Timpson pledges to introduce 'exemption clause' safeguards

Speaking during a debate in parliament yesterday on the Children and Social Work Bill, Timpson confirmed that the so-called "exemption clause", which was removed from the legislation following a defeat for the government in the House of Lords last month, will be reintroduced when the bill reaches committee stage in the House of Commons.

"We intend to revisit those powers, because of the important role that they stand to play in improving the quality of children's social care," he said.

He added that the proposal will feature a number of safeguards to try to allay fears that the legislation could pave the way for privatisation of children's social care services, or negatively impact on children's rights.

Timspon said that after considering concerns raised by peers he will "bring back a power with significant changes and additional safeguards" that will "provide the reassurances that have been requested".

"I want to be clear: we do not want to privatise protection services for children," he said.

"There are already clear legislative restrictions on the outsourcing of children's social care functions, and it was never our intention to use the power to innovate to revisit those. To put that beyond doubt, however, we tabled clarificatory amendments in the [House of Lords].

"Neither will we remove fundamental rights or protections from children. Our aim is to strengthen, and not to weaken, protections. My mission - since entering this house and before - has always been to improve the lives of vulnerable children. It is our job as a government to create the conditions in which excellent practice can flourish.

"I am convinced that with proper safeguards in place, the ability to pilot new approaches will, in the long term, allow this house to enact more effective, evidence-based legislation and drive wider improvement for our most innovative practitioners and services across the system."

Prior to Timpson's comments, the government's plans to reintroduce the exemption clause were fiercely criticised by Labour's shadow children's minister Emma Lewell-Buck.

"It is scandalous that these clauses are soon to reappear at committee stage," she said.

"The government's proposals will allow local authorities, under the guise of innovation, to opt out of protective primary legislation. That legislation, which has taken decades to achieve, has led to us having one of the safest child protection systems in the world.

"These proposals have caused alarm and outrage in the profession and the sector overall. I have yet to meet a social worker who supports the changes. I have had no clarity from the minister about where the demand for change has come from and what pieces of primary legislation local authorities and social workers say prevent them from carrying out good social work."

She also suggested that a controversial report published last week into the future of children's services, which proposed the forced privatisation of child protection services, could lie behind the exemption clause proposal.

"The government have denied time and again that the opt-out clauses were about privatisation, yet late last week, two years after it was written and after an inexplicable delay in responding to Freedom of Information requests, the Department for Education released a report which sets out how children's social care can be moved out of local authority control," she said.

"[The] report states that independent contractors have said that they are willing to play the long game and wait for councils to hand over the majority, if not all, of their children's social care services after they have developed their experience in children and families social work."

"There we have it - independent contractors are going to use vulnerable children and families to experiment with, once the government allows local authorities to opt out of protective legislation. These are the most dangerous changes to child protection that I have ever seen."

The government last week distanced itself from the report stating that elements of it go beyond government policy.

A date for the Children and Social Work Bill to go to committee stage in the House of Commons is yet to be fixed.