Implementation of children’s social care strategy unambitious and slow, Parliament states

The government’s implementation of its children’s social care strategy is unambitious and slow, a parliamentary committee has said.

In a report responding to the government’s strategy to reform children’s social care, the House of Lords Public Services Committee said the strategy had the right approach to tackle the issues with children’s social care, but fell short in delivering the radical reset that is needed.

The report said the strategy lacked the scale, ambition, funding and pace to have any immediate benefit for several years for most children, families and staff involved with children’s social care, and warned there was no guarantee of any long-term reform.

The committee felt the government must not waste the chance to implement the far-reaching reform required, and that it needed to go further, faster, to ensure that all involved see some benefit soon.

Other conclusions and recommendations include:

• The voices of children and young people are often not heard when decisions are made about their care. The strategy proposes using advocacy services to combat this, but these services must be fully independent and able to hold local authorities to account
• There is not enough in the strategy on recruiting additional staff to support those already performing demanding roles in difficult circumstances. Without more ambitious recruitment targets, the objectives of the government’s reforms will not be achieved

Baroness Morris of Yardley, Chair of the Public Services Committee said: ‘The children’s care system is in crisis and while the government’s strategy is a step in the right direction, it falls short of delivering the immediate real time benefits to children and families that we need. The strategy is a golden opportunity, but it could be wasted.

‘Vulnerable young people are being failed by the system. There are shortages of every kind of care, and children are being placed in settings that do not work for them. This is untenable. As one young person we spoke to told us: ‘I am a person not a number’.

‘The government’s plan has much to recommend it, but unless the proposals go further and faster, the strategy will leave many children behind. While we accept that not every reform can be introduced everywhere immediately, the government must ensure that all children and families engaged in the care system see some immediate benefit and can be sure that significant improvements and reform will follow.

‘We’ve made a number of recommendations which the government must follow if it wants to implement the fundamental reforms required to deliver an operationally effective system and prevent a worsening of the current crisis.’

Image: Trym Nilsen