Breaking news - Government announces “Biggest overhaul in a generation to children’s social care”
This week the Government has published ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’ – their framework for reforms they plan to make to legislation for children and families.
Bridget Phillipson, Education Secretary, said:
“Our care system has suffered from years of drift and neglect. It’s bankrupting councils, letting families down, and above all, leaving too many children feeling forgotten, powerless and invisible.
We want to break down the barriers to opportunity and end the cycle of crisis through ambitious reforms to give vulnerable children the best life chances – because none of us thrive until all of us do.
We will crack down on care providers making excessive profit, tackle unregistered and unsafe provision and ensure earlier intervention to keep families together and help children to thrive.”
The Proposals
The Government’s emphasis is on early intervention and helping keep families together wherever possible so every child has the opportunity to thrive.
The proposals include wide-ranging reforms of children’s safeguarding, improvements to multi-agency working and better support for kinship families.
Other key measures announced today include:
• New powers for Ofsted to investigate multiple homes being run by the same company
• Introducing a consistent child identifier, making sure information can be shared between professionals so they can intervene before issues escalate
• The requirement for every council to have ‘multi-agency’ child safeguarding teams, involving children’s schools and teachers, in an attempt to prevent children from falling through the cracks
• The requirement for all local authorities to offer the Staying Close programme – a package of support which enables care leavers to find and keep accommodation, alongside access to practical and emotional help, up to the age of 21.
• A new duty on parents where if their child is subject to a child protection enquiry, or on a child protection plan, they will need local authority consent to home educate that child.
Private Providers of Children’s Homes
The Government has declared an intention to clamp down on private providers of children’s homes making excessive profits or running unregistered homes that don’t meet the right standards of care.
According to analysis by the Local Government Association, there are now over 1,500 children in placements each costing the equivalent of over £0.5 million every year, while the largest 15 private providers make an average of 23 per cent profit.
New rules will require key placements providers - those that provide homes for the most children - to share their finances with the government, allowing profiteering to be challenged.
The Government also announced a 'backstop' law to put a limit on the profit providers can make.
Not-for-profit providers and those backed by social investment are being called on to come forward to set up homes to strengthen the system.
To protect quality and safety in children’s homes, Ofsted will also be given new powers to issue civil fines to providers, working more quickly to deter unscrupulous behaviour than with existing criminal powers.
Comment and Analysis
It is encouraging that the Government has seen the need for investment and change in the care system. All of us who work with children and young people would welcome strategies to keep families together when that is safe. There are a lot of measures in these announcements which will need to be considered in detail.
Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said:
"Every child deserves to grow up safe, happy, healthy and engaged in their communities and in their education. With this Bill we have an opportunity to repair how we treat childhood in this country.
Children are paying the price of a broken social care system that allows profits over protection. They are enduring things no child should ever have to: living in isolation in illegal children’s homes, often at enormous cost, deprived of their liberty without due process, often surrounded by security guards instead of receiving love and care.
Children in the social care system today are living week to week in limbo. They need action without delay, not plans or strategies, so I welcome the urgency with which this government is setting out plans to tackle some of the most entrenched challenges. There must be no limits on our ambition for these children and I will look forward to working closely with ministers to push for radical reform."
Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector said:
"These new powers will allow Ofsted to do more to make sure all children’s homes are safe and nurturing places, and to combat illegal and poor-quality homes quickly and effectively. We welcome these reforms and stand ready to deliver the Government’s new asks as soon as possible."
Next Steps...
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