Children in long term care
85.Section 85 of the 1989 Act requires a health body (e.g. a Primary Care Trust) or a local education authority (i.e. a local authority exercising its education functions), when providing accommodation for a child for at least three months, or when ceasing to provide accommodation for a child, to notify the local authority for the area where the child is ordinarily resident of the placement (the “responsible authority”). On receiving a notification of this kind, the responsible authority must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that the welfare of a child (of whom it has been notified under the requirements above) is adequately promoted and safeguarded, and consider whether it needs to exercise its functions under the 1989 Act, for example the provision of services such as parenting support under section 17, if it determines that the child is a “child in need” within the meaning of that section.
86.Section 86 of the 1989 Act requires a person carrying on a care home or independent hospital to notify the responsible authority of any child placed at their establishment in similar circumstances; and places similar duties on the responsible authority so notified.
87.The children to whom these sections relate are most likely to be placed in one of the following settings:
Children’s homes;
Care homes and independent hospitals;
Health service hospitals; or
Residential schools including maintained boarding schools; non-maintained special schools; independent boarding schools and colleges.
88.Most residential schools accommodating children to whom section 85 applies will be children’s homes within the meaning of section 1 of the Care Standards Act 2000.
Section 17: Children in long-term care: notification to appropriate officer etc.
89.Section 17 amends section 85 and 86 to ensure that the notifications described above are sent to the local authority’s director of children’s services (in England) or lead director for children and young people’s services (in Wales). It also inserts a new subsection into section 85 of the 1989 Act to make it clear that responsibility for providing services under the 1989 Act falls on the local authority in whose area the child was ordinarily resident immediately before the child was accommodated.
Section 18: visits to children in long-term care
90.Section 18 inserts new section 86A in the 1989 Act, placing a new duty on the responsible authority to make arrangements for the children it is notified of under sections 85 and 86 to be visited. The appropriate national authority will have power to make regulations under section 86A(2), in similar terms to regulations made under section 23ZA of the 1989 Act (inserted by section 15) i.e. they may specify the frequency of the visits; the circumstances in which the visit should take place; and the functions of the visitor (e.g. to report to the local authority and the child’s parents on the visit) (section 86A(3)).
91.Under section 44 of this Act, sections 17 and 18 are to be commenced by the Secretary of State in relation to both England and Wales, with consent of the Welsh Ministers. Regulations under new section 86A are to be made by the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers acting jointly. This is ensure that implementation of the Act in relation to cross-border bodies that provide accommodation to which these provisions relate is handled in a co-ordinated way.
Section 19: support for accommodated children
92.Section 19 inserts paragraph 8A into Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the 1989 Act. Part 1 of Schedule 2 sets out the specific functions of the local authority in relation to the provision of services for children in need and their families under section 17 of the 1989 Act. New paragraph 8A provides that these services must include such services as the authority considers appropriate with respect to “accommodated children” (i.e. children in respect of whose accommodation the local authority have been notified under section 85 or 86 of the 1989 Act). Paragraph 8A(3) requires the local authority to provide these services with a view to promoting contact between the accommodated child and their family. The services may, in particular, include: advice, guidance and counselling; services necessary to enable the child to visit, or to be visited by, members of their family; and assistance to enable the child and members of their family to have a holiday together.
