Parliamentary Briefing from the NSPCC on the Queens Speech

30 November 2004

Draft Child Contact and Inter-country Adoption Bill

The NSPCC welcomes legislation that aims to safeguard the welfare of children in circumsances of parental separation and inter-country adoption.

The needs of children are all too often minimised and even ignored in the context of parental separation. The adverse impact of parental separation on children can be greatly reduced if children are supported by both parents rather than 'losing' one parent through divorce. The NSPCC welcomed the principle set out in the Government's recent consultation on this issue, namely that the child's welfare is paramount, and that this is best promoted by a continuing relationship with both parents, where it is safe to do so. It is vital that this should be the key principle guiding the provisions of the Bill.

It is also essential that each child's needs are assessed individually rather than making general arrangements that do not accomodate that particular circumstances of a particular child and his/her family. In addition we would underline the importance of ensuring that flexibility is incorporated into arrangements so that the changing needs of the child as he or she gets older can be properly accomodated.

The NSPCC welcomes clarification of the law in relation to the suspension process for inter-country adoption. We welcome the Governmenrt's intention to create a clear and transparent statutory from a specified country where there are concerns about child welfare.

Education Bill

The NSPCC welcome the Government resisted attempts during the passage of the Children Act 2004 to place schools under a duty to co-operate with other local agencies to improve children's well-being. The Government instead felt that such a duty should apply only at the strategic level with the Local Education Authority (LEA). Proposals in the Education Bill focus on promoting greater autonomy for schools. The NSPCC is concerned about how the duty to co-operate will be translated clearly to schools from LEAs in a climate of increased school autonomy.

The Government resisted attempts during the passage of the Children Act 2004 to place schools under a duty to co-operate with other local agencies to improve children's well-being. The Government instead felt that such a duty should apply only at the strategic level with the Local Education Authority (LEA). Proposals in the Education Bill focus on promoting greater autonomy for schools. The NSPCC is concerned about how the duty to co-operate will be translated clearly to schools from LEAs in a climate of increased school autonomy.

However, we do hope that further autonomy for school can present more opportunities to put in place preventative measures and early intervention services to ensure schools are genuinely able to safeguard and promote welfare of children as required under Section 175 of the Education Act 2002. We would like to see schools playing a proactive role in providing opportunities for children and families to access a range of such services under the extended schools programme.

During the passage of the Children Act 2004, the Government insisted that inspection would be a lever to ensure schools participated in the wider local children's agenda. It is essential that any streamlined inspection scheme should inspect against the five outcomes identified in the Every Child Matters programme and that schools are not just inspected against academic performance but how they contribute to child safeguarding, welfare and development as a whole.

The Education Bill also provides for further streamlining of the inspection of children's centres and other day-care providers, estabilishing a common basis for these inspections and taking steps to align them with school inspections. Any further reform of early years services insepction must retain a central focus on children's welfare within those insepctions, and must be careful to recognise the distinct differences between early years and schools settings to ensure that parents have a good understanding of the quality of service provided in each setting.

The NSPCC welcomes proposals under the Education Bill to extend the remit of the Teacher Training Agency to staff across the school workforce. Workforce development should reflect the priorities as outlinied in Every Child Matters (child protection included). Training must ensure that all professional working with children are able to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their care.

Child Benefit Bill

The NSPCC welcomes the Government's intention to extend financial support to families of 16-19 year olds working as unpaid trainees, and to ensure those young people who enter education and training before their 19th birthday are supported until the end of their course. At present, Child Benefit is only available to those families with children aged 16-19 in full-time education.

Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill

The NSPCC welcomes the inclusion of people trafficking within the remit of the proposed Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). This is an important step in protecting children from sexual exploitation and abuse. Increasing numbers of children are being trafficked into the UK for prostitution, child pornography and organised begging. The NSPCC would like to see children's involvement in prostitution decriminalised. The Government has done much to improve the response to children who are abused through prostitution, yet children still commit an offence in the eyes of the law. Sufficient resources must be made available to identify, protect and support victims of trafficking as well as combat the criminals involved.

Aside from SOCA, it is unclear from Government proposals for police reform how child protection will surface as a police priority. The recent White Paper on police reform mentions children mainly in relation to disruptive behaviour and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs). The NSPCC would like to see a determined effort to address the causes (including abuse) of criminal behaviour be children and young people, and a stronger emphasis on children as victims of crime rather than as perpetrators.

The recent White Paper did mention exploring new ways of dealing with child abuse on the Internet. The NSPCC welcomes this and would like to see a new national policing resourse for this area, including a national referral point for parents, Internet service providers and child protection professionals to ensure that those groups have someone to turn to when reporting sexual abuse online.

Management of Offenders Bill

The NSPCC welcomes proposals to merge the prison and probation services to create the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). This should provide for better co-ordination of the management of child sex offenders whilst in prison and when released.

However, if there is to be a long term solution to the problem of child sex-offending, the NSPCC strongly believes that the Government needs to find ways of encouraging sex offenders to seek help and offer treatment to all sex abusers, not just those who are convicted. There is a need for preventative services at a local level to help communities address child abuse, to provide sex abusers who may not have already abused a child the opportunity to seek help at an earlier stage, to provide support to released offenders in communities and ensure that communities are able to identify signs of abuse and report concerns.

Draft Youth Justice Bill

The NSPCC firmly believes that young offenders should be seen as children first and foremost and so welcomes the draft Youth Justice Bill. The Bill has a welcome focus on prventing offending and on diverting children from custody and is consistent with NSPCC calls in or response to the Government consultation document 'Youth Justice - The Next Steps'.

Charities Bill

The NSPCC welcomes the long overdue Charities Bill and the Government's recognition of the need to reform charity law. We eagerly await the Government's response to the report by the Joint Committee on the Draft Charities Bill and will consider proposals that are likely to be put forward in the Bill in light of the Government's response. The NSPCC is a member of the Coalition for a Charities Act, co-ordinated by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).