Education and Culture Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Official Report 590KB pdf

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Taking Children into Care Inquiry

Good morning. I welcome members to the 14th meeting in 2013 of the Education and Culture Committee, and remind them to ensure that all electronic devices are switched off at all times, please, as they interfere with the sound system.

Agenda item 1 is an oral evidence session in our inquiry into decision making on whether to take children into care. This morning, we will focus on the theme of ensuring that all voices are heard in the decision-making process.

We undertook a series of visits and meetings prior to taking oral evidence. As members will remember, we met a group of young people who had been in care, as well as parents, foster parents and parents with learning disabilities. Those visits and oral evidence sessions will inform our report, and the evidence sessions will, of course, help us in forming our questions to this morning’s panel.

I welcome to the committee Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People; Liz Ray, the national learning and development lead at Who Cares? Scotland; and Andy Miller, business and partnerships manager at the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability. Good morning to you all.

Before I ask for questions from the rest of the committee, I want to ask about a specific issue that has come up in written evidence. People First (Scotland) stated:

“International research shows that about two out of every five children born to parents with learning disabilities are permanently removed from their care”.

Other groups stated that, too. Is that level of removal of children appropriate? In general, what are panel members’ views on how professionals treat parents with learning disabilities with regard to their children?

Good morning. The Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability works closely with People First (Scotland) on supporting parents with learning difficulties, and we certainly agree with what it quoted for the rate of removal for children whose parents have learning difficulties. However, the research in the area is not that robust. The figure comes largely from England, where pretty thorough research was carried out, but there has been nothing like that research in Scotland. However, there is no reason to think that the levels are significantly different here. The figure is four out of 10 or even higher—others estimate five or even six out of 10.

The Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability’s view is that the figure is too high. I do not know about the figures for vulnerable children of parents with addiction problems or mental health difficulties, for example—those figures might be equally high—but the figure in question certainly feels high. On its own, it is quite bald, but it should be considered alongside the experiences of parents with learning difficulties, who find it really difficult to get the right support to parent, or even any support at all. There is a strong feeling that, with better support for parents, the number would drop significantly. We certainly hold that view.

Do you have any comments on this area, Liz Ray?

We do very little work with children with disabilities, but our experience tends to be that looked-after children with disabilities are generally looked after from an education rather than a care perspective. To be honest, our experience in the area is fairly limited.

Less than 2 per cent of our children are looked after at any one time, so the figures for that group are significantly higher. However, the definition of learning difficulties is very wide, so when looking at what the figure means, there needs to be a bit more scrutiny; we should not just use the blanket definition.

It has to be said that we do not provide sufficient support to parents who are in vulnerable situations, including parents with learning disabilities. I had the pleasure of working alongside People First (Scotland), hosting a round-table discussion to explore some of the underlying issues. There is a general issue of support to parents in Scotland—we might get the chance to talk about that—and there is the specific issue of parents with learning disabilities.

I cannot say what would be an acceptable percentage because of what I said about the definition, but we can and should do more to support parents with learning disabilities to rear their children.

Thank you very much for that. I accept what you have all said on the issue, but if the figures are correct and the rate is two out of five, is that appropriate? It is a very difficult area to discuss, but when parents have particular difficulties—whatever they happen to be, although here we are talking about learning disabilities—it is almost inevitable that their children are more likely to be removed and put into care, because, in effect, the child’s rights to proper care and a proper upbringing are our priority. If the figure is two out of five, is that surprising? Is it not appropriate that we remove those children if there are problems in their household because of particular disabilities?

Certainly, what is most important is the wellbeing of the children in those families. The rights of the parents have to be secondary to that.

I would say strongly though that those rights should not be held against each other. Often meeting parents’ rights to active support would actually promote the wellbeing of the child. Setting the rights of the children against the rights of the parents is a false dichotomy—we should be looking at the rights of the family.

In circumstances in which the children’s wellbeing is seriously compromised, of course removal must be considered, but the point at which that is reached is just a snapshot of the family. There is always a build-up to such a point, which might be weeks or years long. In all situations, whether those involving parents with learning difficulties or some other kind of vulnerability, it is good and important to look and see what kind of support a family needs. Is it available, who from and for how long? What will help? How do we avoid the state taking over from the parents and build up parents’ capacity to be more effective on their own? When do we pull out the support? All those questions are really important. If we get the answers right, we will see the numbers coming down.

Is it your view that some professionals, in effect, use the fact that parents have a learning disability as a short-hand reason to remove children?

There is a bit of evidence of that. Some professionals see someone with a learning disability and assume incompetence. Indeed, written evidence and reports have on occasion cited that as the reason for removal. Officially, however, that cannot be the case any more; there need to be other reasons for removal beyond simply having a learning disability.

I would hope that our views on this particular issue have changed. Have you seen any evidence of such a change?

There is some really good evidence of good support that is being given to parents with learning difficulties across the country. Some organisations, including national ones, are getting better at this; for example, Aberlour Child Care Trust is doing some really good work in Dundee, Aberdeen and other places and other very good examples include the social work team in South Ayrshire.

However, the situation is patchy. One of the main difficulties is the culture of short-term interventions in children and families social work departments. Traditionally, they have found that such interventions work best; indeed, there is now more of a financial imperative simply to go in, fix the problem or make the situation good enough and then withdraw. However, for many parents with learning difficulties, such an approach is not effective and does not work. As a result, when social work puts in what they consider to be an effective form of support and finds that it is not effective, it simply compounds any attitude in the department that the parents just are not up to the job.

In adult learning disability services, there is an acceptance that long-term support is needed and many adults with learning disabilities in Scotland get lifelong support as the norm. As a result, there is a culture clash between children and families social work and adult learning disability services.

Thank you very much. We might very well come back to this subject throughout the morning, but George Adam has a few questions of his own.

Good morning. I want to ask about the hearings system and whether we are listening to the views of young people and vulnerable adults. At a previous meeting, Malcolm Schaffer of the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration said:

“the system could do a lot better on involving young people and vulnerable adults.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 15 January 2013; c 1773.]

Given the new emphasis on training for those involved in children’s hearings in Scotland and the developments in children’s advocacy, is enough being done to ensure that young people and vulnerable adults in the system are getting a voice?

No. For children and their families, the process of attending a hearing is fraught with difficulty. There can be up to 10 or 12 people in a room and, even though the child in question might have been given the opportunity to have their say, they might find it very difficult to speak honestly if they feel under pressure or intimidated. Quite often, parents themselves are so intimidated by the procedures that they do not contribute effectively; often they are aggressive, angry or upset, as a result of which they are perceived in a particular way by panel members, which can affect decision making.

Although on the surface the structures seem to allow everyone to have a voice, I think that participation is different from being allowed to speak. To participate effectively and to be able to say what you have to, you have to feel safe, that you are being listened to and that you are being respected, but families are so stressed by the children’s hearings process that they do not feel that they are being considered, respected or listened to.

Appearing before a hearing is stressful because it is a tribunal that can make life-changing decisions. I do not think that you can take that out of consideration of the issue. I am pleased that the committee wants to home in on the child’s views and that people are paying much more attention to how we elicit the views of children and young people and take them into account in decision making. Regardless of that, however, we must acknowledge that the process is stressful.

I know that certain practices have developed. For example, I have seen evidence of committee chairs speaking in private to the child in question. I am a public figure, but I have things that I do not want people to know about me. In fact, you MSPs are public figures and my guess is that you have things that you do not want people to know about you. Think of those things that are private to you and whether, if the convener cleared the room, for instance, you would share your private secrets with him. I am not asking you to do that.

10:15

We will not be doing it, Mr Baillie.

I understand that, but that is the kind of expectation that we are placing on children, which means that it is quite tricky to get to what a child actually thinks and feels, taking out all the other pressures that are acting on them.

I spend my life trying to tell people to listen harder to children and young people and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best ways of getting the views of children and young people, so I am very pleased about the efforts that are being made in the hearings system, but I also do not take the issue lightly. The circumstances are quite difficult and we should do everything that we can to try to get the child’s or young person’s trust, ensure that we are alongside them and ensure that they have confidence not only to say what they feel and genuinely think but that what they say will be taken account of. You will have heard that there are many times when children do not feel that that is the case.

I will continue on that theme because it is difficult and important. Mr Miller said that there was a false dichotomy between parents and children and that really we should think about the family. I entirely agree with him about that, but it is quite difficult to drill down into that. When we have spoken to groups, they have told us, just as Mr Baillie has said, that they do not feel listened to.

Are there circumstances in which it is better to hear privately from the child without the parent or parents being there and in which it is better to hear from the parents when the child is not there? We must balance the rights of both. That is probably one of our biggest difficulties. I ask Mr Miller to expand a little bit on that.

I probably do not have a balanced or rounded view on the question because more of my work is with parents with learning difficulties than with children with learning difficulties who are going through the children’s hearings system. However, I recognise that, often, the views of the parents are not the same as those of the child, so whatever works in enabling us to listen well and properly to both sides is good.

In a situation that involves learning difficulties, do you generally find it easier to elicit the information that is required to help the child and the family if they are spoken to separately?

To be honest, I do not have much experience of the parents or the child with learning difficulties being spoken to separately. As my two colleagues have said, there are many practical difficulties. The practical realities of the children’s hearings system make it really difficult to get to the nub of what people want to say and what is important to them.

A specific issue that has not been mentioned is the timescales of hearings and the fact that much of the written information that is considered is inaccessible to parents and children with learning disabilities.

You raise an interesting point. Obviously, the 2010 child protection guidance has made things a little bit better. What else do the witnesses feel we have to do, aside from administrative changes to do with timescales and paperwork, to ensure that we get better information from families in the children’s hearings system?

We are in a process of change with the reform of the hearings system, and it has been a very long process. I am tempted to let it bed down. I hear good things about people’s inclinations and approaches when it comes to listening to children and young people, but I have already set out how tricky an area that is.

If there is one thing that could benefit us all, it is more consistent assessment. That would help to give the hearing the confidence to make difficult decisions. You have heard evidence about inconsistencies around assessment. We are much better informed about attachment theory and how it impacts on children’s development. We must keep plugging away to ensure that we provide the hearings with best-informed, evidence-based recommendations, which will hopefully give them more confidence in making difficult permanent decisions for children and young people.

Listening to children and young people is part of that, but a very high percentage of the children who are coming into care are under two years of age, and those are the children whom we are most concerned about. We cannot get a view from a child that age. An assessment is made about the attachment and the circumstances that could best nurture the child. The issue lies in the systems that we put around the hearings system, of which assessments are a key one. You have heard plenty of evidence about whether assessments are well informed or evidence based, or indeed consistent.

From what you hear from all your contacts, is it your understanding that things are improving?

I certainly hear an awful lot more talk about listening to the views of children and young people and about the value that is placed on their views. There are many things that we can do. One is the advocacy provision in the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, but I would sound a note of caution on that. In my experience, the best advocates for children and young people are those whom they trust, and that does not necessarily mean a third party. A balance must be struck. That is twice that I have mentioned the need for children to trust the people they relate to and deal with, and that will not always be an independent advocate. There are enough people around the table, and members will know how intimidating it is to have lots of people around a table—we as panel members do, anyway.

I will push a little further on that point. You said that there was a need for caution and that it is important to give the system a chance to bed down. Is it too early to be certain about the impact of the changes?

They have not even come in yet.

I appreciate that. What about the views inside the community and among professionals?

We have taken a very long time to get to where we are now. I welcome the committee’s focus on the critical issue of how decisions are taken about children. I am interested in how you will have an impact, or what impact you expect to have, on the processes as a result of whatever report you publish.

As I said, I am particularly encouraged on the issue of listening to children and young people. We could do a lot more to familiarise children with the process and to get alongside them, and those are the kinds of things that people are looking into. That includes the forms that they have to fill in and the way in which their views are given. I have given you an idea of some of the limitations, however. Even if the room is cleared and things are done in private, would you expect a child to speak about the things that have been most traumatising and hurtful?

It has been a long time and a somewhat difficult experience to get to where we are in relation to the 2011 act and so on. I was wondering about the views of those involved, who had some heightened concerns. Have things settled down?

The committee has already been told that the hearings system has a long way to go to ensure that it gets the views of children and young people effectively. That is partly because it is tricky and partly because we are on a journey. We have a long way to go in Scotland before we can say that we regularly and routinely elicit, take on board and value the views of children and young people. Some of the most encouraging noises are coming through the children’s hearings system, however.

The evidence that we have taken so far has referred to a lack of consistency in councils’ approach. That ranges from councils being too quick to remove children to councils using the rule of optimism and always being inclined to give a family one more chance. In general, with regard to parents with learning disabilities and so forth, where does the balance lie?

I am sorry to be so slow in answering—I am trying to get my head round the question because quite a lot of factors are involved. It is not just a question of being soft as opposed to hard on families; there is no consistency in the support that is given to families in which there is parental learning disability. I mentioned some areas of good practice in certain organisations and geographical locations, but there is no consistent good practice throughout the country.

I do not know whether there is consistency on the speed of starting child protection or removal procedures, or anything like that, as I am involved in the part of the process that takes place before those things happen. I agree with Tam Baillie about the need for consistent assessments.

There are some examples of good assessment tools in relation to parental learning disability being used in good ways, but there is no consistency. All the component parts are available, and there are good assessment tools and training for working with parents with learning disabilities, but there is no consistency.

At the meeting to which Tam Baillie referred, which he co-chaired with People First (Scotland) a couple of weeks ago, that question was considered. The idea of a supported parenting model was broached, and everyone in the room agreed that it was a good model not just for families in which there is parental learning disability but for families who are experiencing a range of vulnerable circumstances. That approach is based on a number of key principles, but basically it puts families at the centre and provides support that builds the capacity of parents to support their children better. If that model was adopted consistently across the country, you would find the results that you are seeking.

To extend the question slightly, have the professionals who are involved in making those decisions at present been given the skills to do so? In other words, have they been given the support to allow them to reach a fair judgment on such matters?

No, I know that they have not. For example, a lot of children and families social workers are totally unaware of the Scottish good practice guidelines on supporting parents with learning difficulties that were produced in 2009. Some are aware of them but say that they do not use them in practice. Many say that they have had no training in using the assessment tools that we are talking about. A lot of social workers do not have the tools that they need.

Do any others on the panel want to come in?

I sense a concern among committee members about parents with learning disabilities and consistency of practice. The reason why there are just views and opinions is partly because we do not have any evidence in that regard. It is worth recommending that the area is looked at in order to get good-quality information.

On disability, I produced a report last year on the consistency of services for children with disabilities. One of the key issues that came up was the different approaches, tools and assessments that were being used throughout the country. I have recently heard anecdotally about concerns that parents of children with disabilities are not receiving appropriate support and the children are ending up in care. That pattern could be extended to other vulnerable groups. I would be interested to look at how consistent we are in our approach to children with disabilities.

10:30

I will pick up on a point that you just made. There seems to be an issue about having reliable data to analyse. That is astounding, given that the issue is not new but has been going on for years. One would think that councils and the various other bodies would get the statistics together and try to analyse what is happening and where, and what can be done better, according to good practice. It seems that we are being told that that does not happen.

Members may want to highlight that in the committee’s conclusions. I grew up with the children’s hearings system and I, and many others, admire its approach. However, evidence on that approach is rather thin. We need to ensure that we properly monitor, research and evaluate the outcomes for children who go through the system.

Does the lack of consistency that you have talked about refer to a lack of consistency among professionals or among local authority areas?

I would say that it is both. We need only look at the regularly produced numbers on looked-after children. There are variations, some of which—but not all—can be accounted for by concentrations of poverty; some councils that have similar socioeconomic circumstances have different rates for children being taken into care and looked after. That begs the question what else is going on.

The direction of travel of getting it right for every child and integrated working is the way forward to more consistent practice and understanding of different approaches, services and professions within the system, in social work, education, the police, housing and health. There are long-standing issues about common approaches and there are some good examples of co-location in which staff have developed shared practices. However, we have a way to go in that.

Mr Miller stated clearly that the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability’s good-practice guidance is not being consistently applied. I take it from what you have said that it is not possible to quantify how many authorities use the guidance. Could you hazard a guess and say whether the number is above or below 50 per cent?

No, I could not. We have not been able to do widespread research on that. A couple of years ago we did a very small-scale snapshot survey on use of the guidelines, and what came out was that health professionals used them a lot more than social workers. However, the survey was not big enough to highlight inconsistency of use of the guidelines by social workers across the country.

I do not know how familiar the other two panel members are with the guidelines and whether they would be able to say, for example, whether they are in line with GIRFEC. Would there be any reason why social workers would not be using the guidelines?

The recommendations and the guidelines are very much along the lines of the supported parenting approach that I was talking about a few minutes ago, which is completely in line with GIRFEC in terms of early intervention, better joint working between organisations and so on.

The committee will be aware of the status of guidance and the guidelines, especially in an area where there is growing awareness of the need to do better. Again, that might be an aspect that the committee wants to highlight.

Just to pick up on a point that Andy Miller made, the supported parenting model is very much in line with the aspirations of the national parenting strategy, in that it provides principles for providing support to vulnerable families. It is another step along the way to providing better support to families with particular vulnerabilities—for example, supported parenting considers families with parental learning disability. However, I think that the model is applicable across the board.

Is the model that you outlined apparent in the pilot schemes? Do you have specific examples of how that model has helped families?

Yes. Aberlour Child Care Trust, which I mentioned earlier, has a small supported parenting model in Dundee. South Ayrshire Council, which I also mentioned, has a team within the children with disabilities team. Their work is based on certain principles and follows the theory of supported parenting, although it has a broader approach. It is the kind of work that organisations can do without calling it supported parenting, as it were. I have visited both those places and could see that their models are working and producing really good outcomes for children.

How could we apply that approach more widely?

The national parenting strategy is an ideal place for that to sit. I agree with Tam Baillie that the model is suitable for a wider population and not just families with parental learning disability. It would be very effective to have a supported parenting strategy sitting within the national parenting strategy.

Finally, I want to return to a point that I found interesting at the outset of our discussion. Mr Miller talked about a “culture clash” in social work practice between the models of long-term support for people with learning disabilities and short-term intervention for child protection. How has that culture clash come about and what can we do to overcome it?

One way to address that would be to have a supported parenting service that bridges adult services and children’s services and has a proper focus on the family. I do not know whether that would sit within social work; I have not worked it through. Ineffective working between children and families teams and adult teams is certainly common, and not just because of the question of different cultures, so we need to examine that. A service that specifically straddled the two cultures would be a start.

However, I have no expertise in areas other than learning disability. Liz Ray might have other examples of situations of families with addiction or mental health problems.

I can see the supported parenting model working well with young care leavers. A number of young care leavers’ children are themselves taken into care, often because the care leavers have not developed parenting skills. Children who live at home with their families absorb such skills automatically, but children in care cannot absorb how to parent and so are unable to learn their role as parents.

For young care leavers—the child who was cared for previously—there is a real conflict. They are looked at differently when they are adults and it is their own children who are in care. When social workers look at care leavers, very often they see only the problems that they have experienced in the past, rather than seeing a person with the potential to grow and develop. That often causes problems.

Obviously, the need to protect children will take precedence, but the two needs can go hand in hand—parents can be encouraged to develop and grow and have the opportunity to have their children returned to them at some point. When an adult has learning disabilities, all too often we make decisions based on our knowledge that they had difficulties themselves in the past. In effect, a conflict occurs because we know their care history. It is a question of value judgments.

The basic point is that young people leave care far too early. I know that the committee is concentrating on decisions about going into care, but many care leavers go back to homes where there has been little change and little input. We know the trajectories of many of our young people who leave care and come up in the criminal justice system or in addictions or mental health services. We lack evidence on the overall outcomes for children leaving care; what we have tends to come from small-scale surveys that are carried out at point of destination. We find out, for example, how many young people in Polmont have been in care and how many young people accessing mental health services have been in care. We tend to get short-term information; we do not have an overall picture of the outcomes for youngsters leaving care, and what we have tends to be on the negative side. That is another task for us; we should be much more robust about collecting evidence on young people leaving care and tracking them right the way through.

Young people still leave care aged 16 or 17, whereas young people in the United Kingdom nowadays leave home in their mid-20s. We have to ask ourselves why. I know that the forthcoming bill will contain proposals about a duty to assess and support young people up to the age of 25, but we have to make sure that we also attend to the very early age at which young people leave care. Quite frankly, to leave at 16 or 17 is too early.

That is very helpful. Thank you.

I want to clarify a point before I bring in Clare Adamson. Mr Miller said that as far as he is aware, the good practice guidance for supporting parents with learning disabilities is not used consistently across the country; it is used in some places but not in others. Why?

I do not think that it is because people do not agree with it, although what it says is quite challenging. I have not made the point that there is a practical difficulty with early intervention, simply because there are so many families in crisis.

What I said about the examples of supported parenting working in Dundee and South Ayrshire is not completely true because one of the principles of supported parenting is that it should be available right from the start. I know of no good examples of good supported parenting being available to families that are not in crisis. Very often, services kick in because there are child-protection concerns, which was certainly the case in Dundee. One of the good outcomes was that both the children who were supported are now off the child protection register and are doing better at school and so on—all the indicators are great. However, that service only became available after there was a crisis.

The same is true in South Ayrshire, and anywhere else that you look. On the face of it, it is expensive to put in supports. On one side you have families with children who are on the child protection register and so on, and on the other you have a mum with learning difficulties who has just come out of hospital with no significant problems yet. To where do we divert resources? They will go to the family in which there are children on the child protection register. If we are serious about supported parenting, we need to take those issues into consideration. That is exactly what GIRFEC and the parenting strategy are saying, but it is really challenging to make it happen in practice, which is one of the reasons why the guidelines have not been used consistently.

Good morning. We have already mentioned GIRFEC quite a bit this morning. A lot of the evidence talks about the potential for GIRFEC. A lot of the professionals involved were certainly very interested and hopeful about how cross-disciplinary working between education, health and social services might work. Given that there is such a geographical difference in how current guidelines are applied and in the outcomes for young people, will GIRFEC provide the impetus for change that people hope for?

10:45

To answer that I will return to the assessment issue and how children who are vulnerable are identified. The legislation includes proposals for named persons. In my opinion, there are insufficient health visitors—who provide the main universal service for going into our youngest families to identify those who require additional services—to carry out the duties that are required of named persons. They face additional requirements through the reinstatement of the health visitor assessment at 27 to 30 months. The bill will also place an expectation that they will act as named persons.

The profession has suffered over recent years. Indeed, there is a shortage of health visitors and some deal with more than 350 cases. If health visitors are expected to be the cornerstone in terms of picking up, and providing a universal service to, our youngest families, we must take the matter much more seriously than we do at present. That will assist in identifying children who require additional services.

I know that you have heard evidence from child protection committee chairs that our systems are pretty robust for the children whom we identify. However, we are not picking up on the poor attachment between the parent and the child in too many cases, and there are too many children whose outcomes could be improved and for whom later episodes of their coming into care could be averted.

That is only one example relating to that age group. I am encouraged by the developments, but progress will take a number of things, and we must get a move on.

When multidisciplinary working works well, it works beautifully. However, there are so many instances when it does not work, such as when agencies do not engage as well as they could or there is a lack of information sharing, which could impact on the service that the young people receive. We need consistency across the board to ensure that that works well more frequently.

I will return to the provision of support to families and children. The witnesses have all mentioned different things. The SCLD referred to the need to have the right support available from the start; Who Cares? has talked about improved family support; and Mr Baillie has talked about the support to families, the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and the welfare of children. Mr Baillie mentioned the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s New Orleans intervention model as an example, but what key practical things should be done to support children being returned to families?

Good assessment is core because that allows confident decisions to be made on whether a child will stay in the family environment with the right support, or whether we make permanent arrangements for that child outside the family home.

I am encouraged by the trialling of the New Orleans model. It aims to be robust and the trial will ask whether the model works in a Scottish context. A key element is having different timescales for children and parents. The clock is ticking in relation to children’s development.

I have mentioned attachment theory—we know an awful lot more about that because of the research that has been produced over the past 25 years. A decision on whether to leave a child where it is or to take no decision is a decision that will impact on that child’s wellbeing. We must ensure that we get the timing and the quality of decision making right. If the model proves that we can have better outcomes for children and young people, then we can scale it up. I am encouraged by the measured approach that is being taken. The core aspects are good assessment and timely intervention on children.

Before we bring children into care, we should consider the impact of the accommodation process on their attachments with their families, their communities and so on. Children suffer significant loss from being accommodated; very often, the children themselves are identified as being the problem either because they have offended or because issues in the family are associated with them.

When children are removed, work is often carried out with them to address some of their issues, but in many cases the same additional work is not done with the families, which means that the children can be returned to their previous situation and the situation simply perpetuates itself. That issue has to be factored in when we seek to remove children.

What might be the resource implications of ensuring that the right support is in place for children?

There are bound to be significant implications. When children leave care, they often go back to families that they have been away from for a number of years and with whom they do not have the relationships that they previously had. Moreover, they often find that they do not fit into their communities. There will be significant resource implications, but if there is a possibility that the child will return home, those implications must, given their long-term nature, be considered and factored in when children are being accommodated, in order to get the best outcome for the child. You cannot work with a child in isolation: the child is part of a family, so the family itself needs to be addressed. The costs of doing so must be examined and borne.

I was struck by earlier evidence that 90 per cent of children’s hearings’ decisions follow the social worker’s recommendations and I know that a certain amount of emphasis was placed on that claim. When I looked at the figures, I found that of the 1,686 cases that were considered in the SCRA research, 511 hearings had to be continued or there was no clear social work recommendation. In other words, there was no decision in almost a third of the hearings that were looked at. That harks back to my earlier comment about children being left in such situations. In those cases, a decision has, in fact, been taken that will impact on their wellbeing for good or for bad. We have to think through the impacts of our decision-making forums.

We should also consider that issue alongside the percentage of unplanned moves for the children in question. The SCRA study was based on a sample of only 90 children, but a lot has been made of it. If you consider the cases in which no decision was reached alongside the fact that in 56 per cent of the cases—in other words, the majority—the moves were unplanned, and alongside the impact of that on the children in question, one can see where the system is either not quite moving as fast as it could or is moving in unplanned directions that could have detrimental effects on children’s wellbeing or future life chances.

On the point that a holistic view of the family is not being taken, I have to say that I was very much worried by the evidence from the care leavers from Who Cares? Scotland. They were known to the social work department, and if they offended such behaviour could lead to their being removed from home. They were greatly concerned about the lack of input or support for their younger siblings, and that they would face very similar outcomes. Have any changes been made to the children’s hearings system or GIRFEC that might improve the situation?

Tam Baillie has already mentioned assessment. Usually, the child’s situation is assessed individually; in some cases, the removal of a child might be seen to benefit the rest of the family. The issue is actually about individuals in a collective.

One of the things that our young people have struggled with is the fact that they have been removed from home but their siblings remain. They often have great concerns about their siblings’ safety because they are aware of things that they have not shared with their social worker or other people.

I do not have a hard and fast answer, but assessment is the way forward. We must ensure that there are robust assessment processes in place, that there is regular review and that people—children, especially—have the opportunity to speak to an independent person about issues or concerns. That is often lacking for children who live at home. Children who are accommodated have access to advocacy, but children who live at home are often hidden; their issues are hidden, too.

I will add to what Tam Baillie and Liz Ray have said about assessment processes. I do not know how widespread this feeling is, but I heard this from a clinical psychologist who was at a children’s hearing and who was involved with a family. Clinical psychologists have extremely robust assessment processes and receive training in assessment.

She was alarmed that, in the case that she was observing, the assessment had been undertaken by a social work assistant who did not seem to have had any training and who did none of the basic recording of information that she would have done. For example, the social work assistant took no notes at the time of assessing the family and produced a report that, to the clinical psychologist, seemed to be sketchy and selective. That is worrying because of the figure that Tam Baillie mentioned—the fact that in 90 per cent of cases decisions are made that go along with the social work assessment. If that is how it is, we must make really sure that the social work reports are based on rock-solid assessments, which does not seem to be the case at the moment.

Mr Baillie, in your written submission you state:

“There is an issue with regard to the number of episodes children experience before a permanent placement is identified.”

You mention

“an overly optimistic perspective of some of our most vulnerable families’ capacity to change”,

but you also raise the issue that

“the supports provided are insufficient to enable change to be effective.”

Throughout our inquiry, the message has come across that the support that is provided for parents is patchy at best. Given the thrust of Government policy in its preventative agenda, is there a need for a consistent service to be provided and for additional resource to be put in?

That is a tricky area, because we are providing for an increasing number of looked-after children—in fact, the number is at its highest since 1981. We also know that there is increasing concern about the number of children who are living in neglectful circumstances. As I say in my written evidence—I have repeated it today—it is tempting to say that, if the right support is provided, we could prevent children from going into care. If we had proper oversight and monitoring of the circumstances of all our children, that might well highlight concerns that we would have to move on. It is difficult to know what the impact of all that would be, but I am sure that we are missing children for whom we should be providing additional support.

That does not mean that those children have to be received into care, but we have to respond and assess whether those children are in the right place to be nurtured and what the best options for those children are. That is why I back initiatives such as the national parenting strategy and the getting it right for every child approach.

Nobody would argue with the approach of intervening as early as we can. However, we must bring an element of good judgment to all that. Currently, the system does not have the confidence to make some of the difficult decisions early, with the result that children oscillate between home, care, home and care. I have just given the committee some of the figures that lie behind SCRA’s decision making.

For too long, those children are left in limbo. Many of them eventually come into care. We have to reduce that movement—that change in circumstances—because it has the most impact on children’s mental wellbeing, attachment, relationships and resilience for the future. That is why I home in on the business of assessment, timely intervention and a system that has the confidence to make some of the more difficult decisions on our children and young people.

11:00

I think that you are right. You would probably struggle to find anyone in the country who disagreed with the fine sentiments in all the documents that are produced, but they have to be more than documents; they have to mean something on the ground, so that we do not end up with social work being just a crisis management service. We regularly hear from people that there has to be a proactive service that is working with families. Is that the direction that we should go in?

I have the privilege of being part of the early years task force, which is our opportunity for generational change. This is our opportunity to get in early with families and understand some of the dynamics, particularly with regard to attachment theory and the behaviours that we should support in parents. It is too early to say whether the momentum will be maintained, although I am on the side of the hopeful. This is our generational opportunity to make things better, certainly for our younger children.

Can I press you on that and ask how that can be achieved without cash?

I have already touched on health visitors, whom I feel strongly about. They are key to universal services as they not only support families but identify families who require additional support. There is some provision in the bill, but it will not kick in until 2016. We should do things now to improve those universal services.

I am sure that health visitors are just one small element of a bigger picture.

Yes. A number of changes will be needed. A lot of development that I am not privy to is happening in local areas already, as it is being initiated under the early years collaborative, which is in its very early stages. In the coming months, we will have a better idea of exactly how that is unfolding and whether that is prompting some of the developments that are required to achieve some of the ambition that is outlined in the early years collaborative.

I have a quick supplementary on what Mr Miller said a few moments ago about a social work assistant writing a report that had made a clinical psychologist concerned. Do we have any idea how many or what percentage of reports that are written by social work assistants are used to make decisions?

I am afraid that I have no idea. I do not know whether that information would be available from SCRA.

I do not think that that information is collected. I might be wrong; I will stand corrected if it is.

Would such a situation concern you?

I have already expressed a lot of concern about the quality of assessments. The issue is not just about social work assessment. The New Orleans intervention model that I mentioned has input from specialist assessment staff, so that when the recommendation is made, it is about not just social work but health and clinical input. It is a much more broadly based assessment for the child, which is exactly what we need. It is not based on just one perspective.

I did not mean to damn social work assistants with that example. It is quite possible for a social work assistant to do an assessment very well and thoroughly. Simply having the figures on which assessments were done by qualified social workers and which were done by assistants would not necessarily be helpful.

You have all rightly laid heavy emphasis on the importance of the quality of the assessment for confidence that the decisions that are taken are evidence based and so on. Obviously, there is a training component to that—I think that Mr Miller talked about that.

We have heard from the Association of Directors of Social Work that there is a problem in retaining experienced social workers. I presume that better assessments will invariably flow from better training and longer experience. Is there concern about the way in which the system currently works? Does that ring bells with you?

Yes. That is a long-standing issue. I have the opportunity to speak to numerous social work directors, and maintaining the most experienced workers at the coalface to deal with really difficult and complex matters is a common issue.

One of the key recommendations of “Changing Lives: Report of the 21st Century Social Work Review”, which looked at how we would reform social work in the 21st century, was to do with the social worker’s professional autonomy and freeing them up to do the task, rather than being weighed down by bureaucracy. We crank up the bureaucracy every time that we respond to tragic incidents, which means that social workers and the social work profession have a heavier bureaucratic burden, and we are in a place where we would not choose to be. We have to find a way of lightening that load to allow people to flourish and do the job that they came into the profession to do.

Do you sense that there is a particular problem with children and family social workers because there are more high-profile, very difficult and sensitive cases in that area than in other areas?

I cannot comment for the whole of social work—you will need to take advice on that from the ADSW—but the particular pressures that children and family social workers are under and the requirements of the task are certainly an issue. During the review, there was a lot of feedback from social workers about the bureaucratic burden, which takes away from the skilled tasks that people come in to execute.

There is, of course, a need for constant and continuing professional development. I mentioned our growing knowledge and understanding of attachment theory. The research on that just keeps coming, and practice must be developed to take account of that.

You mentioned the importance of health visitors and the likelihood of their being named individuals under the upcoming legislation. Obviously, a range of professionals and people in the third sector are involved in the process. Do you sense that particular professions or agencies are easier to deal with as part of the process, or does that very much boil down to individuals in the system?

Are you talking about named persons in particular?

I suppose that named persons were the peg on which I hung my question. The concerns that gave rise to the question reflect the fact that vulnerable parents or children perhaps associate more with or have greater confidence in particular individuals in the system. Does that reflect the roles that those individuals perform or the individuals whom they are?

That is interesting. My experience is that children and young people tend not to be too bothered about the label of the person whom they are working with, as long as that person engages and is somebody whom they can trust, and that it is we professionals who tend to get hung up about labels and boundaries. That is one issue.

I do not have a panoramic view of interagency working in Scotland, but my hunch is that, certainly at the coalface, we are getting much better at joint interagency working, although there are particular problems with particular responsibilities. I have highlighted the position of health visitors, which I have talked about for a number of months, because of the need to improve the numbers in order to realise the ambitions that are behind named persons in the bill.

In one of our evidence-taking sessions, concern was expressed about the way in which certain professional services engaged with parents with learning difficulties in writing and orally in meetings. Do we need to reflect on that concern and make recommendations?

It is certainly true that there is a common fear of social work among parents with learning difficulties. From the work that I have done, I have found that that is not always based on experience. I spoke to one family who had never had any contact with social work but were terrified of getting in touch to ask for help because they were terrified that what social workers did was take people’s kids away.

I am not blaming social work, but that is a key part of the dynamic with all the professionals. It is often much easier for parents with learning difficulties to accept support from other agencies, such as third sector agencies.

I agree with Tam Baillie that interagency working is generally getting better and has been for a while. However, I have also noticed that there are almost never any formal interagency policies or protocols, so interagency working often depends on the individuals on the scene.

I thank the witnesses for coming along. The session has been helpful and is helping us to kick off a number of evidence-taking sessions for the inquiry. I am sure that the evidence that the witnesses have provided will give us much to think about as we write our report later in the year.

11:11 Meeting suspended.

11:16 On resuming—