Government response to CSF Select committee report on LAC

This week (29 June) the government responded to the recommendations made in the CSF committee report on LAC which came out earlier this year (April 2009) following a year of hearing evidence from sector specialists, including Martin Hazlehurst and John Hill from NLCAS/WMTD (now the National Care Advisory Service). The report set out over 70 conclusions and recommendations around improving provision for children and young people in and from care.

The full government response to these is available here.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/787/787.pdf

NCAS have written to members of the committee to identify particular areas where we feel more could be done for young people making the transition to adult life.

1.       National standards in leaving care

As the Select Committee found, there is great variability in the leaving care support that young people receive in different parts of the country. Working alongside our partners, NCAS have developed a set of National Standards in Leaving Care, which are available free from our website, alongside a self-assessment tool and practice database at:

www.leavingcare.org/professionals/national_standards_in_leaving_care

We were pleased to see that the DCSF recognised these standards in their response, but we would like them adopted nationally, made statutory and incorporated into the inspection regime so that all local authorities meet the criteria. The standards could form part of the new Comprehensive area assessment (CAA) and be completed on a self-assessment basis by a local authority, this would help identify gaps in provision and areas for improvement. Relying on voluntary take up will perpetuate national variability in provision.

2.       Disabled care leavers

As the committee highlighted, poor planning for transitions of disabled care leavers remains an issue. There are sometimes difficulties in getting timely assessments and support from adult services and problems once the young person is transferred to adult services.

Despite these well known problems the government response is limited and they have only committed to mapping the current situation. Whilst this is important as a first step, it does not go far enough and will not provide the detail of what processes must be put in place to ensure the statutory duties to (disabled) care leavers are carried out.

3.       Accommodation

CLG and DCSF have produced non statutory guidance on joint working between Housing and Children’s Services. One of the key recommendations arising from the NCAS accommodation project is to make this existing joint guidance statutory, to ensure its implementation across all parts of all authorities. There is commitment from government to including this in the revised Children (Leaving Care) Act guidance, but we feel that this may not sufficiently engage housing departments if the onus to ensure adequate provision of accommodation for care leavers will remain on children’s services.  It will be essential that there are formal joint working arrangements for promoting and planning care leavers transition to adulthood specifically; a joint protocol to ensure a quick, safe and supportive response to care leavers at risk of homelessness.

We also support the committee’s recommendations for a quality assurance framework for care leavers’ accommodation. At present this is not available but we believe it would be relatively easy to create (using existing frameworks such as the standard used in student halls of residence and by working with young people to refine the content). As you may be aware Helen Southworth MP has been working on this issue recently and it is the subject of a private members bill on care leavers and accommodation. We urge the government to take forward this piece of work.

Get in touch with us ncas@catch-22.org.uk for further details