Looked-after Children
The next item of business is a debate on motion S1M-3351, in the name of Cathy Jamieson, on throughcare and aftercare of looked-after children, and two amendments to that motion.
I welcome the opportunity the debate gives us to look at the important issue of what happens to young people after they leave local authority care. It would be fair to say that the issue has not had the attention it deserves over the years, but that is something that we can now put right.
Every young person needs help, advice and support to make a successful transition to independent adult living. Supporting our own children when they leave home is one of the most important responsibilities that we have as parents. Local authorities, as corporate parents, have that important responsibility for the young people they look after. For young people leaving care, the change to adult living can be doubly daunting. They may have little or no contact with their natural families; they may not have a foster family to provide support; or they may have felt at home in the children's unit that they now have to leave. We have a duty to young people who are leaving care to make sure that the proper support systems are put in place to help them make the best possible start to their lives as independent young adults.
On Friday, the Executive published the report of the working group on the throughcare and aftercare of young people leaving the care system. I acknowledge that the title of the working group is a bit of a mouthful and that some young people do not like the term "care leavers", but for the ease of getting through the debate, I will use that term where I can.
The group is made up of representatives from local authorities, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Association of Directors of Social Work and various voluntary and advocacy groups that work with looked-after children. Over the past two years, the group has been advising the Executive on how to improve throughcare and aftercare services for young people. I want to take this opportunity to place on record my thanks to the members of that group for their work. I look forward to their continuing efforts to advise the Executive over the coming weeks, months and years.
I am pleased that members of the group are able to join us for the debate. I am also very pleased that some of the young people who are directly affected by the issues that we are discussing today have joined us for the debate. I want to take this opportunity to welcome them to the public gallery. I know that they will take a keen interest in what we say now but also, more important, in what we do following the debate and how we will act in the future. I was pleased to have an opportunity to meet them earlier today and to hear at first hand their thoughts, experiences and initial responses to the report. I hope that the debate in the chamber this afternoon will be positive.
For reasons that I will explain during the course of my speech, I am unable to accept the wording of the amendments to the motion, although I welcome them and understand the spirit in which they were lodged.
In September 1999, the Scottish Executive consulted on proposals to enhance throughcare and aftercare services by creating a one-stop shop for advice, guidance and assistance for young people leaving care. Young people aged 16 and 17 years who had been looked after away from home would have their needs assessed and supported by local authorities. The proposals included the measure that those young people would generally no longer be entitled to claim some benefits.
Responses to the consultation indicated support for that approach, but concerns were expressed about how the system would operate in practice. On 19 November 1999, we announced that we supported the principle of an integrated service for those young people and set up the working group to look in detail at how the system should work. Measures to strengthen existing duties on Scottish local authorities to provide a service, including a needs assessment, to all young people leaving care were included in the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001.
In June this year, the Executive published research by the University of York that showed that current levels of throughcare and aftercare were patchy across Scotland. The working group concluded that the Executive's initial focus should be on improving the current support system to young people before the enhanced duties on local authorities were introduced and before Department for Work and Pensions benefits were withdrawn; otherwise, there was a risk that, instead of improving a service, the service might deteriorate. Therefore, with the agreement of the DWP, the Scottish Executive decided to delay the introduction of the measures until 1 April 2004.
The University of York research pointed to significant variations in throughcare and aftercare arrangements throughout Scotland. Some of the research does not make pleasant reading. Fewer than half of the young people who were surveyed had received a planned throughcare programme and 40 per cent of young people leaving care had not had a formal leaving care review. It was clear that many local authorities had difficulty in identifying young people who might be eligible for services.
I said at the time of publication and repeat that that is disappointing news. The research shows that, at a critical point in a young person's life, they may receive little help or advice. The situation is simple. We need to make improvements if we are to provide our young people with the support that is crucial to them to make a successful transition to adult living.
On financial support, is the Executive prepared to argue with the Department for Work and Pensions that all the benefits for the affected young people will continue and that there will be no financial losses? The minister knows that the group is concerned about that.
One reason why I want to consult more on the report's recommendations is that it is absolutely vital that we get things right. Today I heard from young people who are concerned about bursaries, housing benefits and other supports. I want to ensure that we continue to work with people out there who provide guidance and support to young people and that we keep negotiations going.
The research pointed to how we can make a positive difference. Planned throughcare programmes, placement stability, continuity of care and support are all likely to provide better outcomes for young people. Many young people say that they would like to remain longer in the care system and make the transition more gradually. It is no coincidence that those young people who were surveyed who had experienced at least one of the positive measures had significantly better experiences in moving on to adult living than those who did not. We need to take note of those experiences and build on them so that, in the future, a full range of support is available to all young people leaving care.
The working group also commissioned a consultation with young people to allow them to speak in their own words. As always, young people's own experiences contain the most powerful messages. I will give a few examples—members who have read the report will have read the following words. One young person said:
"I have started to think about moving to my own flat—what I am going to buy, and how I am going to budget my money. No-one talked to me about this in the unit. I would like someone to start helping me to think about this."
Another said:
"The worst thing was money and going from a house full of people to just me with nobody supporting or helping me."
Another said:
"I had nobody to fall back on."
Members should think about their own experiences of moving on from the parental home, or the experience that they gave to their children—their help, support and advice, being there for their children when things went wrong as well as when there were things to celebrate. The fact that young care leavers can feel so isolated and unprepared must be a wake-up call to us all. It is sad that such messages are all too common. In the past, too many care leavers have ended up homeless and unemployed or in prison. Too few have been able to fulfil their potential, in employment or in education.
The findings of the research and the consultation reinforced the conclusions of the working group about current practice and improvements that are needed. The report's recommendations are important. They will be circulated and consulted on, as I want as many agencies and organisations as possible to take the messages on board and act on them. The consultation should be an active consultation. I do not propose to discuss the report in detail, as I do not have enough time, but I want to highlight some recommendations.
It is clear that the group was in no doubt that improvements to existing services must be the starting point. They want their concerns noted that the mechanisms for monitoring and tracking young people were not in place in many local authorities. They recommend that, from April next year, local authorities should record the status of the young people concerned to allow the authorities to see how they are making progress towards providing a better service. Knowing about the accommodation, education and employment arrangements of young people as they take their first steps to independent living is vital if a proper support package is to be provided. I do not think that it is too much to ask corporate parents to know where their young people are moving on to.
The group also recommends that new assessment tools be introduced to put together packages for young people in a better way. Not all young people will need or want a full package of support, but only through discussion with them will their real needs become apparent. I stress that when we are talking about assessment we are talking not about a mechanistic tick-box approach but about actively engaging with young people to find out what they need for their circumstances and to help them to move on with their lives. It is important that young people are part of and have ownership of that assessment process. During the consultation period I want to hear more from young people about that and the other proposals.
We also recognise, as does the group, that one model will not fit all areas and the group highlighted features that should be common. Again, those are not rocket science—they are not difficult things to do—and I hope that people out there will take note and act on them. The features include nominated key workers to act as a contact point for young people; the development of minimum service standards so that young people know what they are entitled to; clear written policies so that young people know what they can expect; agencies working together and sharing information in a way that makes sense; partnership agreements among all the agencies, such as Careers Scotland, that can help to provide support; a way of sorting out problems or complaints; and a designated senior manager to promote corporate responsibilities to young people.
The outcomes are also important. Young people are clear about that. They want a decent quality of life. They want to be able to make the successful transition to independent living. They want an accurate, accessible, quick service that provides financial help when they need it and which leaves them no worse off than under the current system. Young people also want to be able to resolve complaints.
I presume that Lyndsay McIntosh will make the point in relation to her amendment that we should try to get some of those common features in place much earlier. I accept the spirit of her amendment but I am keen that we do not lose the focus on closing the gap for the most vulnerable young people. That is why, unfortunately, although I accept the spirit of her amendment, I cannot accept the wording.
I believe that the recommendations in the report, if we take them forward constructively, will help to close the opportunity gap for young people. Every young person deserves the chance of a successful and a prosperous future. Young people leaving care should not be left on the margins of society, struggling to cope without help and support. I repeat that we would not want that for our own children and we should not want that for any child or young person. We must improve services for vulnerable young people. We need to continue to work together on the issue, and I hope that there will be many positive messages for young people listening to the debate that Parliament intends to take their situation seriously.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises that young people leaving care need effective support to make a successful transition to independent, adult living; welcomes publication of the report by the Throughcare and Aftercare Working Group and the Executive's intention to consult on its recommendations, and believes that the policy initiatives led by the Executive will close the opportunity gap for these young people and lead to real improvements in their lives.
It might surprise the minister to know that there are members, indeed some on her own benches, who query why it is necessary to have yet another debate on looked-after children. However, I think that the answer is obvious. We need to have as many debates as it takes until effective action is taken and we can improve the situation. We need to go on highlighting the extent to which we are failing those vulnerable children. We know that looked-after children are the group most likely to experience homelessness, sexual abuse, drug misuse and self-harming and to become involved in crime. We need to raise the issue again and again until it is no longer acceptable for 75 per cent of looked-after children to leave school with no formal qualifications and for up to 50 per cent of young homeless people to have had a care background.
Those statistics are unacceptable and the facts are shocking but we have known for some time about the poor outcome for looked-after children. We have likewise been all too painfully aware that relevant and adequate support was not available to them as they made their way to independence. For those looked-after children and young people with disabilities or mental health issues, the problems are simply compounded. However, we also know that, with appropriate and reliable support, many of those young people are able to make successful transitions to adult life.
We welcome the working group's report. Its findings and conclusions have a great deal to commend them. Like the ADSW, we welcome the report's call for an increase in the range of accommodation, support, employment and training for young people leaving care. That is why our amendment urges the Executive to endorse the recommendations and commit to full implementation. I am sorry that the minister has not been able to do that, although I heard the explanation that she gave.
The University of York research that was mentioned said that only 39 per cent of the young people surveyed received a throughcare programme. The research also highlighted that many local authorities lacked appropriate procedures and systems for monitoring and evaluating young people leaving care. Implementation of those recommendations must surely be a priority that we would welcome. However, any new system for monitoring support must be workable. It must also be based on the reality that is faced by the young people concerned and by the front-line providers.
Ultimately, the vital improvements that we all want to see in our support services for looked-after young people will not be solved simply by putting additional pressures on already overstretched local authority social work departments. The overall underfunding of children's services nationally has been one major factor in the current lack of service provision. As we have heard in the past, the services have been allowed to deteriorate into crisis. I therefore repeat my call to the minister to continue to act with all possible urgency to address recruitment and retention problems in social work.
Without the staff and resources to implement the changes, the working group's report could become simply another paper exercise. That would only perpetuate the situation whereby, despite the statutory requirement, there are children and young people who do not have a social worker assigned to them to support them in their time of greatest need. The research confirms that provision is poor and patchy throughout Scotland. Although local authorities already have a duty to provide throughcare and aftercare, there are too many cases in which that duty is not met.
Young people themselves recognise that there is a problem. In the document "In Their Own Words", one such care leaver wrote:
"In my area, there are only three workers for the whole area. Each worker has an average of thirty young people to deal with—this is very unrealistic."
Of course that is unrealistic. I am glad that it is proposed that the young people affected are to have a greater say and involvement in the planning and implementation of their assessment and action plans. Choosing their own key worker and being involved in and agreeing to every aspect of their own throughcare and aftercare programme is one of the best ways of ensuring its effectiveness.
Finally, I note that it is important that we recognise that all the working group's recommendations respond to, and are informed by, the concerns of many care leavers and of those who work with them. Indeed, many members of the working group have worked closely on throughcare and aftercare and have years of experience, so they accurately reflect the views of affected young people. We can therefore be assured that the working group's recommendations are sound, well informed and most likely to be effective.
Rather than waste an awful lot more time on more debates and more talking, all of which jeopardises still further the life chances of too many of Scotland's children, I make one simple plea to the minister. Just do it.
I move amendment S1M-3351.2, to leave out from "believes" to end and insert:
"urges the Executive to endorse the recommendations highlighted in the report and to ensure their adequate resourcing and effective implementation."
Despite my amendment to the Executive motion, I should say at the outset that the Conservative party also welcomes the report by the throughcare and aftercare working group. We appreciate their endeavours, but the purpose of the amendment is to underline just how desperate the situation can be for youngsters leaving care and making their own way in the world.
Every parent wants the best for their child—the best education, the best care, the best opportunities, the best jobs, and the list goes on. From the moment we set eyes on them, we carry in our hearts every aspiration that our children can be the best that they can be. It is unnatural to think otherwise. We all wish that there was no need to have this debate, but sadly, there will always be need for a system of looking after youngsters who have no families or who are otherwise disadvantaged. We have a duty to such children and we must do our best for them, as we would for our own.
As I am sure the minister is aware, the figures are depressing. There are around 11,000 children being looked after by local authorities in Scotland. Around 1,300 of them are over the age of 16, and, in many cases, their problems are immense. That is illustrated by the lack of educational attainment, the tendency towards offending behaviour and the fact that it is estimated that between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of our young homeless people have been in council care at some stage in their young lives.
We must consider what we can do to break a relentless and depressing pattern. The Executive seeks to do its best, and where those measures will improve the life chances of those disadvantaged children, we will support them whole-heartedly. However, we remain concerned that the report's recommendations tackle symptoms that cannot get at the root cause. For example, we should be making greater efforts to achieve educational attainment when up to 75 per cent of those children who are being looked after leave school with no formal qualifications and with limited opportunities in the world of work. That must be a top priority and an example of what I mean by intervention at an earlier stage. It is no use getting aerated just before the diet of exams when youngsters are leaving school.
We must consider the role of local authorities and recognise that the care service provision is far from perfect. We recognise that there are significant difficulties concerning the employment and retainment of social workers, particularly in child and family services. It should concern us all that, despite statutory requirements, some local authorities fail to provide assessments and advice for young people leaving their care. A cynic might be prompted to ask whether some youngsters are being discharged from care early to save money, as after discharge they become eligible for benefit. I do not know if that is the thinking behind early discharge, but if it is, the Executive must act.
At present, local authorities are struggling to provide a service—that much we know. However, I am anxious to know how the Executive hopes to guarantee that the implementation of the report after consultation will be more successful. The report poses as many questions as it answers and, as I say, the purpose of the Conservative amendment is to underline the importance of those questions. In its briefing, Barnardo's raised points about the ability to achieve continuity and stability in care placements, about the age at which young people leave care and about whether there are sufficient resources for a reliable service.
I believe that there is an opportunity for our charities, and especially our voluntary groups, to become even more involved. This goes back to the issue of continuity. I hope that the Executive will consider seriously the role that voluntary organisations can play in helping to fill gaps in provision. It strikes me as a win-win proposition. The youngsters benefit through continuity and through seeing role models for their future life and those diamond volunteers get the satisfaction of helping youngsters to start off better equipped. What is not to like?
I do not decry the Executive's motion, or indeed the SNP's amendment, but I had hoped that the minister might accept my positive amendment, which was lodged in a spirit of encouragement and the desire to do more. However, I understand her hesitancy.
I move amendment S1M-3351.1, to leave out from "and believes" to end and insert:
"but believes that the difficulties for young people leaving care should be addressed at an earlier stage to give them the best chance of coping with the challenges of successful adult living."
I have quoted Shakespeare before as saying:
"When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions."
I also remember waiting for corporation buses when I lived in Glasgow, and finding that none would come for ages and then they would all come together. Those are examples of annoyances, but, in this case, having a cluster of debates about this particular vulnerable group of young people is a matter, if not for congratulations exactly, for comfort. It means that we are taking those people seriously and putting them high up on the agenda.
I believe that the Parliament has its heart in the right place and I hope that it has its head in the right place. When people stand back and consider the work of the Scottish Parliament—work that they often denigrate—they will see that in legislation, policy documents and debates, we have repeatedly turned our attention to trying to improve the lot of disadvantaged groups and individuals throughout Scotland. We have turned our attention to children with special educational needs and adopted and looked-after children. Changes in the regulation of care have been enacted and we have considered disability rights and the treatment of adults with incapacity. The Education, Culture and Sport Committee is considering a proposal for a bill for the protection of children. That raft of statutes and policy documents would not have been given the time at Westminster. They should be a source of pride for us.
The group of young people that we are discussing today are especially vulnerable, having come through a care system that does not always meet their emotional, social and educational needs. There is a difficult transitional point when throughcare and aftercare is necessary to allow young people to move as best they can towards independence. Members have quoted statistics that demonstrate the difficulties in education and care.
I welcome the publication of the report, the minister's remarks and her clear commitment to this vulnerable group. The "Report from the Working Group on the Throughcare and Aftercare of Looked After Children in Scotland" seems to strike a balance between empowerment and protection for such youngsters. One of the annexes that has been quoted from repeatedly gathers together poignant and telling comments by young people on their experiences as they have made the transition. I am glad that the recommendations of the working group pay attention to some of the issues that are raised in the survey by the University of York, from which the comments are taken.
At lunch time today I was speaking to two young men, who are representatives of the Scottish youth parliament, at an event that was dedicated to enabling us to listen to the voices of young disabled people. I was pleased to be able to say to those youngsters that the Scottish youth parliament, which gave evidence to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee some months ago, had helped to shape our thinking about the creation of a commissioner, not only for children, but for children and young people. That is important, because we wish young people who are moving from care still to have an advocate and focal point for exercising their rights and enabling them to have their voices heard. I hope that the minister will recognise that that goes alongside the recommendations in the report.
It is possible to say that, having had several debates around the topic, we should stop talking and get on with things—that is what Irene McGugan did not quite say. I do not really think that Irene McGugan believes that we should stop talking. It would never be right for us to stop talking. I welcome the further consultation. The report's recommendations will continue to be discussed and scrutinised. Several organisations have made it clear that there are still debates to be had on the details of certain points.
I hope that the recommendations will be considered urgently as a programme for action. I ask the minister to recognise that resources of time, money and professional expertise are required if the recommendations are to be progressed. For example, some of the recommendations might need statutory instruments to put them into force—we should get on with it.
When councils are required, as they should be, to improve the current system and provide a good, even service across the country, they need to be resourced properly. Councils will be asked to report on service delivery, to record information on individuals, to track them and to provide plans for each young person, but all such things take time, money and professional expertise. Like Lyndsay McIntosh, I think that there is potential for the voluntary sector to take part in the process in partnership with the local authorities and other agencies.
I would have supported the SNP amendment as it stands, if it had been an add-on to the substantive motion. Unfortunately, the SNP chose to take a wee bit out of the motion before adding the amendment. However, I agree with it in spirit.
The minister has made it clear that things are already happening. I hope very much that action will be accelerated and that, when we next have a debate about this group of youngsters, there will be solid, recognisable progress to report. I know that Cathy Jamieson cares deeply about this issue and am confident that progress will be made.
I pay warm tribute to the working group on throughcare and aftercare for all the work that it has done and commend it on the report that it has published.
We should not underestimate the importance of the Scottish Executive's decision to delay until 2004 introduction of the enhanced duty on local authorities to be responsible for young people leaving care, including through the provision of direct financial support. Although that one-stop approach is to be welcomed in principle, there was much concern about how it might be implemented. If we are serious about ensuring that young care leavers get the services that they richly deserve, it is important that we get implementation of the enhanced duty right.
As Irene McGugan said, the poor outcomes of care leavers are nothing new. We all know the statistics, which have been damning for as long as they have been collected. The situation was probably just as bad before that. Neither is it new for us to place duties on our local authorities, which are responsible for young care leavers. However, we cannot by legislative framework alone improve the services that are provided.
The Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 placed on social work departments the duty to be responsible for young people leaving care. In the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, that duty was enhanced and placed on local authorities as a whole, rather than just social work departments. The 1995 act also strengthened the concept of corporate parenting. However, many of our local government officers still see looked-after children as the sole responsibility of social workers or the social work service.
Before the previous local government reorganisation, there was a housing duty on district councils and a social work duty on regional councils. When young people who had been in care were facing homelessness, it was sometimes very difficult for them to access the services that they required, because they had to deal with two different councils. One might hope that a unitary system of local government, such as that which currently exists, would go some way towards eradicating that problem. However, not all our local authorities have taken on fully the corporate parenting role and realised that they have duties and responsibilities as parents to the very vulnerable young people whom we are discussing.
Lyndsay McIntosh asked whether some young people would not be eligible to receive services because they had been discharged from care early. It is difficult to say whether that is happening. Many young people want to get away from the social work service and to leave the formal looked-after system. They do not always know what is in their best interests in the long term. It is important that local authority services encourage them to consider what is in their best interests.
That is the point that I was trying to make. Does not the member think that allowing more people from outside social work—for example, from the voluntary sector—to interact with young people could have great benefits? That may be just what young people are seeking.
I have no difficulty in endorsing what Lyndsay McIntosh says. Involvement should not be restricted to the voluntary sector. Local government services as a whole must realise that they have a responsibility to young people in the looked-after system. That is enshrined in legislation and we are trying to enact it in practice.
The minister noted the difference between the average age at which looked-after young people leave their placement, which is 16 and a half, and the age at which the vast majority of young people do so, which is in the early 20s. We must build on the good examples that exist in some areas. There, young people who have left their care establishment—whether it be a children's home or a foster care placement—are encouraged to return at an indeterminate point afterwards, so that they can take advantage of the services that are available. They may be helped with their washing or given informal advice and guidance. I see that as another way of developing the throughcare system in the way that I would like it to be developed.
I ask the minister what priority the Executive gives aftercare. A member of the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum put it to me earlier today that care leavers are not looking for preferential treatment over other young people. However, they are in a unique position compared to that of other young people, given that the state is their parent. They are asking for a level playing field in ensuring that the services that are delivered to them are exactly what we would expect from any good parent.
In my day, and perhaps the minister's day too—I will accept that I am older than her, although just a skoosh—we used to talk about children in care, but now we talk about looked-after children. I welcome that change, because those children are being looked after on society's behalf. That fact should never be forgotten. They are our children and it is our duty to look after them. Surely we must give them the same standards of care and the same type of opportunities that we expect for our biological children.
This debate is about throughcare and aftercare and in the time that I have been allotted I will touch briefly on each. On throughcare, I will focus on children who are being looked after in residential care homes. The minister has rightly put at the top of her priority list the educational outcomes for looked-after children. The lack of formal qualifications that this group of children are achieving has been mentioned in the debate.
When I used to visit children's homes during my working day, the number of children who were not at school, many for what seemed spurious reasons, never failed to sadden me. We, as a society, and the minister must address whether we are ensuring that looked-after children are receiving the same kind of parental support in their education that we, as parents, give our children. That means that social work and education departments must get together to ensure that the children attend school regularly, that they do their homework, that they have a quiet place in which to study and that, if difficulties arise at school, the child's key worker approaches the school quickly to resolve the problem as any caring parent would do. That means that social work departments have truly to assume the role of a good parent who attends parents' night, takes an interest in the child's education and, most of all, wishes their child to achieve their full potential.
We are failing miserably in aftercare. Homelessness statistics show that up to 50 per cent of homeless young people are former children in care. As parents, do we say once our children have reached 16 or 18, "Out you go, I have no further responsibility for you"? Of course we do not. I have two 30-somethings whom I will worry about until my dying day, whether they like it or not. When looked-after children reach so-called maturity, they become a low priority. Resources dry up and the pressures on the system come into play. If one asks any looked-after young adult they will, with very few exceptions, say, "I was on my own after leaving care."
The road ahead is clear. The Executive must match the rhetoric with resources. I ask the Executive to address as a matter of urgency the crisis that exists in social work departments up and down the country. Most of all, let the members who are in the chamber, and the members who should be in the chamber listening to this important debate, acknowledge that we must do for society's children what we do for our own children.
I could not agree more strongly with Kay Ullrich when she said how important it was for children to reach their full potential.
We recognise the importance of continuity when it comes to providing for young people who are leaving care. Continuity is particularly important for young vulnerable persons, such as those who have learning difficulties, mental illness or some other frailty or difficulty that has caused them to become homeless. They definitely need support. I remember visiting a young boy who was put into care in London after he had been found sleeping on the streets because he could not get along with his stepfather in Edinburgh. He also needed support.
I welcome the constructive way in which Cathy Jamieson has approached this subject. I should mention that I am the chairman of the Edinburgh support group of the charity Hope and Homes for Children, which operates overseas in war-torn communities.
In 1995, we passed the Children (Scotland) Act, which I had the good fortune to pilot through the Commons and which gave local authorities a duty to give guidance and assistance to those under 19. The legislation also contained a provision that allowed authorities to guide and assist young people between the ages of 19 and 21 who applied for assistance.
I was slightly disappointed to read in the "Report from the Working Group on the Throughcare and Aftercare of Looked After Children in Scotland" that 39 per cent of the young care leavers in Scotland who were surveyed had not been part of a throughcare programme. I think that the minister recognises that that requires attention. I was also saddened to read that, despite the fact that authorities have a duty under section 73 of the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 to carry out an assessment of the needs of young people who are leaving care, 40 per cent of those young people did not receive a formal leaving care review. I hope that improvements will be made in that area, too. The report also said that some authorities were unable to give an accurate figure for the number of young people who had left their care and to whom they owed a duty of care.
It is refreshing that the Executive has recognised that young people, on leaving care, need effective support to make the transition to independent adult living. In order to show that that support is in place, the Executive must consider the real, pressing problems that exist at local authority level. Why, despite statutory obligations, do many authorities lack appropriate policies on the reviews, guidance, procedures and adequate data collection and processing systems that are deemed to be necessary for monitoring and evaluating the progress of young people who leave care? Is it simply that the resources are insufficient? If so, it would seem less than wise to place a great many more burdens, however worthy and constructive, upon local authorities without addressing that issue.
One of the unanswered questions in the brief that was provided by the Scottish Council for Single Homeless was:
"Will the resources transferred to local authorities be adequate to meet the enhanced responsibilities, duties and expectations bestowed upon local authorities?"
I suggest that the issue of resources must be dealt with.
If the issue is not one of resources, we must ask whether local authorities have got their priorities absolutely right when it comes to care leavers. I ask the minister a question that was echoed not only by Lyndsay McIntosh but by Ian Jenkins. In view of the fact that Barnardo's Scotland and other voluntary groups provide outstanding services for care leavers, is not it time to consider giving them a more prominent role in the delivery of aftercare services for Scotland's care leavers?
The brutal reality is that young people who leave care can be very vulnerable. I ask the minister to give this subject increased priority in the years to come, and to pay particular attention to young persons who leave care.
There is no point in having a debate unless it is followed by action. In my research for this debate, I looked back to a debate that we held in January 2000, during which I gave a typically brilliant, constructive and sensible speech. I might as well have saved my breath, because the result was zero. There has been no improvement in tackling this issue, although I am sure that individuals have been working away at it. We have not made progress, and we must have some action.
First, councils and other organisations must be given adequate resources. Regrettably, the Scottish Executive has been no better than any other Government at providing resources to back up its good words but, if we do not have adequate resources, we are all wasting our time.
However, many improvements can be made without calling on large sums of money. Other members have mentioned the voluntary sector and I think that, in addition to voluntary organisations, we should recruit voluntary individuals to help support young people in addition to the statutory people who are supposed to help. If the right sort of people could be found to act as honorary aunties, grannies, granddads and so on—
While I would never challenge the importance of volunteers and mentors, does not Donald Gorrie agree that that service should be provided by a professional organisation, whether through the local authorities or voluntary organisations such as Barnardo's?
I am suggesting that people should supplement what social workers and the voluntary sector should do. There is a huge amount of talent in society and people could help young people with cooking, shopping for their home, running financial affairs, sorting out benefits and so on.
The point that Cathy Peattie made needs to be emphasised strongly. From my reading of the report of the working group and a report by the University of York, I understand that the real issue that we are addressing is the failure to deliver a statutory service that must be delivered. That statutory service was well outlined by Kay Ullrich: it can be caring, but it is a statutory service on behalf of the state, which everything adds on to. That is the failure that we are addressing today.
I think that the volunteers whom I am discussing could add value to the statutory service and could achieve a great deal. The volunteers would not only be older motherly and fatherly types, but would include young people. When a mother in England, I think, advertised for people whom she would pay to play with her autistic child, a lot of kids came along and wanted to help without payment. That is encouraging. There are many young people in schools who would enjoy helping people with problems and would be of great use doing so. We should use that sort of talent.
We have to get stuck in earlier, before people get into difficulties and go into residential care. We should have much more support in the family, from statutory people and volunteers.
We have to raise expectations. I believe that people perform to expectations. The children of people in this chamber expect to succeed and, therefore, they succeed. The children about whom we are talking today expect to fail and, therefore, they fail. We have to crack that and persuade them that they have talents. We can use their talents to ensure that they contribute to the community rather than contributing to the problems that Jim Wallace has with his jails.
The hardest problem is to get professionals at the local government and national Government levels to co-operate. We have to cure council and Government officials of the serious diseases of pigeon-holing, insularity and tribalism from which they suffer. I was interested to hear from a group of young carers that they felt let down by the schools and even more badly let down by social workers. We have to get people who work in those professions to co-operate in helping young people in need.
Let us act to ensure that we can have a debate in a few months' time to celebrate what we have achieved rather than saying warm words and doing absolutely zero.
I welcome the report and the recommendations. I admit to having some sympathy with the SNP amendment, as I believe that it is time that we stopped talking and got on with the work. Like Ian Jenkins, I think that, if it had been an add-on amendment, I would have been in the difficult position of having to vote against the Executive for the first time, although perhaps the Executive would have decided to support the amendment.
However, I appreciate the minister's comments about why further time for consultation is necessary. I hope that she will confirm that the consultation period will be short. Three months has been indicated. We should stick to that time limit, because we have been at this point for two years and need to move things forward quickly.
I hope that the minister will also tell us that, even during that three-month period, local authorities can be doing things to improve the situation and to reduce the number of young people who leave care without the appropriate support. The local authorities must provide those services. A further consultation period can be useful.
I will focus my comments on young people with disabilities who leave care, because I think that there is a gap in the report on that issue. The minister has said that one size will not fit all. That is particularly true for young people with disabilities who leave care. It is important that actions are tailored to meet the needs of those young people, especially those with complex special needs because of multiple disabilities. Although we can support those young people through working with voluntary agencies and health boards, we need to consider how their needs will be taken into account when the recommendations are implemented.
Capability Scotland has specifically requested that local authorities be asked to compile data on the disabilities of young people who leave care and on where they go and the kind of support that they receive, which are big issues for those young people. I know that the minister has a particularly good track record on the subject and I am sure that she will consider that request sympathetically. I hope that she will comment positively on the points that I have made when she winds up.
My purpose in supporting the amendment is not to seek to break the existing consensus but to drive things forward and improve the situation for the youngsters involved. Although we know where we are and where we need to go, we must ensure that we actually go down that road. In a nutshell, we must ensure that we can check against delivery. As Donald Gorrie pointed out, all the warm words, eloquence and rhetoric in the chamber or elsewhere will not provide the warm homes, comfort, loving and guidance that the children require. As a result, checks are required.
Irene McGugan said that we need to take resourcing issues into account. I heartily endorse that point. We must ensure that people in front-line services, particularly in social work departments, are provided with the necessary means. I do not want to go into financial matters, because the subject has been discussed before. All parties must look to their position on the funding that they are prepared to provide. Instead, I will make two points, the first of which relates to a position that will require political courage to adopt. Again, that is an issue for all political parties in the chamber. My second point concerns an attitudinal change that all parties should be required to make.
As I said, my first point relates to a question of political courage. Although it concerns funding, it is also a matter of the cultural attitude towards the youngsters, who statistics show are more likely to be involved in crime or to end up in custody, through no fault of their own. That is meant not as a condemnation, but as a sign of an understanding of the circumstances in which they—and we—find ourselves.
At the moment, our society is greatly worried about youth crime. I have to say that I worry about nomenclature. As a parent of two teenage children, I think that we are in danger of stigmatising a generation when, in fact, my children are, in many respects, less predisposed to misbehaviour than many of my peer group were a generation ago.
The fact is that the issue that we are discussing brings to the fore the question of youth crime, which involves resources. We are all facing the clamour for more bobbies on the beat. I do not think that any party in the chamber would repudiate such a desire. We are also facing the clamour for more secure places for youngsters, which I support. However, we must be aware that, because of the circumstances in which the children about whom we are talking find themselves, they do not evoke public sympathy. In fact, they often inspire public opprobrium.
It will take courage by members of all political parties to say that we require to find resources to deal with the matter at the same time as finding resources for police officers, secure units and so on. We must find those resources not in response to any namby-pamby liberal agenda; we must provide them because they are necessary to break the cycle of despair in which many youngsters find themselves. We cannot simply marginalise those young people and leave them to be excluded for ever and a day. Unless we address the issue and find the resources to put in at the beginning, we will for ever require more secure places and more police officers, because we will not have broken that cycle. It will take some political courage from everyone in the Parliament to be prepared to stand up and ask for resources, because the issue is not a great vote winner. It may be important in the chamber and to a section of society that is in touch with what is going on but, as far as the tabloid press is concerned, it is not at the forefront.
As I said, an attitudinal change is also required. The resourcing of social work, voluntary and professional, has been neglected. The attitude has been to denigrate social work departments. We must move away from that. Many of us who were in the chamber yesterday afternoon heard Karen Gillon's debate about looking after public servants. We all, quite rightly, laud our police officers, firemen, nurses and emergency workers, but let us remember that social workers, community workers and youth workers are public servants too—we must stop denigrating them. The issue is not simply a matter of finding the resources. We must have political courage as a chamber and as a body politic and we must try to encompass an attitudinal and cultural change within our society, lauding the role that public services and social work undertake and recognising the need to break the cycle at the outset rather than picking up the pieces at the end.
Just because children are in care and have had their 16th birthday, that does not mean that they are ready to make their own way in the world. Let us face it—we would not expect any 16-year-old to make the transition to independence without understanding, practical support and their fair share of false starts. We must ensure that young people are ready to leave care. Many of their peers who live with their families do not leave the nest until they are in their 20s and they are likely to come back when the going gets tough or when they want their washing done.
Leaving home is not a one-off event. It is a prolonged process, taking two steps forward and one step back, as any parent will tell you. Young people leaving care services need continuing support until they are fully established in society at large. They often need transitional funding for housing or for other purposes. They need help in managing budgets, knowing how to cook and all the basics of daily life that we all take for granted. They can also be vulnerable when things go wrong and they need someone to help them pick up the pieces when necessary. One means of doing that is supported accommodation, where help is on hand when needed, but not enough such accommodation is available. Case workers need time to spend with young people and sometimes even crisis management is difficult. Support comes not just from statutory agencies but from the voluntary sector and self-help groups. Local authorities need to work closely with all the agencies that provide support.
Sometimes it is tempting and easy to dismiss children and young people as difficult. As a parent, I have to say that all children and young people can occasionally be difficult. Those young folk in care have more cause than most. They need time and patience to overcome the problems that they have to work through. We must also ensure that they are not forced to go home and that, if they do, there is some way of following up on that move. If things go wrong, someone should be there with other options.
We must ensure that children in care do not miss out on the basics of education. Why do so few children in care progress to further and higher education compared with other kids? They need more assistance than most because they have bigger obstacles to overcome. Sometimes teachers are not aware of the problems that children face in their home lives or in care. We must ensure that there is partnership and dialogue between education and care services. The question is not one of ability. It is about opportunity and missed opportunity. I welcome the report so far and I look forward to its implementation. I am confident that Cathy Jamieson will ensure that the opportunity gap is closed.
We have a little time in hand as we move to wind-up speeches.
During the debate, there has been some comment about us talking rather than doing. It is worth remembering that the problems that we are considering have been around for a long time. If there were simple solutions, they would have been found long ago.
As has been pointed out, it is a worthy undertaking to have a debate on the throughcare and aftercare of looked-after children. It is good for us to talk about such matters. It is sad that the press gallery is empty, because the subject is more important than what a newspaper might say about a politician—it affects real people's real lives. As has been said, if a child's life is blighted at that early stage, their life is blighted for good.
The debate has been of a high quality. On my way from the Holyrood site, I was wondering what I was going to say. I have been inspired by all the contributions, which have come from all parts of the chamber. Scott Barrie showed his encyclopaedic knowledge of local authorities and how they work. I hope that members listened carefully, because Mr Barrie exhibited a detailed knowledge of where the problems can lie. Kay Ullrich spoke extremely well; I am only sorry that she will not be with us in the next session of Parliament. She made a weighty contribution and I shall return to her comments later, because she got to the heart of the matter.
The minister has listened to the points that are made in the report. I have every faith that she, the Executive and all the main parties in the Parliament will work towards the solutions. Those solutions are not easy and will not be attained without considerable thought.
Donald Gorrie valiantly played up the role of the voluntary sector. The work of the voluntary sector can be constructive if it is passed on to the statutory sector. I see no difference between Mike Russell's point and Donald Gorrie's point. Donald Gorrie is talking about unblocking the extra assistance that is available, a subject to which I will return. Lyndsay McIntosh also mentioned the voluntary sector.
The debate has been good because it has been consensual and constructive. There has been a common recognition of the problem, which I will draw on my experience to summarise. I was elected to Highland Council in 1995. The councillors from the Ross-shire area got together in the committee room in Dingwall and divvied up the area chairmanships. There was a scramble for planning, for economic development, for roads and transport and for education. Social work was left on the table. A councillor who will remain nameless said, "Och, we'll give social work to Jamie." For my sins, I became the Ross-shire area chairman of social work.
I do not remember a single debate being held in my four years as chairman of social work for the Ross and Cromarty area of Highland Council. An official would occasionally mention that one of the children had escaped and would tell me the line to take if the press should ring up. I would hear councillors expressing delight in the coffee room—never in the chamber—about a rumour that an institution in their ward was closing, which would mean that they would not have children in care on their patch.
Kay Ullrich used the phrase "our children", which is a strong sentiment. That is precisely what such children are—they are our children. If we were all to acknowledge that, it would make a big difference. If social workers and social work bodies could recognise the equivalent of parents nights and other such events—events that we hold for our own children—for children in care, that would broaden everything out and make a huge difference.
Until now, there has been a tendency among politicians at all levels inadvertently to treat the social work service as a cinderella service—a service that is best forgotten about and preferably not talked about. We are talking about it today and we should talk about it more. That will allow us to approach the problem that Kenny MacAskill identified about the mindset and the need to change the way in which we see looked-after children. We must get away from the Victorian mentality of putting them away and not thinking about the problem. We must see such children as forming part of a greater family. One of the best councillors in Highland Council, who is no longer with us, tackled the issue by using the expression,
"We are all God's children."
I make a final point to add to what Donald Gorrie said. He talked about the voluntary sector. For those of us who take an interest in the church, I should mention the book by Harry Reid, former editor of The Herald, called "Outside Verdict". It is a bit of heart-searching that asks, "Whither the Church of Scotland?" I do not think that he mentions such young people to any great extent, but the churches are there and they could get involved in the voluntary side. If the church worries and wrings its hands about why people are not going to church, why should it not get out there among those young people and show them the good that could be done by all churches and by all faiths? We might then see the pews filling up a bit more. There is a lesson there for all of us: from churches to Barnardo's to social work departments. This is a good debate.
Will the member take an intervention?
No, I am winding up.
I commend the motion to the chamber. I believe that, had the SNP amendment been positive, we could have adopted it. However, the reality is that we are all singing from the same sheet. Let us sing very loudly and get right behind the minister in what she is trying to do.
I find myself in a somewhat unusual position today in that I could support the motion and each of the amendments.
On the motion, I have a slight concern about going to consultation yet again. My concern dates back to the Scottish Standing Committee, when we took through the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Much of the discussion and many of the words used in today's debate were used at that time. However, when I read the report, I find that despite the hopes and aspirations of members who conscientiously went through the legislative process and tried to give powers to local authorities, those powers do not seem to have been implemented in the way that we would have wished.
That particular committee was somewhat unusual in that it was able to take evidence. We took evidence from youngsters in the 16 to 17-year-old band. Their situation was extremely moving because they described their position as very lonely once they had left social work care. I felt that that had to be addressed but, sadly, when I read the report, I feel that we have not yet come to terms with the issue.
I note that in the minister's foreword to the report she did seem to take on board the recommendations. It is just a pity that we were not able to commit to at least some action on that report, rather than delaying. I accept that there are issues that have to be left to be dealt with in negotiation between the minister and her colleagues—perhaps with respect to funding.
Irene McGugan talked about funding for local authorities. It hits me that that is a problem for the Parliament, because we might well want money to go into the block grant to address the situation. However, at the end of the day, and with local government democracy, there is no guarantee that that money will go the way that the Parliament and the ministers would wish. That is something else that we have to address.
Lyndsay McIntosh offered statistics to demonstrate why this particular group of people must be treated with some special interest. Kay Ullrich's comments brought the issue down to an extremely homely level and the things that she said about young people represented all of the things that those young people do not have access to in their present lives. On that basis alone, it was a moving contribution.
When we think about children of that age, it is not just about what we can do for them. It is about how their lives are affected. When our children passed their exams, had a success at sports or got engaged or married, they had someone to come back to and relate to. The children we are talking about today do not have that. Whatever the efforts of a social worker, no matter how good that social worker is, and no matter how hard they try, they can never replace a parent and child relationship. Perhaps there is a message there.
I know how difficult it can be to find foster parents. I would like the Government to place greater emphasis—perhaps using advertising—on foster parents to see if we can get more parents to take these children on board at as early an age as possible, and perhaps even at the difficult ages of 13 and 14, so that there is a prop for those children as they go into the future.
I have one point on what Michael Russell said about statutory requirements. Perhaps one of the failings of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 was that we gave local authorities a way out. There is no statutory requirement. We gave them a responsibility for people to the age of 19, and an optional responsibility for those aged between 19 and 21, but the way out was that that responsibility applied only if it was deemed necessary. In a future examination of the legislation, perhaps we could close that way out and take Mike Russell's advice and introduce a statutory requirement.
This has been an important debate, but I want to cut through some of the warm words and mushiness that we have heard, in particular in the past 10 minutes. It is a cause for some anger—the minister will accept that, and we certainly heard anger in Scott Barrie's speech, among others—that we are in this position. The reality of the position that we are in cannot be overstated.
We see in front of us an alarming set of circumstances. We see not just the failure of a system, but the failure of us collectively. The minister referred to corporate parenting in her introduction. We see the failure of us as a society, and the failure of us as the people who are responsible for guiding and moving society forward in Scotland. The statistics are terrifying. We are not talking about a large number of young people. The report's estimate is 11,000 people, of whom 1,300 are over 16, but we are dealing, for example, with a set of young people, almost two thirds of whom have no standard grade exams, most of whom—83 per cent—have experience of truancy, and 71 per cent of whom have experience of exclusion. Think about those numbers. Within that small group of people, there was that level of experience.
But it gets worse. Less than 1 per cent of that number go to university, so about 110 people out of that group go to university—a tiny proportion compared to the average in Scotland. If we compare those children with Scottish children in general, there is one statistic that sticks out like a sore thumb: 45 per cent of young offenders held in custody in 2000 had been in residential care at some time. Just think about that. We are talking about 11,000 young people, which probably represents much less than 1 per cent of Scotland's young people, but 45 per cent of young offenders who were held in custody in 2000 had been in residential care at some time. Many of us react with horror when we see such figures applying to ethnic minorities in other countries or to groups of people, but in our own country there is a group of people, the proportion of which exhibiting offending behaviour is vastly in excess of the proportion in society. We should not lose sight of those figures. It is possible to have warm words, and it is possible to be cuddly in this debate, but there are hard, raw facts at the centre of it.
On the appalling imprisonment statistics to which Mike Russell referred, would he say that it is important that we bear those statistics in mind in other debates? For example, we had a debate last year on school exclusions. If members had known those statistics in that debate, it would have put that issue in a better context.
I have no difficulty in accepting that point. That is the context in which we have to examine the issue. Indeed, Mr MacAskill made those points in his speech.
The group is not a static group; it is a group of people who move on, and when we fail them once, we fail them for ever. We cannot go back and change that failure.
I want to say one or two things directly to the minister, and I say them while acknowledging her personal commitment to these matters, and the personal commitment that we have seen across the chamber today. There will be no division along political lines on this matter.
First, the minister should beware the siren voices that talk all the time about the voluntary sector. There is a statutory service and it is vital that we have it. Kay Ullrich illustrated the purpose of that. That is our responsibility and we must exercise it. There is much room for voluntary effort, but the responsibility starts here.
Secondly, we need to take action, rather than just talk about the issue. That was the point of the SNP's amendment. I am sorry that the minister does not accept that. Our amendment accepts that a problem exists and says that we must go ahead on the basis of the working group's report. We are accepting an Executive report, because what we have identified is clear. We all know and acknowledge that the need exists and the reports show that. A statutory framework is in place. Phil Gallie is right that it could be improved, but it does exist. The individual, caring will exists in the caring professions and in the chamber, so what is absent?
I suggest that two requirements are absent. One is resources. Local authorities have difficulty with resources and say so. Oversight is also absent. We should begin to talk about the carrot-and-stick approach. Extra resources are undoubtedly required, but we should also have a cast-iron method of checking and inspection. As all the voluntary agencies say, that should start with the provision of data. We do not know the totality of the problem.
The minister will have total support if she is going into battle with the civil service and others who are failing on the matter. If she can return to the chamber—perhaps as early as next week, with the budget consequentials—and tell us that the log-jam is cleared, that the carrot and stick are in place and that the situation will improve, she will have support.
All of us want to make certain—[Interruption]—I am sorry that Mr Stone is not taking the matter seriously. I am taking it seriously.
I know Mike Russell for the good actor that he is.
Order.
All of us want to make a difference. We will support anyone who makes that difference, but we will not willingly return to the chamber to debate the matter once more in abstract without seeing progress.
The debate has been interesting. Perhaps I am about to ruin my political credibility by agreeing with something that Phil Gallie said, but I was taken back a few years by the speeches of Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and Phil Gallie to the time when the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 was being developed, when I was one of the people who accompanied young people to give evidence and who argued for a stronger statutory basis to the provisions. I pay tribute to the work that Lord James Douglas-Hamilton did at that time. He listened to much of what was presented on behalf of young people.
We have heard a great many warm words, but they have been underpinned by quite a lot of anger and annoyance that we have not made progress as quickly as we would like. I reassure the chamber that when I say that I want to get the report out and to have people comment on it, that does not mean that nothing will happen from today onwards or that nothing has happened in the past months. Since I have been actively involved in the process, it has been clear that action would be needed on many issues—before the report was published. I took that action, not the least of which involved the transfer of resources from the Department for Work and Pensions. That action could not have waited to be published as a recommendation for consultation. We had to take a decision and take action.
I am committed to making progress on the points that the report raises. The purpose of a short consultation period is to address some of the issues that were raised this afternoon. I hope that people will engage with the comments that Karen Gillon made about young people with disabilities and with the issues that Phil Gallie and others raised about ensuring that resources are targeted on the young people who need them most. The working group suggests that allocating money to local authorities through grant-aided expenditure is the right route, but it wants to ensure that that money delivers the service and the outcomes that we want. Michael Russell was right to highlight that issue.
There must be discussion about how we put that in place in a meaningful way. I have made it clear this afternoon that I do not want what is being done to be a paper exercise. I want to engage actively with local authorities in order to take the working group's recommendations forward. Indeed, we have done that already by putting seminars together and getting people involved.
I also want to work actively with the local authorities and others on how we get the assessment framework right. I want to get right how we make the decisions, how we help to support young people, and how we involve them in the process. I hope that people will take account of the fact that what is being done is not a case of kicking something into the long grass. I would not stand for that and I will not hesitate to step in to ensure that progress is made on the matter.
I want to give a very strong message today to everybody who has concerns about young people in the care system. As many members have rightly identified, the young people in the care system are our responsibility—they are our children and they deserve our attention and to be our top priority. However, at the end of the day, responsibility lies with the local authorities. One of the challenges for local authorities is how to get to the top of their agendas the issue of young people who are moving through the care system and leaving care and how to deliver services for those young people. I suggest that all members in the chamber should take a particularly close interest in what is going on in their local authority area and get actively engaged in that discussion.
I mentioned the fact that Executive officials have taken forward a number of issues with local authorities. I mentioned that seminars are happening and that further seminars will take place. One of the things that emerged from the seminars that have taken place is that every representative who attended them is extremely enthusiastic and committed to providing the best service to young people.
We have to get this right, as we may have only one chance to decide how we use resources and what system we put in place. We have a responsibility to do that. As I indicated earlier, I thought long and hard about saying that we would accept the report's recommendations.
Does the minister accept that the report has big implications for the education of teachers and social workers? Will she commit to examining those implications?
Rhona Brankin has identified another area and we must examine what those implications mean in practice. Scott Barrie and others outlined clearly that the responsibility for looked-after children is not only the responsibility of local authority social work departments. A corporate responsibility exists across local authorities.
The point that was made in relation to the educational attainment of young people in care is important. We need to understand better the situation of young people in the care system who are trying to continue their education. I want to make the point that for the small number of young people who go through the care system and on to university—some young people who have done that are sitting in the public gallery today—that is a difficult thing for them to have done. We need to raise the aspirations of young people in the care system. We must be good parents and not allow them to fall out of education at too early a stage—we must make it possible for them to reach their full potential. That is why the Executive has committed additional resources to supporting looked-after children in order to raise educational attainment.
I want to restate clearly that I expect local authorities to make it a top priority to have young people moving through the care system. The working group, I, other members and—most important—the young people will continue to examine how the local authorities are delivering. I do not want to get to the stage where I have to return to the chamber and debate the issue again without being able to say that action has been taken and that progress has been made. I want to arrive at a point where every young person who is moving through the care system can say honestly, as only one young person was able to say in the report:
"I'm not ready to move on, but feel I have plenty of support and people to talk to."
It is simply not good enough that only one of the young people who was surveyed felt able to say that. The next time that I come back to the chamber to debate the issue, I want to be able to report that action has been taken to change the situation and that young people in the care system know that we have changed things for the better.