Barnardo's Centenery

Speech by Robert Brown MSP delivered to The Scottish Parliament on Wed 15th Jun 2005

Since 1999, the Scottish Parliament has devoted a considerable amount of its time to issues to do with children and young people. It has devoted a considerable amount of time to improving schools and the school experience, to truancy, discipline, the curriculum, early years provision, child abuse, child protection, fostering, adoption, motivating young people, and to children from fractured families, not least those who are brought up in care. Our purpose—the noblest purpose that there can be—is to ensure that every young person reaches their potential in life and is nurtured in a secure and stimulating environment.

Many of the principles of that work—some of which we take for granted and some of which we are discovering anew—were known to and pioneered by Dr Thomas Barnardo, who died 100 years ago this year. In the 21st century, it is difficult to realise how revolutionary and modern his ideas were in the second part of the 19th century, which was the age of the poor law, the workhouse and Oliver Twist. It was an age in which poverty was the fault of the poor—and probably hereditary, to boot—and in which consciences were eased by the philosophy of Thomas Malthus, who asserted that poverty is an inevitable result of iron economic laws.

Dr Barnardo would have none of that. He believed—as his organisation believes today—that every child, whatever their background, deserves the best possible start in life and that families are the best place to bring up children. His homes equipped young people with skills and crafts so that they could make their own way in life. He established the first fostering schemes and carried out what would now be described as street work in going out into the slums of London to find destitute boys.

I am glad to have the opportunity to recognise the contribution that has been made by Dr Barnardo and Barnardo's to the welfare of children over almost 140 years. The debate also gives me an opportunity to speak a little about the role and value of voluntary sector organisations in general in providing children's services.

In earlier days, the central need was to provide physical shelter for children, combined with what would now be seen as an excessive dose of moral guidance. Around 350,000 children were cared for in Barnardo's homes over the years, but from the 1960s, Barnardo's moved into more specialist support work with disabled children and those with social, emotional and behavioural problems. Indeed, the last traditional Barnardo's home closed in 1989. Unfortunately, the homes were not entirely immune in earlier generations from the abuse and neglect that happened in other residential care homes—that issue was the subject of a painful debate in the Parliament only a few weeks ago. Barnardo's deeply regrets the treatment that some children suffered all those years ago.

Scotland still wrestles with how to give young people in care a better start in life, but Barnardo's went back to the inspiration of its founder to pioneer new schemes for disabled children. The organisation is still extremely active in youth homelessness and is heavily involved in working with substance abuse issues. Those are some of the issues with which it has been involved.

In Scotland, there are around 60 services, which support almost 10,000 vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families. In Glasgow, the street-work team is funded partly by Barnardo's and partly through the rough sleepers initiative. Last year, the team dealt with 279 young people and it is very much at the sharp end. Apna provides support for Asian families with disabled children and the Barnardo's Glasgow 16+ project provides support—including supported lodgings—for over-16s who are coming out of care. That is very much an issue that the Parliament and the Education Committee have considered. Resilience in north Glasgow—RING—provides befriending and individual counselling for children and young people who are involved in the children's hearings system or the criminal courts, and the shield fostering service offers placements for children who are under 13 and have emotional or behavioural difficulties, together with support to enable children to stay in their families.

The Dundee family support team has been active for more than 20 years, and in Aberdeen, the home from home service provides respite breaks and foster care services for disabled children and their families. Barnardo's family placement services in Edinburgh provide similar services to children who need to spend time apart from their families. The services range from short breaks to post-adoption services, and referrals are often received when councils have been unable to make successful placements. The range of services that exists speaks volumes about the contribution that Barnardo's makes to our society.

Like other independent and charitable sector bodies, Barnardo's Scotland often works in partnership with councils to provide services, complement statutory services, fill in gaps and reach the most disadvantaged children and young people. Voluntary organisations such as Barnardo's have many advantages. They are more accessible, informal and person centred. They bring in additional funding—some £3 million to children's services in Scotland in the case of Barnardo's—and they are flexible and adaptable in dealing with new issues and demands. They can develop specialised skills and, above all, they have the human touch, which is often missing from the lives of vulnerable young people and is not always there across all services that are provided in other ways.

When the minister responds, I hope that she will give us an update of the progress that has been made by the working party that is operating with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations on full cost recovery. Barnardo's estimates that its management and administration costs average about 15 per cent, although councils seem typically to pay only about half that. I hope, too, that the minister might help—as the Executive has been trying to do since 1999—to ensure stability of funding for the voluntary sector. A decision on whether the Barnardo's Glasgow street-work team would receive one-year project funding through the rough sleepers initiative was due in March, but that decision was not taken until July, which caused job uncertainty for staff and uncertainty for a project that affects many desperately vulnerable young people. In the relationship between government in its various manifestations and the voluntary sector, this is an old tune, but stable core funding, adequate recompense for management costs, timeousness in decision making and longer-term funding arrangements are still vital.

Barnardo's vision is that the lives of children and young people should be free from poverty, abuse and discrimination, and its purpose is to help the most vulnerable children and young people to transform their lives and fulfil their potential. Barnardo's is still—140 years on—helping disadvantaged children to reach their full potential. Barnardo's calls it giving children back their future. To borrow a phase from elsewhere, I like that.