Contents
- Attendance
- Subordinate Legislation
- Scottish National Standardised Assessments Inquiry
Subordinate Legislation
Continuing Care (Scotland) Amendment Order 2019 [Draft]
Good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting of the Education and Skills Committee in 2019. I remind everyone to turn their mobile phones and other devices to silent during the meeting.
Agenda item 1 concerns a piece of subordinate legislation that is subject to the affirmative procedure. Information about the instrument is provided in paper 1. The committee will have an opportunity to ask questions of the minister and her officials. Under agenda item 2, there will be a debate on the motion that is published in the agenda.
I welcome Maree Todd, the Minister for Children and Young People, and her officials: David Hannigan, team leader, looked-after children unit; and Elizabeth Blair, senior principal legal officer, children, families and education division. I invite the minister to make an opening statement.
Thank you for the opportunity to introduce the draft instrument today. The instrument amends article 2 of the Continuing Care (Scotland) Order 2015 with the effect that, from 1 April 2019, the higher age limit for an eligible person that is specified for the purposes of section 26A(2)(b) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 is increased from 20 to 21 years of age. That means that, from 1 April 2019, an eligible person, for the purposes of the duty on local authorities to provide continuing care under section 26A of the 1995 act, is a person who is at least 16 years of age and who has not yet reached the age of 21.
By virtue of article 3 of the 2015 order, the local authority’s duty to provide continuing care lasts
“from the date on which an eligible person ceases to be looked after ... until the date of that person’s twenty-first birthday.”
The draft order is essentially a procedural amendment to increase from 20 to 21 years of age the higher age limit for eligible persons. It is the final part of the agreed annual roll-out strategy, increasing the higher age range in step with the first eligible cohort of 16-year-olds so that the provisions cover all young people who cease to be looked after on or after their 16th birthday and enable them to remain in continuing care up to their 21st birthday.
The draft order will revoke the Continuing Care (Scotland) Amendment Order 2018.
Continuing care policy and the accompanying secondary legislation stress the importance of encouraging and enabling young people to remain in their care setting until they are able to demonstrate their readiness and willingness to move on to interdependent living. The term “interdependence” accurately reflects the day-to-day realities of an extended range of healthy interpersonal relationships, social support and networks. Continuing care undoubtedly normalises the experience of care-experienced young people in kinship, foster and residential care by allowing strong and positive relationships between the young person and their carer to be maintained and by reducing the risk of multiple simultaneous disruptions occurring in their life as they approach adulthood.
The responses to the recent consultation show that there continues to be widespread support for the policy of continuing care. However, we are listening, and we are aware that implementation has not happened as intended in every part of the country. There appears to be some inconsistency in the approaches that are being taken by local authorities, and, therefore, variation in the support that is offered to young people leaving care. From our engagement with the sector, we know what issues are being faced and where the key barriers are. We are working together to broaden our evidence base and to gather examples of good practice where they exist, in order to share knowledge and understanding.
We will continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders to consider all the evidence and explore how best to support implementation and remove any unnecessary barriers, in order to ensure that all care leavers are given the support that is best suited to their individual needs.
I am happy to take questions.
Thank you, minister. Committee members have a number of questions. Ms Lamont will start.
I have two questions, the first of which is perhaps related to—though is perhaps not on—the core issue.
You have said that there is some evidence that the policy might not be getting implemented everywhere in the same way and, in your letter to the committee, you say:
“We are awaiting the latest publication of national statistics from social work on children looked after in Scotland, which is due on 27 March, to assess whether the quality of data will give us an accurate indication of uptake.”
That sounds as if we are not even at first base with regard to knowing whether implementation of the policy is a reality. You talk about the real world, but we do not even know whether the figures that we are gathering will tell us what is happening. Do you have any idea at all what proportion of young people remain in foster care or continuing care under the previous order?
We have some idea. A continuing care category was introduced into the children looked after in Scotland data collection in 2017. The first full year of data on continuing care has been collected for 2017-18; it is undergoing quality assurance and, subject to that process, will be published at the end of March.
We will publish aggregated data on continuing care as a destination for those ceasing to be looked after, and we are exploring the feasibility of publishing continuing care figures broken down by local authority. However, the information provided through that data collection is only one piece of the puzzle, and we work regularly with local authorities and our stakeholders in the care sector to improve the collection of information around uptake of and eligibility for continuing care.
Do we know roughly what proportion of young people remain in continuing care at, say, 17, 18, 19 or 20?
At the moment, we do not have those statistics. We are waiting for the quality-assured data that we have gathered over the past year.
Officials have been working with organisations such as the centre for excellence for looked after children in Scotland to improve the evidence base that we have collected or will be collecting. We are always looking to improve in that respect, but at the moment we do not have statistics for the exact numbers in continuing care.
With respect, I would say that you are looking to improve on nothing, given that we do not have anything so far.
Everybody agrees with the policy, but the policy and the legislation are the easy bit. We could sit here every year and increase the figures, but the reality on the ground might be very different. I am not sure whether you were obliged to introduce the draft order before 27 March—I accept that that might be the case—but there is a question about the gap between what the legislation, which we will agree with, is asking for and the effort that is being put into ensuring that it is making a difference on the ground. Can we get a progress report on that?
My other question, which I think is related, is about the review of support for kinship and foster care and the issue of parity. I know that you mentioned the review in your letter to the committee, but the fact is that the financial issues around continuing to support someone are connected. Do you think that it is reasonable for a review group to meet only three times in 15 months on such an important issue?
We have accepted the review group’s recommendations, and we are working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other partners to fully consider them and see what we can do. I am comfortable with how the group was constituted and how it met, and I am keen to work with COSLA on what we can do—
But the group has not completed its work.
Are you talking about the national review of kinship and adoption care allowances?
Yes.
The group that undertook the review published its final report and recommendations last September.
It reported last September, but there is nothing in front of us to show what progress has been made. I think that there was support across the Parliament for parity between and support for kinship and foster care, which are fundamental issues, and of course that is all related to the question whether people can remain in continuing care. The group has met three times since November 2017. Will we be doing something about that at some point in the future? Is there a timetable for that work? After all, an awful lot of people campaigned very hard for recognition of kinship care.
I am not sure whether we are talking about the same thing. Are we talking about the review of foster care allowances?
Yes.
Right. I can certainly write to you with an update on progress in that respect. At the moment, I can tell you that officials have met COSLA officials to consider the recommendations and to see what we can do, and I can write to you with an update on that.
You said that a set of options will be submitted for your consideration in the summer. Do you have an end point? Do you at least know when the scheme will be up and running, so that we can work back from that?
As you will understand, foster care allowances are a matter for local authority decision. I will work closely with COSLA and other local—
Surely, the logic of that is that you would not bother having a national review and should just be honest about it.
Not at all.
We have agreed, across the Parliament and elsewhere, that there should be parity between foster carers and kinship carers. I understand that the technicalities have to be worked out with COSLA, but you will be given options in the summer, so do you at least have an idea of when it will be clear to people that we have a scheme that local authorities could adhere to?
I can certainly write to you to update you on that.
Thank you.
Does the legislation extend to young people in secure residential care? I recently visited a care unit in my constituency and was concerned to hear that one young man who left at 16 was going straight into a homeless unit. How does that issue fit in?
The duty to provide continuing care does not apply if the person was in secure accommodation immediately before ceasing to be looked after. For a multiplicity of reasons, secure accommodation is not an appropriate setting for continuing care. When external factors outwith the young person’s control make a continuing care placement unavailable, the local authority is expected to discuss and agree alternative support measures that meet the young person’s needs.
So it is the local authority’s responsibility.
It is the local authority’s responsibility.
As there are no further questions, we move on to agenda item 2, which is the formal debate on the draft order. I remind the officials that they are not permitted to contribute to this item, and I ask the minister to move motion S5M-15747.
Motion moved,
That the Education and Skills Committee recommends that the Continuing Care (Scotland) Amendment Order 2019 [draft] be approved.—[Maree Todd]
Do members have any comments?
I just want to make the point that, although it is easy for us to accept the policy, which is good, I am concerned that we do not seem to be putting effort into establishing whether it is actually making a practical difference on the ground for those who support young people, and what it might mean in certain circumstances, such as the example that Rona Mackay gave. I am looking for reassurance that more is being done than simply introducing the order. If we do that and make ourselves feel good but there is nothing on the ground to show that a huge difference is being made in young people’s lives, that is problematic. I recognise and have the utmost respect for the work that the Scottish Government is doing in the care review, but I want to be reassured that the two things are being brought together.
As there are no more comments from members, I ask the minister to respond.
I assure Johann Lamont that I, too, want to ensure that the policy is properly implemented and makes a difference on the ground. My officials are working closely with stakeholders across the country to ensure that that happens. I assure her that the issue is a high priority for the Government.
The question is, that motion S5M-15747 be agreed to.
Motion agreed to.
The committee must report to Parliament on the order. Are members content for me, as the convener, to sign off that report?
Members indicated agreement.
That concludes our consideration of agenda item 2. I thank the minister and her officials for attending. I suspend the meeting for a few minutes to let the witnesses change over.
09:59 Meeting suspended.10:00 On resuming—
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