Child Safeguarding — House of Lords, 2021-12-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank both noble Lords for the tone of their remarks and their support for the Statement by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I reiterate that we will leave no stone unturned in trying to understand and address what happened in this case, both in terms of its local implications and nationally I understand the focus of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on funding and the pressures that local government and children’s social care have been under, but I would say again that there really has been a shift; since 2019, there have been year-on-year real increases for local government. The latest spending review shows that the core spending power for local authorities is estimated to increase by an average of 3% in real terms each year until the next spending review. Importantly, that includes £200 million for family help, as part of a £500 million package to make sure that all children get the best start in life Both noble Lords asked what is happening on the ground, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of the performance of local children’s services teams around the country. He will be aware that we have moved from only 36% of children’s services teams being judged to be good in 2017 to, today, 50% being judged to be good or outstanding. Solihull’s children’s services team is currently rated as requiring improvement. We intervene decisively where local authorities are failing, and we continue to facilitate and fund sector-led improvement I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Storey, who said that we cannot wait; we need to do something now. Work had already started in Solihull. It is part of the strengthening families programme, which is very tailored support for local authority children’s services teams, where they follow a clear model. That work started in October this year. It is also getting support through the sector-led improvement partners, which is the more bespoke element, so the first takes well-understood and well-established improvement programmes and applies them in the local authority in question, and then the sector-led improvement partners allow for a more bespoke approach. Clearly, events such as this give a renewed urgency to the work that was already in train, and I will of course write to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, with more detail on the implementation plan Both noble Lords asked—possibly not in these words, but I hope I paraphrase accurately—how we avoid being here again. We have the two new reviews that we have just announced, and we will need to wait and see what they advise. We cannot pre-empt them. We also have the care review, which we hope will come forward with very practical, actionable recommendations focusing on empowering social workers to take those extremely difficult decisions to which both noble Lords referred I genuinely think that great progress has been made over the past 10 years in implementing almost all of the recommendations of Professor Eileen Munro’s review, and major investment is going into the workforce, with 10% more social workers today than in 2017. A great deal of work is going on. We are trying to ensure that that is sequenced and delivered in a way that is practical and effective on the ground.