Independent Review of Children’s Social Care — House of Lords, 2022-05-24
Topic: Social Welfare
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their remarks. As a Government, we absolutely acknowledge that the children’s social care system needed a fundamental report. That is why we commissioned this independent, broad and bold review. We will be publishing an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy later this year that will deliver for our most vulnerable children. The noble Baroness asked for a timeline on that; we can be clear that the implementation plan will be published before the end of the year Obviously, a lot of work is already ongoing within government but, in response to the review, we have been clear about three key priorities that we want to focus on initially: first, to improve the child protection system so that children are safe; secondly, to support families to raise their children so that they thrive; and finally, for those children who need to be placed in local authority or foster care, to have the right placements in the right places and in a timely way. On Monday we announced plans to establish a national implementation board, which will challenge us to achieve the best for our children. One of the strengths of this review, as I am sure all noble Lords will agree, was the incredible contribution from people with lived experience of the care system. We commit to ensuring that their voices are also represented on that national implementation board We are prioritising work with local authorities to recruit more foster carers, which we think can make a real difference in the short term, and to support social workers, particularly early in their career, and give them additional focus on child protection given its key role in their work. We are developing a national children’s social care framework, which will set out a clear direction for the system and provide an evidence base for all those working in the sector. Finally, we are introducing a new digital and data solutions fund, which will help local authorities to improve delivery for children and families through technology The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, commented on the pressures that the social workforce faces. I do not question for a second that those are very real, but I remind the House that the number of social workers has increased by 14% since 2017 to 32,500. One of the points noted in the report was that the average caseload has come down slightly. We are not arguing that every case is the same, but the figures are going in the right direction The noble Baroness asked whether we were planning legislation. In response to her question and that of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about our commitment to funding additional services, I say that we need to wait and see what the implementation panel recommends. We will respond to its recommendations but taking real care with implementation is crucial, because your Lordships will all know very well of examples where implementation has not delivered on the aspirations within such reports Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord referred to the situation with children’s homes. This Government are absolutely not against companies making a profit, but we are absolutely against profiteering, which I think was the phrase the noble Baroness used. We are putting funding into local authorities now so that they can expand their provision as quickly as possible while we look at some of the longer-term structural issues raised in the Competition and Markets Authority review as well as the care review In relation to unregulated provision for children in care, we are investing over £140 million to introduce new standards and Ofsted-led registration inspections for supported education to ensure that young people are safe and have the high-quality living arrangements that they deserve The noble Lord also referred to support for care leavers. We are providing £172 million over the next three years to support care leavers as they transition to independence, with better move-on accommodation and practical and emotional support from a personal adviser Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord rightly challenged the Government on how we will implement this. There is real commitment and ambition to try to address some of the tragedies which we have heard about all too often in this House, and the systemic issues that we face in the child protection and care system. We look forward to working with all noble Lords across the House in our attempts to do this.