Row grows over decision to shelve £1.1m care-leaver's facility

THE Commissioner for Children and Young People Kathleen Marshall, and the head of a national charity which campaigns for young people in local authority care, have expressed outrage after a council voted to mothball a £1.1m centre to support care leavers.

Now the minister for Children and the Early Years, Adam Ingram, is to visit North Ayrshire this Friday amid an escalating row over how councils should behave as corporate "parents" to young people who they look after.

Ingram's attendance was the "bare minimum" requested by Heather Gray, director of Who Cares? Scotland, in response to the decision taken by North Ayrshire council without meeting any of the young people affected.

The council voted by a single vote to reject the siting of the centre and seek a new location, despite the fact that over £1m has already been spent on converting a former fire station to provide the council's Throughcare service with a new home.

SNP council members were whipped to oppose the centre, making the row an embarrassing one for Ingram, although Labour deputy provost Ian Clarkson used his casting vote to defeat a proposal that was supported by his party.

The vote took place the same week that Ingram published These Are Our Bairns - guidance on the importance of good corporate parenting aimed at councils and those they work with. Announcing the guidance last month, Ingram said: "We have a social and moral obligation to do our very best for those most vulnerable members of our communities and to show that we can and will do better as corporate parents."

These Are Our Bairns drew particular attention to the need for ongoing support for looked after children once they move on from local authority care, in areas such as housing. It advised that those in positions of responsibility should constantly think like a parent and ask the question "is this good enough for my child?".

Following inquiries from the Herald yesterday, Ingram confirmed he would meet with those involved in the row. He said: "The location and use of social work facilities is a matter for councils, but we would expect them to take their responsibilities as corporate parents into account.

"I intend to meet with the parties concerned in this issue, including young people in North Ayrshire, Who Cares? Scotland and local councillors, to try and work together for the benefit of care leavers in the area."

The controversy over the plans by North Ayrshire's social work department has included councillors alleging that young people in the council's care are into "heavy criminality" and newspaper headlines dubbing the Throughcare service a "£1m centre for yobs".

One leading opponent of the centre's siting, Irvine West Councillor Matt Brown, said more than half of those who used the centre would have been to prison - in apparent contradiction of a report from the council's own social work director Bernadette Docherty.

Docherty said that Police had never complained about the conduct of anyone using the existing centre in Saltcoats, but Brown has nevertheless argued that any new centre should be sited in an area covered by regular police patrols.

Inevitably, there have been accusations of nimbyism over the decision, but councillors involved in opposing the centre say that it is about the centre being "inappropriately" located in a residential street. Brown said he supported a different location within his Irvine West ward. "It should be here but nearer the town centre. This isn't nimbyism. It's about a lack of consultation and how the original decision was taken".

Senior social work staff at the council are known to be aghast at the outcome of the vote, and the way looked after children in the area have been portrayed, especially as North Ayrshire previously had a good record in attempting to improve what it offers as a "parent" to young people in its care.

They are bemused at the verdict, especially as the centre will primarily function as offices for social work staff working with young adults who have left care. There will be regular group sessions in life skills such as cooking and budgeting, but apart from that young people will visit the centre only for appointments and in many cases workers will go to their homes instead.

Gray said it was "sad" that North Ayrshire had taken this decision and claimed residents living in the vicinity of the planned centre had been misled.

Who Cares? has a conference next month which will highlight the stigma affecting looked after children and Gray said: "This just takes us back years and years.

"I am both amazed and extremely disappointed. These children and young people are not yobs or criminals and they deserve much better treatment and consideration about their futures."

She said there needed to be some response on behalf of local young people to redress the prejudice they had been subjected to.

"We need to ensure that policy translates to reality for children and young people who are looked after and that they are respected and included in our society."

Marshall also condemned North Ayrshire Council's decision: "I am absolutely horrified to hear that prejudicial and stigmatising views of young people in care are blocking this potentially valuable resource for care leavers," she said.

The Commissioner for Children and Young People published a report earlier this year, Sweet Sixteen, about the plight of young care leavers. Marshall said. "When I laid my report before Parliament, it stimulated a lot of comment about the dangerous environments to which we consign some of our most vulnerable young people, and the lack of facilities for them.

"The young people are well aware of the stigma that people attach to care status and it makes what is already an uphill struggle even more difficult. We should be giving these young people our full support, help and even - dare I say - love. That's what they say they want and it is what we, as a society, abysmally fail to provide."

Brown denied councillors had stigmatised young people: "Noone has stigmatised anybody," he said. But he declined to provide evidence for the claim that 50% of the building's likely users were offenders, adding "That's not research I'm sharing with anybody."

The centre will now stand empty while the council - which faces £25m of cuts in its buildings programme - seeks another venue. The existing Throughcare centre in Saltcoats has insufficient space, a kitchen inadequate for teaching cooking skills and an art room where young people have to work on their laps.

Meanwhile Gray hopes to discuss the decision with Ingram with a view to finding a way to overturn it. "This decision is at real odds with the progress that the council has already made in their role as corporate parents to vulnerable young people in care," she said.

'I feel very angry and let down by councillors'
"I don't talk to anyone about the fact that I've been in care, because I hate being labelled," says Kerry Murphy. The 20-year-old, from Saltcoats, is used to instant judgement when people learn that she was "looked after" by North Ayrshire Council from an early age. She's just not used to that judgement coming from within the council itself.

"To hear the councillors saying that - it's not right, it's not fair. I feel a wee bit betrayed. They are meant to have our welfare at heart but it is people like them that make me afraid to talk about it," Murphy adds.

She was left bewildered by the hotly-disputed claim expressed at one council meeting that 50% of approximately 100 young people who might use the centre had been in prison. "I've not known anybody I've been brought up with end up in jail."

Murphy is currently studying an HND in interior design at James Watt College. "Most of us are trying our best to get a better life so how are we yobs?" she asks. "I think they're all just scared to give us a better chance."

Other young people from a care background in North Ayrshire will also have plenty to say when the children's minister visits later this week. Zoe Aitken, of Irvine, told The Herald: "I feel very angry and let down by local councillors who are also my corporate parents'. I am angry and hurt that I and other care leavers have been labelled as yobs' and criminals' in the local press.

"It is very clear to me that some councillors didn't have my best interests at heart when they voted. They were just thinking of themselves - as some of them live in the Low Green area where the new Throughcare centre has been built."

Nicola Frew, of Dreghorn in Ayrshire said: "I have been supported by the Throughcare project and would have struggled without their support. I think a wrong decision has been made and I would hope this can be looked at again."

Liam Forbes, of Irvine, added: "I am no yob', I live a quiet life and the support I receive from Throughcare has helped with leaving care and moving into the community."