CYP(3)-AS-21

Evidence from Voices from Care (Cymru) to Children and Young People Committee

Voices from Care is pleased that the Children and Young People’s Committee has decided to undertake a short inquiry into the provision of advocacy and welcomes the opportunity to submit its views.

We are an independent charity that represents children and young people looked after by local authorities in Wales, and have campaigned for independent advocacy for more than a decade.

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1. We want to see a co-ordinated model of advocacy that first and foremost upholds the rights of children and young people. Wales’s most vulnerable young people deserve representation that they can trust, that is easy to access and above all that is wholly independent.

We want to see the creation of an independent, national Advocacy Unit that is responsible for providing advocacy services to local authorities. The unit should be funded centrally by the Welsh Assembly Government and be ultimately accountable to the National Assembly for Wales.

Through our contact with many young people who have experienced inconsistent representation from service providers accountable to the local authorities that fund them, we believe that only advocacy that is truly independent of local authorities will have the capacity to improve the currently scandalous outcomes of looked after children.

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2. Voices from Care responded to the Assembly Government Consultation on the New Service Model and attaches its response for your information.

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3. a. Voices from Care is opposed to the New Service Model based on 'regional commissioning’. Following a request under the Freedom of Information Act Voices from Care has also discovered that more than 20 other organizations have also registered concerns or doubts about the model.

We believe the model is not in the interests of children and young people; is overly bureaucratic and has grave implications for accountability and ease of access. Increasing the number of bodies involved in the process in an attempt to create distance, only serves to increase confusion for the young person needing help who then opts out of services altogether. We believe that only a co-ordinated central approach will serve the needs of children and young people.

The 2006 Report of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Children Review: Keeping Us Safe concluded that services involved in listening to children and helping them to complain should have a framework and approach which is child-centred rather than service-centred.

Yet, the regional commissioning model currently on the table favours what is most cost effective in commissioning terms rather than what is best commissioned for young people. We believe the model does not truly reflect the government’s will in terms of its policies on children and young people. In implementing this model the Assembly government would be serving producer interests rather than challenging the status quo and standing up for what is in the best interests of the child.

Voices from Care - supported by other major children’s charities; the All Party Group on Looked After Children; the BMA and several independent reports including one by the late Children’s Commissioner Peter Clarke - want to see an independent national advocacy unit. This unit would be responsible for providing services to local authorities and funded centrally by the Welsh Assembly Government. It could be scrutinized by the Children’s Commissioner Office but would ultimately be accountable to the National Assembly. We contend that this is the only way to create equality for all vulnerable young people.

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3 b. The proposed Children’s Advocacy Unit outlined in the government’s model lacks any meaningful powers and pays lip service to the concept of governance.

The Government has acknowledged that regional commissioning raises issues about accountability, yet its governance arrangements lack detail and teeth. It proposes that the unit would 'oversee the implementation of the New Service Model’ and 'provide a means of developing and disseminating best practice.’

But there is no explanation as to how either of the above functions would work or what powers the unit would have to seek redress against commissioning partnerships which fail to fulfil their duty.

Similarly the proposal for a National Advisory Board which would 'ensure compliance with national minimum standards’ is loosely defined with no real function or power.

The government’s only argument against a central unit with commissioning responsibilities is that such an approach may "mitigate against the integration of the complaints and redress processes and may duplicate functions that can more appropriately be carried out by other bodies”. We believe duplication is more likely in a model that involves several commissioning bodies rather than one and the risk of outsourcing such core functions could lead to children being seen as commodities.

We believe a national advocacy unit which commissions advocacy services will prevent any conflicts of interest between the young person and the local authority. Centrally funded and accountable to the National Assembly for Wales, it will ensure independent governance and restore confidence in a system that young people have lost faith in.

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Looked after children are currently at the bottom of all league tables rating achievement and positive outcomes. Making sure that young people have access to support they can trust when making important decisions will provide safeguards that could swing these outcomes.  

Independent advocacy is the lynchpin of making improvements to the lives and life chances of some of Wales’s most vulnerable children. Wales now has the powers to make this happen and the National Assembly must now take the opportunity to act on them.