year olds aimed at
developing life skills
and clarifying responsibility for financial support so that
young people are
properly prepared for leaving care and have a stage
transition to independence.
The social services must not turn their backs on young
people when they
have left care…We support the proposal by sir William Utting
and others
that the Children Act 1989 should be amended to convert the
discretionary
powers contained in Section 24 into duties imposed on local
authorities to
offer appropriate support to care leavers in the form of
services, in-kind
assistance and cash. We recommend that this duty should
extend to young
people up to and including the age of 21, and should exist
as a discretionary
power up to and including the age of 25, or beyond in
exceptional
circumstances. The Government should ensure that the
resources necessary
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
16
to achieve this end are provided. (Health Committee
Recommendations 91
and 92)
149. The Government agrees that local authorities should
have a commitment to
care leavers that extends beyond the point at which they
leave care and should
continue to support them for as long as they ask for help
and are in need. The
Government believes that it should initially target
resources on the most
vulnerable care leavers and to provide assistance where it
is most likely to
improve a young person’s education and employment prospects.
The legislation which provides the framework for local
authorities to provide
after care services will be further strengthened to replace
the current discretionary
power to assist under Section 24 of the Children Act with a
duty to assess and
meet the needs of care leavers up to the age of 18. The
Government is also
minded to extend this duty up to the age of 21, but must
first study the costs,
limitation and affordability of doing so before proposing
the necessary
legislation. Subject to affordability and priorities,
consideration will also be given
to introducing a power to give assistance to 21 to 24 year
olds. The Government
will legislate to enable local authorities to assist with
expenses connected with a
young person’s education or training up to the age of 24. We
will also legislate to
ensure that the placing local authority (rather than the one
in which the child is
now living) will be responsible for providing (or paying
for) aftercare.
We recommend that the Government should take the necessary
steps to
improve the quality of statistical information available on
service provision
for and outcomes of care leavers (health Committee
Recommendation 93)
150. As part of its commitment to improving the outcomes for
care leavers the
Government has set the objective of ensuring that young
people leaving care, as
they approach the age of majority, are not isolated and
participate socially and
economically as citizens. A target has been established for
achieving this
objective, and a new statistical collection is planned to
monitor local authorities’
progress towards this target. 27
C. Government Consultation on legislation for care leavers
Proposals for legislation were contained in the Government’s
consultation document for
England, Me, Survive, Out There? New Arrangements For Young
People Living In And
Leaving Care, published by the Department of Health in June
199928 and a similar one for
Wales, New arrangements for Young People Leaving and Living
In Care, published by
the Welsh Assembly in July 1999. This section is based on
the English document as the
primary legislation will apply to both countries.
27 Children Looked After By Local Authorities, Government
Response To The Second Report Of The Health
Committee On Children Looked After By Local authorities:
Session 1997-98, Cm 4175,paragraphs 142
– 150 (recommendations 89 – 93)
28 also available on the Department of Health's website
http://www.doh.gov.uk/scg/leavers.htm
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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Separate social services provisions are being developed in
Scotland as social services are
a devolved matter. A recent Scottish consultation paper on
social care in Scotland said
that legislation was proposed in Scotland as well:
139. Scottish Ministers have announced that certain
resources currently spent by
DSS on benefits for care leavers should transfer to local
authorities. A Scottish
Executive-led working group will consider the detail of how
such enhanced local
authority funding might be best used for the advantage of
these young people.
140. It is important to ensure an element of standardisation
throughout Scotland
from any proposals which emerge from the working group’s
deliberations.
Ministers propose therefore to amend the Children (Scotland)
Act 1995 to permit
better regulation for young people formerly looked after
away from home by
local authorities.
141. Ministers propose also to amend the 1995 Act to enable
Scottish local
authorities to provide aftercare support to an eligible
young person from other
parts of the United Kingdom. This parallels measures
contained in the Care
Leavers Bill currently before the Westminster Parliament in
respect of authorities
in England and Wales regarding support for young care
leavers moving from
Scotland.29
Me, Survive, Out there? concentrated on proposals for 16-17
year olds although it also
contained a chapter with separate proposals for 18-21 year
olds. The aims of the
proposals were to encourage more people to remain in care
until the age of 18; to provide
better preparation and planning for leaving care at 18, or
in exceptional circumstances,
earlier; to enable personal support to continue after
leaving care, with staged moves to
independence where appropriate; and to make sure that
financial support of young people
is linked to appropriate services, without perverse
incentive to encourage local authorities
to discharge young people prematurely.
The key features of the consultation paper’s proposals are
reproduced below:
• Local authorities to have a duty to assess and meet needs
of all eligible 16
and 17 year olds who are in care or care leavers. The duty
will rest with the
local authority who looked after the young person wherever
the young person
lives.
• Every young person in care on their sixteenth birthday to
have a pathway
plan mapping out a clear pathway to independence.
• New resources for social services provision of support and
assistance for 16
and 17 year olds who are in care or who have left care.
29 Regulating Care and the Social Services Workforce
(consultation), Scottish Executive, January 2000
(http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library2/doc10/rcsw-04.asp)
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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Box 2 Note about terminology used in Me, Survive, Out There?
In care refers to those who are looked after by local
authorities either through compulsory
measures of care (care order or remanded) or accommodated on
the basis of a voluntary
agreement. Care leavers are those who leave care (cease to
be looked after) between the ages of
16 and 18 and who qualify for advice and assistance under
the existing Section 24 of the Children
Act 1989. This means that the person must be under 21 and
have been looked after at some time
when aged 16 or 17. (Section 24 is reproduced in full in the
next section.)
• Local authorities to provide all eligible 16 and 17 year
olds who are in care or
care leavers with personal and financial support to meet
their needs as
identified in their pathway plans. Health and educational
needs would be met
by the relevant services.
• Young people who are 16 and 17 and have been looked after
for more than 3
months (continuously or in aggregate) would be eligible for
the new
arrangements.
• Young people would not be able to opt out of the new
arrangements and
claim general benefits. Emergency assistance to be available
to prevent those
who “run away” becoming destitute.
• Each young person to have a Young Persons Adviser who will
co-ordinate
provision of support and assistance to meet the needs of the
young person as
identified in their pathway plan. Particular emphasis will
be placed on
helping the young person into education, training, or
employment.
• Separate but linked arrangements for provision of support
and assistance to
18-21 year olds through local authority funding and Social
Security Benefits.
In support of its proposals, the consultation document
provided facts and figures,
including some that help to compare the situation of care
leavers with that of other 16 and
17 year olds. The Government’s Report on the Children Act
published in January 2000,
which included a description of the consultation document's
proposals on care leavers
also provided some statistical information. Put together,
the following picture emerges
(which supplements the figures given in Part A above):
Every year about 5,000 people aged 16 and 17 year olds leave
the care of local
authorities. There has been an increasing trend to discharge
young people from care early.
The proportion of care leavers aged 16 to 18 who leave at
the age of 16 increased from
33% to 46% in 1998. The average age at which young people in
the population as a whole
leave home is estimated to be 22.30 As many as 75% of care
leavers leave care with no
educational qualifications31 compared with 6% for all school
leavers.32
30 Me Survive… (as above) page 13. This says that the
figures include some 16 year olds who left care to
return home.
31 See section on the Utting Report above
32 Me Survive… (as above) page 15
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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Of all the young people who left care during the year ending
31 March 1998, half had
been looked after for two or more years and a quarter had
been looked after for less than 6
months. Nearly half (47%) had been in foster placements.
Nearly a quarter were living in
children’s homes (23%), 17% were already in lodgings or
living independently and 6%
were with parents during their final placement.33
A new statistical collection is to be established to follow
up the position of care leavers on
their 19th birthday. Local authorities will be asked to
provide details about the 16 year
olds they were looking after on 1 April 1999 and each April
thereafter once they reach 19
years old. Authorities are asked to provide information
about where each young person is
living and about whether they are in education, training or
employment. They are asked to
compare the outcomes for care leavers with the local
outcomes for young people
generally.
At the national level the Careers Service currently
publishes information about the
numbers of young people engaged in education, training or
employment. This shows that
of young people completing year 11 (basically 16 year olds)
in 1998, about two thirds
(68%) were in full time education, 9% were in Government
supported training, another
9% were in employment outside Government supported training
and 7% were not active
in the labour market or were active but were not in full
time education, training or
employment.34
D. Existing Provision for Care Leavers
1. The Children Act 1989
In summary, the Children Act of 1989 gives local authorities
where the care leaver lives
certain duties and powers in relation to care leavers. The
main provisions are contained in
Section 24 of the Children Act 1989, which is reproduced in
full at Appendix 1 of this
Paper.
Under Section 24, local authorities have a duty to advise, assist
and befriend all children
they are looking after with a view to providing their
long-term welfare, not just their
welfare during childhood. The duty is to advise and befriend
people under 21 who, after
the age of 16, were looked after by a local authority or who
were cared for in certain other
establishments, if they request help and satisfy certain
conditions. All people qualifying
for advice may be given assistance, which may, in
exceptional circumstances, be in cash.
33 The Children Act Report 1995-1999, Department of Health,
January 2000, Cm 4579
34 The Children Act Report, as above
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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Section 24 imports subsections 7-9 of Section 17 of the Act
relating to repayment and
means-testing of assistance. In summary these say that:
• where assistance is provided, it (or its value if provided
in kind) may be unconditional
or conditional on repayment (in whole or part)
• the local authority must have regard to the means of the
child concerned and each of
his parents
• people in receipt of means-tested benefits are not liable
to repay assistance.
Assistance may include a grant to enable the person who
qualifies to meet expenses
connected with his education and training or contributing to
expenses incurred by him in
living near the place where he is or will be employed,
seeking employment or receiving
education or training. In such cases, the exceptional
circumstances qualification to cash
assistance does not apply; nor can repayment of assistance
be required. Grants for
education or training may continue beyond age 21 if the
course was started before age 21.
Where the young person who is being advised and befriended
goes to live in another
authority, the local authority that is advising and
befriending him must inform the new
local authority.
Guidance to local authorities on provisions for care leavers
is contained in the
Department of Health’s volumes on the Children Act issued at
the time it came into
force35 and, more recently, following the Government’s
Response to the Children’s
Safeguards Review described above, in a Circular to local
authorities.36
Although Section 24 of the Act deals specifically with care
leavers, other Sections of the
Act could be relevant and Government initiatives on housing
and homelessness could also
be relevant to them. There are also special provisions for
care leavers within the financial
support system for students but none of these is directly
affected by the Bill.
In particular, under Section 17 of the Act local authorities
have the general duty to
safeguard and promote the welfare of children (that is those
under 18) within their area
who are in need by providing a range and level of services
appropriate to those children’s
needs. A child is in need if a) he is unlikely to achieve or
maintain, or to have the
opportunity of achieving or maintaining, a reasonable
standard of health or development
without the provision for him of services by the local
authority; b) his health or
development is likely to be significantly impaired, or
further impaired, without the
provision for him of such services; or c) he is disabled.
Under Section 20 of the Act local authorities have a duty to
provide accommodation for
children in need where there is no-one to care for them.
They also have a duty in relation
35 The Children Act: Guidance and Regulations Volume 3
chapter 9 (repeated in Volume 4 Chapter 7),
Department of Health, HMSO 1991
36 Department of Health, Local Authority Circular LAC (99) 16
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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to children in need aged 16 and 17 whose welfare is likely
to be seriously prejudiced if
they do not provide them with accommodation. They also have
powers under Section 20
to provide accommodation for young people aged 16-20 in their
area if this is necessary
to safeguard or promote their welfare.
The Bill will replace the existing Section 24 and add new
Sections 24A- 24D. It will also
add new clauses at the end of Section 23, which deals with
local authorities’ duties
relating to accommodation and maintenance for children that
they are looking after.
However, as Section 23 itself is not amended and the new
clauses 23A – 23E are not
dependent on it, it is not reproduced in this Paper.
Similarly, the Bill adds new paragraphs
19A – 19C in Schedule II of the Act, which contains
miscellaneous provisions relating to
children looked after by local authorities, is not
reproduced here as the new paragraphs
are independent of the old.
2. Social Security Benefits (by Kim Greener)
a. Introduction
The circumstances in which 16 and 17 year olds can claim
benefits are relatively
restricted. In particular 16 and 17 year olds are usually
excluded from claiming Income
Support or Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance but there are
certain closely defined
exceptions to this rule that enable care leavers (among
others) to claim these benefits in
certain circumstances. They may also be able to claim
Housing Benefit.
As people under 18 are not liable for Council Tax, there is
no entitlement to Council Tax
Benefit. There may be entitlement to non-contributory,
non-means-tested benefits such
as Disability Living Allowance, Severe Disablement Allowance
and Invalid Care
Allowance, but these are not affected by the provisions of
the Bill. Similarly,
contributory benefits such as contribution-based Jobseeker’s
Allowance and Incapacity
Benefit, for which 16/17-year-olds are unlikely to have
sufficient National Insurance
contributions, are not affected by the Bill. Entitlement to
Working Families Tax Credit
and Disabled Person’s Tax Credit is also unaffected.
b. Income Support
A 16/17-year-old care leaver who satisfies the usual rules
of entitlement for Income
Support (for example income and capital rules and working
less than 16 hours per week)
may qualify if they fall into one of the categories below:
• Sick or disabled people
• Lone parents
• Carers
• Pregnant women who are unable to work, or in the last 11
weeks of pregnancy
• Students in full-time non-advanced education
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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• Trainees on a course provided by the Training and
Enterprise Council (the Local
Enterprise Council in Scotland)
Income Support personal allowances for 16/17 year-olds are
usually lower than for other
groups, but for care leavers a higher rate is payable
(currently £41.35 per week).
c. Jobseeker’s Allowance
16/17 year-old care leavers who do not qualify for Income
Support may qualify for
income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, providing they are
available for and actively
seeking work and training (or full-time education). If they
are one of a couple with a
child, or one of the groups who qualify for Income Support,
they can claim Jobseeker’s
Allowance at any time. Other care leavers will only qualify
for a specified period when
looking for a job or training after leaving school or
college. These are:
• During the “Child Benefit extension period” (a period of
about three months after the
end of the holiday following the term the child leaves
school).
• For a further period of up 8 weeks after leaving care.
d. Severe Hardship Payment
Care leavers who do not fall into one of the above
categories may be paid income-based
Jobseeker’s Allowance on a discretionary basis, if they
would otherwise suffer “severe
hardship”37. In borderline cases, young people subject to a
care order have their
applications referred to the Under 18s Support Team, based
in Sheffield. Where it is
decided that there is severe hardship, a severe hardship
direction is issued. Severe
hardship payments are paid at the same rate as other
payments of Jobseeker’s Allowance,
with a severe hardship direction lasting for a limited
period, usually 8 weeks. However,
the period may be longer or shorter if the claimant is due
to start a training course, work
or full-time education. Repeat claims for severe hardship
payments can be made, but will
be referred to the Under 18s Support team if directions have
been in force for 16 weeks
and the young person has not been successful in obtaining
work or training.
e. Hardship payments
Hardship payments (which are different from Severe Hardship
Payments) are reduced
payments of Jobseeker’s Allowance made where Jobseeker’s
Allowance has been
suspended or sanctioned or a claimant is awaiting a
decision, and the claimant or a
member of his family would otherwise suffer hardship. There
are special rules governing
sanctions for 16-17 year-olds, which in some ways are more
lenient than those for older
people.
37 S16 Jobseekers Act 1995
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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f. Housing benefit
A 16/17 year-old who is liable to pay rent can claim Housing
Benefit if they satisfy the
usual rules of entitlement (for example income and capital
rules).
III The Bill
Apart from clause 6, which deals with social security
benefits, the Bill amends the
Children Act 1989. It applies to England and Wales only,
again apart from clause 6,
which also applies to Scotland.
A. The Bill as introduced in the House of Lords
The main purpose of the Bill is to strengthen the
responsibilities of local authorities
towards care leavers. As originally introduced, the Bill
concentrated on 16 and 17 year
olds, both those in care preparing to leave and those who
leave at that age. These and
existing provisions remain but during the Bill’s passage
through the House of Lords, it
was amended to introduce new duties towards older care
leavers. Box 4 provides a
skeleton outline of 1) existing powers 2) the Bill as
introduced in the House of Lords and
3) the Bill as introduced into the House of Commons.
The Bill not only strengthens the duties of local
authorities towards care leavers aged 16
and 17 years old, but also removes their entitlement to
certain social security benefits.
Assistance to care leavers in this age group, whether in
cash or in kind, will therefore
come from local authorities, who will have the duty to
assess and meet their needs. The
Bill changes the authority responsible from the one in which
the young person is living to
the one that looked after the young person while s/he was in
care.
The definition of those covered by the new arrangements (the
details of which are to be
settled in Regulations) is likely to be narrower than the
group covered by the existing
Section 24 of the Children Act 1989. This is because Section
24 covers young people
leaving institutions other than just local authority care
and the group of 16 and 17 year
olds leaving local authority care is likely to be more
closely defined than care leavers are
for the purposes of Section 24.38
Introducing the Bill on Second Reading in the House of Lords,
Lord Hunt, Minister at the
Department of Health, said that the Bill closely followed
the outline of the consultation
document (described above). More than 160 organisations,
authorities and individuals
replied to the consultation and 83% of the responses
supported the Government’s
38 The Bill’s Explanatory Notes (page 2) say that
Regulations are likely to prescribe those who have had a
minimum spell of 13 weeks in care after the age of 14.
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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proposals.39 Lord Hunt’s outline of the Bill in his
introductory speech is reproduced
below:
The Bill was “greatly welcomed” by Lord Howe on behalf of
the Conservative Party. He
raised a number of questions but said that the two things
that would make or break the
proposals were resources and ensuring that the child could
trust and take ownership of the
new process.40 Lord Clement-Jones on behalf of the Liberal
Democrats said that they
supported a great deal of the Bill but that the contents as
it stood were “not good
enough”. He also raised a number of issues, which he said
would be raised at the Bill’s
Committee Stage.41
Lord Hunt introducing the Bill on Second Reading
…We believe that local authorities' responsibilities towards
young people in and
leaving care should correspond more closely to those of
responsible parents. That
means providing support and assistance for children beyond
the age of 16. Young
people in and leaving care should be able to expect this
from their corporate
parent. That is why Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill place new
responsibilities on local
authorities to assess and meet the care and support needs of
children aged 16 and
17 who are in their care or who have left care.
For those who have left care, the local authority that last
looked after a child will
be responsible for continuing support wherever the young
person is living.
Responsible local authorities will have a duty to keep in
touch with these young
people wherever they move to; a duty that will apply beyond
18 up to the age of
21. No longer will local authorities be able to forget their
responsibilities to the
young people who leave their care.
It is important that young people are helped to prepare and
plan for their future to
enable them to achieve their aspirations. That is why, from
their sixteenth
birthday or as soon as they become eligible under the new
arrangements, young
people in and leaving care will have a pathway plan. The
plan will map out a
clear pathway to independence and will cover education,
training, career plans
and the support to be provided by the local authority. Young
people will be
directly involved in drawing up the plans, as will other
interested parties, and the
plan will be reviewed regularly to develop with the changing
circumstances and
ambitions of the young person.
The first three clauses of the bill introduce the duty to
provide young people in
and leaving care with pathway plans. The duty will apply to
all eligible and
relevant children aged 16 and 17 who are in care or who have
left care and will
continue up to the age of 21 (and beyond where the young
person is in higher
education). The same clauses introduce a parallel duty to
provide these young
39 HL Deb 7 December 1999 c1156
40 HL Deb 7 December 1999 c1160- 64
41 HL Deb 7 December 1999 c1164-66
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
25
Box 3 Note on Bill Terminology
Eligible children = those in care aged 16 and 17 (power for
Regulations to prescribe how long they
must have been in care)
Relevant children = those aged 16 and 17 who were eligible
children but have now left care (power for
regulations to exclude certain groups)
Former relevant children = relevant children who have
reached the age of 18 (and care leavers who
were still eligible children when they reached their 18th
birthday)
people with young person’s advisers. Currently many young
people are unaware
of the services that are available to them or how to access
them and it is essential
that under the new arrangements young people receive the
support and assistance
they need in a co-ordinated and accessible way.
The young person’s adviser will provide a single point of
contact for the young
person, easily contactable in times of crisis or whenever
advice is needed and
able to put the young person in contact with other
specialists such as careers
advisers. The adviser will also be responsible for
overseeing the pathway plan
and ensuring that the young person receives the advice and
support to which he is
entitled. For the young people who have left care, the
adviser will be expected to
fulfil the local authority’s new duty to keep in touch.
Education and training is one of the best ways to improve a
young person’s life
chances, and we believe that local authorities should
encourage and help care
leavers continue in education. That is why Clause 4 of this
Bill gives local
authorities new responsibilities and powers to make support
available for care
leavers in higher education. Currently, local authorities
can assist care leavers
with the costs associated with education or training up to
the age of 24 only if
they started the course before the age of 21. Clause 4 will
get rid of this
restriction. Young people in this particular group are often
ready for higher
education later than their peers, so this provision allows
local authorities to
provide assistance whenever the young person starts the
course.
One of the disadvantages faced by care leavers in higher
education is having no
family to return to for vacations. That is why Clause 4 of
the bill also places a
new duty on local authorities to assist a care leaver in
higher education with
vacation accommodation where this is needed.
All these new arrangements for young people in and leaving
care will be
underpinned by a new financial regime, the foundations of
which will be laid by
Clause 6 of the Bill. Currently, too many children leave
care before they are
ready to do so. The proportion of 16 and 17 year olds
leaving care at the age of 16
increased from one third in 1993 to under one half in 1998.
This trend is alarming
and we are determined to reverse it. We believe that one
reason for this trend is
the perverse financial incentive for local authorities to
push children as young as
16 out of care and onto benefits. The new financial
arrangements will remove this
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
26
incentive and recognised that young people in and leaving
care need proper
support and guidance, not just cash.
The funds from income support, housing benefit and
jobseeker’s allowance to
which these young people are currently eligible will,
therefore, be transferred to a
new budget, to be allocated to local authorities to support
these young people
properly. This budget will be based on local authorities’
existing spend on this
group, drawing in additional resources from the children’s
social services special
grant, making extra money available to ensure that local
authorities are able to
fulfil their new duties to this vulnerable group. We want to
see local authorities
act more like responsible parents towards the children in
and leaving their care.
We recognise that at present certain 16 and 17-year olds -
such as disabled
children and lone parents - are eligible for income support
even if they live at
home with their parents, recognising that they have special
needs. The new
financial arrangements will continue to recognise that these
groups have special
needs. Clause 6 contains provisions allowing the Secretary
of State to exempt
certain groups from the new financial arrangements and we intend
to use this
power to ensure that disabled children and lone parents keep
their present
entitlements to income support.
Taken together these measures add up to a substantial
package of support, both
personal and financial. We believe that it will make a
significant difference to the
life chances of these young people, helping them to grow
into independence and a
rewarding adulthood. But it would be naive to assume that it
will always be
sweetness and light. Inevitably there will be disagreements
and failures.
We anticipate that the involving and empowering aspect of
pathway planning will
minimise disputes but nonetheless we have to have a robust,
swift and sensitive
means of dealing with complaints. The Bill provides for
regulations to describe
the complaints procedure for these young people. We
anticipate using the existing
machinery but building in additional sensitivity, such as an
advocate for the
young person. We shall also be monitoring closely how
quickly complaints are
resolved. Young people do not have the leisure to put their
lives on hold while
bureaucracies grind slowly through processes. Again, we hope
that most
complaints will be settled amicably and quickly, but, again,
it would be naive to
assume that this will always be the case.
There have always been troubled young people who run away
from local
authorities and it is wise to assume that there always will
be. For these young
people, we need to make sure that there is emergency
provision to pick them up
and a support system which is flexible enough to encourage
them back on terms
which they can accept. For emergencies, these young people
will still be eligible
for emergency help from any local authority in whose area
they fetch up. As now,
they may turn up at refuges such as Centrepoint, or at night
shelters. Emergency
provision will see them through the short time it takes to
re-establish contact with
their responsible authority.
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
27
Our new arrangements are designed to be as responsive as
possible to young
people disaffected with their local authority, for whatever
reason. They can live
wherever they choose in the country, and their authority
will still be responsible
for maintaining them. So there will be no more disputes
between authorities about
whose budget the young person belongs with. The main point
of contact will be
the young person’s adviser. If the young person wishes, that
contact can be
minimal and it can be the only contact he or she need have
with any local
authority. And should that relationship be the root of the
problem--even though
the young person will have had a major hand in choosing the
adviser in the first
place-there will be scope for making changes. These measures
are intended to
ensure that no young person needs emergency support for
long; and that where
there are problems a solution can be reached as quickly as
possible...42
B. Issues raised in the House of Lords
Over 20 specific issues were raised during the debates in
the House of Lords. Of these the
only ones that resulted in changes to the Bill were those
relating to local authorities’
duties towards older care leavers. These were introduced by
the Government in response
to the debates, the Government’s position having been from
the start that it supported the
extension of such duties but that it could not commit the
necessary resources before the
results of the Comprehensive Spending Review were known.
There were no Divisions on
these or any other issues. Apart from a couple of clarifying
amendment in Committee, all
the changes were introduced by the Government at Third
Reading.
The dates of the debates on the Bill are set out below:
Second Reading 7 December 1999 c1155-1191
Grand Committee (no Divisions allowed) 10 February 2000 CWH
1-66
Report 9 March 2000 c1243 -1274
Third Reading 22 May 2000 c477-488
Leaving aside the question of ring-fencing, on which the
Conservatives and Liberal-
Democrats differed, most of the issues raised were supported
by the spokesmen of both
parties as well as by other speakers. Many of the points
raised were attributed to
voluntary organisations working with care leavers such as
First Key and Barnado’s. These
had formed themselves into a consortium to promote certain
issues in relation to the Bill.
The Local Government Association and the Association of
Directors of Social Services
also raised certain issues. As some of the points raised
have been answered and at the
time of writing the Library has received no briefings from
these organisations for the
Second Reading of the Bill, this Paper does not contain a
separate section on the views of
the various organisations concerned.
42 HL Deb 7 December 1999 c1156-9
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
28
Issues raised are listed below (in no particular order).
They are grouped together by
subject in the summary of the debates that follows.
• Whether the duties of local authorities to older care
leavers should be included in the
Bill
• Whether resources for local authorities to carry out their
new tasks would be adequate
• Desirability of ring-fencing the new grant for local
authorities
• Whether there should be national minimum standards of
financial (and other)
assistance
• Whether the time limits for eligibility are too narrow
• Eligibility of unaccompanied refugee children
• Eligibility of disabled children and specific needs of
disabled care leavers
• Reviews of Pathway Plans
• Providing a safety net for young people estranged from
their Personal Adviser
• Providing independent advocates for young people
• Appropriate complaints procedures
• Monitoring of local authorities’ performance
• Training and qualifications of the Personal Adviser
• Ensuring that necessary Regulations are made
• Co-ordination of the Personal Adviser with proposals in
the Learning and Skills Bill
• Requiring local authorities to keep children in care until
the age of 18
• Whether the phrase ’keep in touch’ adequately represents
local authority duties
• Ensuring that accommodation for care leavers is
"suitable"
• Whether the Bill should refer to 16 and 17 year olds as
’young people’ instead of
children
• Whether the means-test should apply to parents estranged
from their children
• The proposals in relation to Scotland
a. Duties of local authorities to older care leavers
Pressure to extend up to the age of 21 the duty to meet
assessed needs and for the
introduction of a duty to provide assistance with
employment, education and training up
to the age of 24 was evident at all stages of the Bill. Both
Conservatives and Liberal-
Democrats advocated the extension of duties to older care
leavers. The Government’s
Response was that it was not a question of "if"
such measures should be introduced but
"when". It supported such measures in principle
but said that it could not commit
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
29
additional resources before announcing the results of the
Comprehensive Spending
Review.43
On Report, the Government announced that it would be
bringing forward amendments on
Third Reading relating to these issues. The form that the
amendments eventually took was
stronger than that suggested on Report in that the new
duties were written onto the face of
the Bill whereas on Report it appeared that they would take
the form of powers to make
Regulations to introduce new duties. However, even on Third
Reading, when the
amendments were passed, Lord Hunt, on behalf of the
Government, said that that the
measures in the Bill would not necessarily all be introduced
at the same time:
We have agreed that we would want to see those duties
introduced as soon as
possible, but we have so far failed to agree how they should
appear in the Bill.
The Government’s position continues to be that
implementation will occur when
resources permit and at levels which resources permit, with
differential
commencements if necessary. In laying the amendment, I must
again stress that
we cannot anticipate the outcome of the spending review. It
would therefore fall
to health Ministers to defer implementation or to meet any
costs arising from the
amendments by reprioritisation within the Department of
Health allocation in the
event that the spending review did not award sufficient
funds for this purpose.
Given that position, which will not come as a surprise to
noble Lords, the noble
Lord, Lord Laming, offered us a way through our impasse when
he spoke in
Committee. He pointed out that it is not uncommon for Bills
to be passed without
a final commitment to a timetable for implementation either
for all or part of the
Bill. It remains a matter for government to decide when to
commence any of the
Bill’s provisions.
We have listed carefully to the arguments which noble Lords
have made
repeatedly throughout debates on the issue. Noble Lords are
rightly concerned
that there should be no shred of ambiguity about the
Government’s commitment
to these young care leavers to ensure that they received the
support which will
enable them to live fulfilled lives as full members of
society. That is why we have
decided that the new duties should appear on the face of the
Bill to be
implemented as soon as we have secured the resources to
support them.44
At Second Reading the Government had also said that if the
new arrangements were
extended to 18-21 year olds, they would not be deprived of
their entitlement to social
security benefits. Lord Hunt said:
However, I must make it clear that, if that were to happen,
it would be a top-up
on benefit availability, because 18-21 year olds would
retain their benefits in
43 See CWH 10 February 2000 CWH c28-35 and c51-54 and HL Deb
9 March 2000 c1248-1254 and
1258-1262 for the debates in the Grand Committee and on
Report
44 HL Deb 22 May 2000 c481-2
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
30
contrast with 16 and 17 year olds, whose benefit entitlement
is essentially being
transferred from the DSS to the DoH.45
The changes that were introduced are now grouped together at
new section 23C of the
Children Act 1989, which would be introduced by Clause 2 of
the Bill. These duties apply
to former relevant children and include an amendment to
ensure that young people who
leave at age 18 (and thereby skip the status of relevant
child) qualify for the new
arrangements (now at 23C (b)) Box 3 summarises the
definition of former relevant child
(as amended). The new duties to former relevant children
added in the House of Lords are
summarised below. Except where stated, they apply up to the
age of 21:
• A duty to provide assistance with expenses associated with
employment
• A duty to provide assistance with expenses associated with
education and training.
This includes the duty to provide assistance until the end
of the agreed programme of
education or training even if it continues beyond the age of
21 (disregarding
reasonable gaps in attendance)
• A duty to provide general assistance to the extent that
the welfare of the young person
requires it
• A duty to continue to provide a Personal Adviser and
Pathway Plan beyond the age of
21 to someone being provided with assistance for education
and training by the local
authority
• A duty to provide vacation accommodation where necessary
to those in an agreed
programme of higher education beyond the age of 21
b. Resources and ring-fencing the grant to local authorities
The Government was asked on several occasions about the
amount of money that would
be available for the new tasks. Lord Clement-Jones on behalf
of the Liberal Democrats
welcomed the proposal for a ring-fenced grant but Lord Howe
on behalf of the
Conservatives questioned whether it was desirable to have a
ring-fenced grant in that it
would remove some discretion from local authorities.
The proposed financial arrangements that are not strictly
speaking part of the Bill but
support the arrangements in it were explained in more detail
in Lord Hunt’s winding up
speech on Second Reading. Lord Hunt said that the Government
intended the new ringfenced
grant to last for one Comprehensive Spending Programme. The
Act was expected
to come into force in April 2001. The ring-fenced grant
would therefore last for one year
of the current programme and for another three years. At the
end of the period the
Government expected to take away the ring-fencing.
45 HL Deb 7 December 1999 c1191
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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On the amount of money available for the grant, Lord Hunt
said in the same speech that
he was reluctant to say too much because it had been very
difficult to estimate the figures.
However, he did say that “essentially we are talking of
something in the order of £250
million”. £200 million of this would come from the amount
that local authorities
currently spend in this area; another £30 million from the
Quality Protects Programme;
and £20 million from the transfer of funds from the
Department of Social Security. (The
speech did not specify whether this was for England only or
England and Wales.)
c. Eligibility: time limits, disabled children and
unaccompanied asylum-seekers
The question of time limits for eligibility (see Box 3 for
meaning of eligibility) was raised
several times during the debates. It was given particular
emphasis by Lord Howe and was
supported by Lord Clement-Jones. He objected to the proposed
requirement of a
minimum spell of 13 weeks in care after the age of 14 for
eligibility, arguing that all
children in care should have a needs assessment and benefit
from the new arrangements.
A briefing by the Local Government Association took the
opposite view, arguing that the
time limit should be 6, not 3 months.
Lord Howe also suggested that eligibility should be defined
fully in the Bill rather in
Regulations. The Government argued that Regulations would
allow the Government
greater flexibility in responding to unanticipated problems.
Through its statistical
database covering a one third sample of local authorities,
the Government would monitor
trends in the age of care leavers and the length of time
they had spent in care, then make
any necessary adjustments.
The Government also argued that it was not appropriate to
place a duty on local
authorities to support children who might only come into
contact with them in passing.
Local authorities could use their powers under Section 24 to
provide assistance to all care
leavers up to the age of 21 and in some cases up the age of
24.46
Several speakers made the point that a significant number of
disabled young people living
away from home would not be eligible according to the Bill's
criteria. In particular, those
in residential schools who spent the school holidays
accommodated by a health authority
or local authority were not officially in care but were
unlikely to return to their families.
This was an issue of particular concern to the Council for
Disabled Children.
The Government's response was that the fact that parents
sent their child to a residential
school did not mean that they abrogated responsibility for
those children. For those who
had no contact with their families, the powers to help in
Section 24 would be applicable
in many cases and the Government was developing a range of
initiatives, such as the
46 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c2-7 and HL Deb 9 March 2000
c1243-5
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
32
learning disability strategy, that would provide more
appropriate ways of helping disabled
young people.47
About 25% of existing care leavers are disabled according to
the consultation document.
The Government said on Second Reading that the special needs
of disabled care leavers
who are eligible will be covered in guidance.48
The position of unaccompanied refugee children was raised on
Second Reading by Lady
David. She asked the Government to expand the eligibility
requirements to include them
as many would fall outside the Bill’s definition of an
eligible child. The Government’s
response was that these children should be treated in the
same way as other care leavers.
Where local authorities had taken asylum seekers into care,
those children would be fully
entitled to the benefits of the new arrangements. In
addition, under the Children Act, local
authorities had a responsibility to provide services for
children in need in their area.49
d. Minimum standards of financial assistance and a safety
net for care leavers
Lord Howe, supported by Lord Clement-Jones, argued that
there should be national
minimum standards to provide for the essential needs of 16
and 17 year old care leavers.
He pointed out that the Bill would remove their entitlement
to the main social security
benefits and that the level of support provided by different
local authorities varied widely.
The Government responded that it intended through guidance
to issue minimum standards
although it had not yet decided whether the guidance would
be statutory or not:
…We shall certainly cover in that guidance services and
financial support. It
needs careful handling. We may need to identify a suitable
benchmark such as the
standard of living a young person might have expected from
state benefits. I very
much take the point of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that one
of the great strengths
of the arrangements is that each young person has to be
treated as an individual.
Another point raised at Second Reading was that one of the
skills that all young
people need is how to manage a budget. Everyone will come to
that at a different
pace. One young person might be perfectly competent to
manage his own money,
while at the same age another might be barely able to cope
with pocket money I
am sure that parents would recognised that point. We are
asking local authorities
to behave more as a responsible parent would towards a
child. Minimum
standards would need to take account of the range of needs
and abilities of the
young people we are aiming to help. We would certainly be
able to ensure that
young people cannot be short-changed under the new
arrangements.50
47 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c 8-13
48 HL Deb 7 December 2000 c 1188
49 HL Deb 7 December 1999 c1170 and 1191
50 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c58-62 (quote c 60-1)
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
33
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats also pressed for a
safety net of support for young
people who fell out with their local authority and personal
adviser. This issue was raised
by several speakers on Second Reading. Lord Listowel, for
example, suggested that care
leavers in this position might be worse off than they are
now. The amendment in
Committee proposed they should still be entitled to some
form of social security benefit
but the Government argued that this would undermine the
principle of the Bill, which was
deliberately taking care leavers off benefit. To restore
benefit for one group would
recreate the perverse incentive that the Government was
trying to remove. The only
contact that the care leaver needed to maintain in order to
receive support from the
responsible authority would be with his personal adviser.
But emergency support could be
provided under Section 17 of the Children Act by whichever
authority the child was
living in.
On report, the issue was raised again. This time the
amendment proposed that local
authorities should be placed under a duty to provide a
’safety net’ of cash support for care
leavers estranged from their authority as the existing
Section 17 provision seemed to have
resulted in huge variations in practice. The Government
responded that it intended to
cover the provision of emergency assistance in guidance to
local authorities, including the
payment, where necessary, of cash.51
e. Reviews, Complaints, Independent Advocates and the
Personal Adviser
The question of the appropriate procedures for reviewing the
Pathway Plans was raised in
Committee by Lord Listowel. The Government said that it
would be making tailor-made
regulations in readiness for the implementation of the Bill.
The Government proposed
that reviews should be at six monthly intervals or more
frequently if necessary. The
review would involve the Personal Adviser and other
interested parties. The details had
yet to be settled but the drafts would be published for
consultation and the Government
intended to consult over the Summer period so that the
Regulations would be in place
when the Bill was implemented in April 2001.52
The argument for independent and confidential advocacy
services for care leavers to be
provided for in the Bill was made both in Committee and on
Report and was widely
support as "an instrument whose time has come".
The Government said that it was
committed in practice to the establishment of such services
and was taking a number of
other measures to ensure that they were widely available.
There was therefore no need to
provide for them in this Bill. The Personal Adviser might be
an advocate to some extent,
in particular in ensuring that the care leaver
"owned" his/her Pathway Plan. But the
Personal Adviser would not be an advocate in the sense of
putting the young person’s case
uncritically, right or wrong.
51 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c 54-58 and 9 March
c1267-1271
52 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c14-15
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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The Government said that where the relationship between the
care leaver and the Personal
Adviser broke down, there were "real problems".
This was where the complaints
procedure came in:
We will set out the complaints procedure in the Regulations
and we will plan to
build in sensitivities such as access for the child to
advocacy to pursue his case.
Indeed, authorities are already entertaining complaints
brought by advocates on
behalf of children. If there is any evidence of reluctance
on the part of local
authorities we shall be happy to revisit the relevant
guidance.
The Government planned to publish a consultation paper
summarising the issues raised
and proposals for addressing them later on in the year.
Existing regulations covering
complaints procedures for children in care were currently
being reviewed and the form of
the proposed procedures for care leavers would have to take
this into account.53
In response to a proposed amendment on training Personal
Advisers in child
development, Lord Hunt said that the Government accepted
that child development was
not adequately covered in social work courses at the moment.
It was important to
distinguish between the role of the social worker, who would
probably take a primary role
in relation to assessments, and the Personal Adviser who
would have a crucial role to
ensure that the arrangements worked and that young people
received the support that they
needed.
More generally, appropriate training for Personal Advisers
would be covered in statutory
guidance and the Government would encourage local
authorities to draw on a wide range
of people as appropriate, including, for example, foster
carers. The Government also
expected that the General Social Care Council, which would
be established under the
Care Standards Bill and would set standards of conduct and
practice for the whole social
care workforce, would in time take responsibility for
Personal Advisers.54
Co-ordination between the relationship of the Personal
Adviser with the ConneXions
Adviser was also the subject of a proposed amendment. The
Government’s response was
that in many cases the Personal Adviser would also be the
ConneXions adviser but it
would also be possible for the Personal Adviser to take a
back seat because the
ConneXions adviser had special skills to offer. ConneXions
would be piloted and one the
areas chosen contained a leaving care team providing the
kind of support expected from a
Personal Adviser so that the Government could ensure that
the two worked well
together.55
53 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c 38- 44 (quote c 43-44)
54 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c 15-19
55 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c 22-23
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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f. Duty of local authority to provide accommodation
Lord Listowel proposed amendments in Committee and on Report
designed to ensure that
local authorities had a duty to continue accommodating young
people up to age 18. His
argument was that the Government’s intention was that 16 and
17 year olds should not be
prematurely discharged from care. Yet the Bill did not do
that. The Government’s
response was that the neediest would be under a Care Order
anyway that would ensure
that they remained in care until the age of 18 unless the
Order was discharged by a Court.
It would be wrong to insist that young people who were
accommodated on a voluntary
basis should remain against their wishes. Although the
Government hoped that most
would stay in care, they had to be allowed some choice.56
The suitability of accommodation for those who did leave
care was also raised. Lord Hunt
said that the Government was determined that local
authorities would make available a
wide range of suitable accommodation for young people in and
leaving care and that
decisions on placement and accommodation were not driven by
financial considerations.
The Bill provided for the Government to issue Regulations
about suitable
accommodation. There was no question of the Secretary of
State not making Regulations
relating to accommodation and making them in time for
implementation.57
g. Ensuring that Government intentions are carried through:
Monitoring and
Regulations
Cutting across many of the specific issues raised was the
question of carrying through the
Government’s intentions, both in the sense of ensuring that
Regulations covering the
appropriate points were laid in time and in the sense of
ensuring that local authorities did
what was expected of them. These concerns were raised
particularly in the light of
evidence that many local authorities were not providing an
acceptable service to care
leavers (see Part I of this Paper). The Government’s general
response to this was:
I recognise that there are concerns that local authorities
may not be up to the task,
but let me say in the first place that we intend that the
Bill should come into
operation next April. Local authorities are already
implementing arrangements in
order to be ready and prepared for its operation. There is
no question that we will
not produce regulations which will enable those things to
happen.
…It is important to recognise the much stronger performance
management
arrangements that are now in place in relation to local
authority social services
departments and the development of performance indicators.
These will include
56 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c23-27 and 9 March 2000 c
1246-8
57 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c45-46
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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indicators on the proportion of care leavers in employment,
education and
training.
From April this year, the beefed up Social Services
Inspectorate will carry out 30
inspections of childcare services every year, so an
authority would expect to
receive an inspection once every five years. Part of that
inspection process will be
looking at the service that those local authorities provide
for care leavers. The
Quality Protects action plans will include information on
improvements in
services for care leavers, and social services inspectors
will monitor progress
against national priorities. If local authorities are found
not to be performing,
powers of direction are available to the Secretary of State.
The Local Government
Act 1999 also allows for intervention powers.
Looking at the whole package of measures, including the fact
that we are able to
performance manage local authorities in a much more
effective way now than in
the past, the regulations and guidance n themselves will
give a very clear steer to
local government about how we expect the Act to operate…58
h. Keeping in touch
Lord Laming introduced amendments in Committee and on Report
about the phrase ’keep
in touch’ used in the Bill to describe some of the duties
that local authorities will have
towards those who have left care. He argued that it was too
weak a term but the
Government’s response was that this was a term used in
several other pieces of legislation
and that whatever the term used, the Government would ensure
through guidance to local
authorities that they knew what was required of them. 59
i. ’Young People’ and ’Children’
There were attempts in Committee and on Report to ensure
that the Bill referred to those
aged 16 and over as young people, as most of the speakers in
the debate were doing. The
Government’s final response was that it was necessary to be
consistent with the Children
Act 1989 as this was what the Bill was amending.60
j. The Means-Test
Amendments to ensure that the means of children and parents
would be disregarded in
certain circumstances were proposed in Committee. The
proposals concerned the
treatment of Criminal Injuries Compensation Awards and of
parents’ income when
children are estranged from them. The Government’s response
was that if these issues
58 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c21
59 HL Deb 7 February 2000 CWH c36-7 and 9 March c1255-1257
60 HL Deb 7 February 2000 CWH c 47 and HL Deb 9 March 2000 c
1271-1274
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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were a problem, it would be possible to deal with them in
guidance. However, the Bill did
not introduce any changes to the local authority means-test
for similar support. Current
legislation did not oblige local authorities to require
parental contributions from children
they were looking after or for assistance under Section 17
or Section 24 (to which the
same legislation applied). They might only do so if it was
reasonable. If the child received
an award as compensation for criminal injury, the Government’s
view was that the money
was capital that should not be taken into account when
considering day to day expense.61
k. Scotland
When questioned about the fact that Clause 6 of the Bill
removing benefit entitlement
applied to Scotland but that the positive aspects of the
Bill did not, the Government
explained that social security was a reserved matter and
therefore was dealt with at
Westminster. (Social services are a devolved matter). The
Government explained that:
Existing legislation means that it is not possible for local
authorities on either side
of the Scottish border to take on responsibility for each
other’s looked after
children. Transitional arrangements, before any Scottish
legislation is enacted,
will be that English and Welsh children will remain eligible
for benefits if they
move to Scotland and Scottish children will remain eligible
for benefits if they
move to England.
Different arrangements will be needed when Scottish
legislation is enacted, and
the benefits rules in Clause 6 of this Bill come into effect
there. That is why this
Bill includes a provision at new Section 23A (5) for the
Secretary of State to
prescribe that children who have been looked after in
Scotland but who move to
England would have a responsible authority based on where
they live in England.
This power would be used once Scottish legislation was in
place. We anticipate
that any Scottish legislation would include a similar
provision in respect of
English children who move north.62
61 HL Deb 7 February 2000 CWH c48-50
62 HL Deb 10 February 2000 CWH c 65
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
38
Box 4: Care Leavers: Local Authority Powers and Dutiesabcdef
1 11... Existing Children Act 1989 (Local authorities where
the child is currently living)
16-21
duty to advise and befriend and power to provide assistance
(duty for those still in care)
21+
power to assist with education/training if course commenced
before the age of 21
222... Bill entering the Lords (Local authorities where the
child is or was looked after)
16-18
duty to assess and meet the need for advice, assistance and
support (including maintenance and
accommodation) of care leavers(in and out of care) up to the
age of 18; duty to provide a
pathway plan and a young person’s adviser
18-21
duty to keep in touch and provide a personal adviser; for
those in higher education, duty
to provide vacation accommodation where necessary; power to
assist (with provision for
regulations to create a duty to assist)
21-24
power to assist with education and training regardless of
the age at which the course was started
and, where such assistance given, duty to keep in touch and
provide a personal adviser; for those
in higher education, duty to provide vacation accommodation
where necessary
333... Bill entering the Commons (Local authorities where
the child is or was looked
after)
16-18
duty to assess and meet the need for advice, assistance and
support (including maintenance
and accommodation) of care leavers (in and out of care), up
to and including the age of 18;
duty to provide a pathway plan and a young person’s adviser
18-21
duty to keep in touch and provide personal adviser; duty to
assist; for those in higher
education, duty to provide vacation accommodation where
necessary
21-24
if in agreed education or training, duty to assist; duty to
keep in touch and provide personal
adviser; for those in higher education, duty to provide
vacation accommodation where
necessary
a The Bill also removes entitlement of care leavers to
Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s
Allowance and Housing Benefit, with exceptions to be
prescribed.
b Existing powers and duties in Stage 1 above remain and are
not repeated at each stage of the above chart.
c A wider group is covered by existing (& remaining)
provisions eg those leaving certain institutions other
than local authority care are covered by existing
provisions.
d Existing means-testing provisions are included in the new
provisions.
e The Bill provides for complaints procedures - details to
be in Regulations.
f Unless otherwise stated, the age groups listed relate to
people up to, but not including the upper age.
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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Appendix 1, Children Act 1989: The Existing Section 2463
Advice and assistance for certain children
24 (1) Where a child is being looked after by a local
authority, it shall be the duty
of the authority to advise, assist and befriend him with a
view to promoting his
welfare when he ceases to be looked after by them.
(2) In this Part "a person qualifying for advice and
assistance" means a person
within the area of the authority who is under twenty-one and
who was, at any
time after reaching the age of sixteen but while still a
child
(a) looked after by a local authority;
(b) accommodated by or on behalf of a voluntary
organisation;
(c) accommodated in a registered children’s home;
(d) accommodated
(i) by any Health Authority, Special Health Authority or
local education
authority,- or
(ii) in any residential care home, nursing home or mental
nursing
home, for in any accommodation provided by a National Health
Service Trust], for a consecutive period of at least three
months., or
(e) privately fostered
but who is no longer so looked after, accommodated or
fostered.
(3) Subsection 2(d) applies even if the period of three
months mentioned there
began before the child reached the age of sixteen.
(4) Where –
(a) a local authority know that there is within their area a
person qualifying for
advice and assistance,
(b) the conditions in subsection (5) are satisfied; and
(c) that person has asked them for help of a kind which they
can give under this
section,
they shall (if he was being looked after by a local
authority or was accommodated
by or on behalf of a voluntary organisation) and may (in any
other case) advise
and befriend him.
(5) The conditions are that
63 This includes amendments since 1989, from Sweet and
Maxwell’s Encyclopedia of Social Services and
Child Care Law, last updated November 1999
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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(a) it appears to the authority that the person concerned is
in need of advice and
being befriended;
(b) where that person was not being looked after by the
authority, they are
satisfied that the person by whom he was being looked after
does not have the
necessary facilities for advising or befriending him.
(6) Where as a result of this section a local authority are
under a duty, or are
empowered, to advise and befriend a person, they may also
give him assistance.
(7) Assistance given under subsections (1) to (6) may be in
kind or, in exceptional
circumstances, in cash.
(8) A local authority may give assistance to any person who
qualifies for advice
and assistance by virtue of subsection (2)(a) by
(a) contributing to expenses incurred by him in living near
the place where he is,
or will be employed or seeking employment; or receiving
education or training;
or
(b) making a grant to enable him to meet expenses connected
with his education
or training.
(9) Where a local authority are assisting the person under
subsection (8) by
making a contribution or grant with respect to a course of
education or training,
they may
(a) continue to do so even though he reaches the age of
twenty-one before
completing the course; and
(b) disregard any interruption in his attendance on the
course if he resumes it as
soon as is reasonably practicable.
(10) Subsections (7) to (9) of section 17 shall apply in
relation to assistance given
under this section (otherwise than under subsection (8)) as
they apply in relation
to assistance given under that section.
(11) Where it appears to a local authority that a person
whom they have been
advising and befriending under this section, as a person
qualifying for advice and
assistance, proposes to live, or is living, in the area of
another local authority,
they shall inform that other local authority.
(12) Where a child who is accommodated -
(a) by a voluntary organisation or in a registered
children’s home;
(b) by any Health Authority, Special Health Authority or
local education
authority; or
(c) in any residential care home, nursing home or mental
nursing home, for any
accommodation provided by a National Health Service Trust],
RESEARCH PAPER 00/63
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ceases to be so accommodated, after reaching the age of
sixteen, the organisation,
authority or (as the case may be) person carrying on the
home shall inform the
local authority within whose area the child proposes to
live.
(13) Subsection (12) only applies, by virtue of paragraph
(b) or (c), if the
accommodation has been provided for a consecutive period of
at least three
months.
14) Every local authority shall establish a procedure for
considering any
representations (including any complaint) made to them by a
person qualifying
for advice and assistance about the discharge of their
functions under this Part in
relation to him.
(15) In carrying out any consideration of presentation under
subsection (14), a
local authority shall comply with any regulations made by
the Secretary of State
for the purposes of this subsection.
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2000/rp00-063.pdf