Lord Storey (LD)

My Lords, we have not got any amendments in this group, but I will make a few observations. First, it is really important we get this right and we have the opportunity to do so between Committee and Report. I have personal experience of multi-agency working in terms of child protection—not a great deal, but a few cases. The thing that nobody has mentioned is that, when a member of staff has left the job or moved to another authority, the whole process grinds to a halt; the new person who is busy looking at the case files is not able to benefit from the knowledge that has been gained. It is often very disruptive. Often in Committee, somebody will get up and make a point that you have never really thought about. When the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, had finished, I thought, “Absolutely right”. But I had not thought about the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and he is absolutely right: in terms of police involvement, there can be a real conflict. It just proved to me, yet again, the importance of sharing these ideas so that we get a result which is actually workable. It is interesting that the Children’s Commissioner suggests a “threshold for assessment and support” to bring greater consistency. This also picks up on the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, raised about resources—that it is important that we get the resources absolutely right. I was interested in the point about sharing practice with those practitioners—that they do not come with their own particular viewpoint but have that training and expertise to share and listen. Cross-border working can be very difficult indeed and can sometimes cause real issues as well, but, if we listen to each other, we can get this right.