The consultation was actively geared towards engaging with children and young people: a youth-friendly questionnaire and specific consultation events helped realise education secretary Alan Johnson's vision of "a conversation between Government, the care system, and children and young people".

On the other hand, the Home Office, currently consulting on reforms to the asylum process for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children aged 18 and under, is distinctly reluctant to engage with children. There is no youth-friendly version of the consultation and no intention of creating one.

The Home Office initially said it had no intention of actively consulting young people, although it said they were welcome to comment if they wanted. But under pressure from groups like the Refugee Children's Consortium, it grudgingly conceded that it might engage with a group of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children towards the end of the consultation period.

One of the issues arising from Care Matters - which did manage to consult asylum-seeking children in care - was the need for joint guidance from the Home Office and the DfES on who is responsible for what. At present, the Government appears to be persisting in developing two policies: one in which children's needs are paramount; and one in which they can be made destitute at 18 to encourage them to return to their country of origin.

Children's services professionals continue to be concerned they are being asked to go against their training and do the job of immigration officers rather than putting children and young people's needs first.

The responsibility for looked-after asylum-seeking children and care leavers needs to rest with the DfES, not the Home Office - something a new Labour leader should prioritise. Otherwise we run the risk of creating a two-tier Victorian system of "deserving" and "undeserving" children in care.