Appendix 1
CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES SELECT COMMITTEE
REPORT ON LOOKED-AFTER CHILDREN: THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE
Thank you for your report into looked-after children.
I have studied the report with great interest. It is a good and
thorough analysis of the care system, how it is improving, and
how it can be improved further in the future.
I am particularly grateful that you acknowledge the
priority Government places on improving outcomes for looked-after
children, and its commitment to achieving this.
We want to ensure that every child has the opportunity
to lead a happy, healthy life and that no child is left behind.
With the right support, children in care can and do succeed. Following
unprecedented investment in this area in recent years we have
seen a steady improvement in outcomes for children in care, including
better educational attainment results and more care leavers than
ever before in employment or training.
However, we very much want to improve outcomes further
and faster. In November last year the Children and Young Persons
Act 2008 received Royal Assent and strengthened the legislative
framework of the care system. Our Care Matters programme and implementation
plan, launched in 2008, is also starting to change practice on
the ground:
· Children
in Care Councils and Pledges are being set up in all local authorities;
· A wide
range of pilot programmes to develop evidence based practice are
up and running;
· Child
Trust Fund top-ups of £100 are now available for all children
who have been looked after for more than a year, and
· The
Independent Reviewing Mechanism for fostering is now up and running.
This year we will go further by:
· Issuing
revised statutory guidance on the health of children in care to
local authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), which is currently
out for consultation;
· Making
it a duty for all schools to have a designated teacher for children
in care with responsibility for their educational outcomes. We
recently consulted on guidance for this duty;
· Rolling
out Virtual School Heads in local authorities to challenge schools
about progress of particular pupils and oversee the educational
attainment of all the looked after children in the local authority
area;
· Working
with the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) and stakeholders
on a wider professional development framework for social workers,
foster carers and residential workers;
· Rolling
out Fostering Changes, a training and support programme for foster
carers to help prevent placement breakdown;
· Working
with all local authorities and national employers to deliver a
new National Employment Support Programme to improve care leaver
pathways into employment, and
· Delivering
new regulations and statutory guidance as part of the implementation
of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 to support improved
practice, including greater emphasis on evidence based practice.
As we implement the Care Matters programme
we will continue to consult and listen to the views of stakeholders
and in particular the views of children and young people in care.
I am pleased the Committee believes the development and implementation
of Care Matters is in "many ways an exemplary way
for policy to be developed and implemented and the Government
is to be congratulated for a thorough and serious consultative
process." I am strongly committed to ensuring this continues
to be the case.
I have set out below my response on your individual
recommendations following the structure of your report.
The Select Committee's recommendations are in bold
text.
The Government's response is in plain text.
Some of the recommendations and responses have been
grouped.
Building a care system founded on good relationships
1. We
believe that the greatest gains in reforming our care system are
to be made in identifying and removing whatever barriers are obstructing
the development of good personal relationships, and putting in
place all possible means of supporting such relationships where
they occur. (Paragraph 29)
Relationships between children's services and
families
2. It is imperative that constructive relationships
between children's services and the family are established at
the outset, maintained while the child is in care, and continued
when they return home. (Paragraph 31)
3. In the wake of Lord Laming's review of safeguarding,
we hope that the important contribution made by universal and
preventative services to keeping children safe will be reaffirmed.
Unfortunately, even the best child protection systems will not
be capable of eradicating child murder, but we are convinced that
better early intervention is vital in reducing the likelihood
of child misery and ensuring children's wellbeing. (Paragraph
35)
4. Focusing the efforts of social workers on child
protection cases is, we believe, a practical response to resource
constraints and the prevailing public view of the profession,
rather than the ideal situation. This focus fails to realise the
potential of social work to effect positive change in families,
and means that the stakes of interactions are too high. We urge
the Social Work Taskforce to consider ways in which social workers
can be freed up to work with families before problems become acute.
Specifically, we look forward to their conclusions about the extent
to which administrative tasks prevent social workers spending
time with families. (Paragraph 40)
Relationships between social workers and looked-after
children
5. A new impetus is needed for children's social
work recruitment, particularly in the light of diminishing public
confidence in the profession. We are pleased to note that the
Government has, in the Children's Workforce Development Strategy
published in December 2008, decided to involve the Training and
Development Agency in this task, and we will maintain a keen interest
in how effectively it performs. (Paragraph 43)
The Government agrees with the Committee that the
individual relationships between social workers, residential and
foster carers with children in care and their families are crucial
and that the care system should be seen as part of a continuum
of effective family support services rather than as something
separate and distinct. It is also the case that where there are
strong attachments between children and at least one adult we
know that children are happier and achieve better outcomes.
The Government is committed to improving the skills
and competencies of foster and residential carers to support them
in building strong relationships with the children and young people
they look after, helping them to take good decisions about their
care. The Care Matters Implementation Plan sets out a programme
of work to achieve these aims. This includes much better training
and support for foster carers through the roll out of the Fostering
Changes programme and piloting the social pedagogy model in residential
children's homes.
The Government also agrees with the Committee that
supporting relationships with family members is important. Most
children are only in care for short periods and a primary aim
is to try and settle them back with their parents wherever this
is possible and appropriate. Even where children are likely to
remain in care for the long term, most children want to maintain
their links with their family.
The Government agrees with the Committee that safeguarding
is everyone's responsibility and that universal and preventive
services must play a crucial role in this. Keeping children and
young people safe is a top priority for this Government. Our Every
Child Matters Programme has introduced significant reforms to
strengthen children's services and to prevent and tackle child
abuse. More recently, in response to Lord Laming's report, we've
introduced new legislation, we are revising the core guidance
and we have appointed Sir Roger Singleton as the first Chief Adviser
on the Safety of Children. The new National Safeguarding Delivery
Unit will help drive a more integrated approach to keeping children
safe across Government as well as working to make the best safeguarding
practice common practice in all local areas.
The Government is fully committed to acting to secure
improvements in social work, which has a crucial role in supporting
families. The Social Work Task Force is looking at all the issues
that the Committee has identified as important in social work
reform. The Government has asked them to conduct a 'nuts and bolts'
review of social work and to make recommendations which will inform
the long term programme of reform that the Government has pledged
to bring forward. The Task Force will consider fully the Committee's
findings and recommendations.
Social workers play a vital role in society, and
what matters most to children and families is the support they
receive on a day to day basis from front line services. The Government
is committed to ensuring that social workers have the capacity,
skills and support to carry out their demanding roles, including
the required management skills and professional judgement.
6. The piloting of Newly Qualified Social Worker
Status is welcome, and the success of this initiative should at
least partly be judged by its effect on vacancy rates. (Paragraph
45)
The recruitment and retention of social workers is
of major importance and the Government is seeking to address this
in a number of ways. A Graduate Recruitment Scheme and a Return
to Social Work Scheme to increase supply into the profession,
informed by the Social Work Task Force, has already been launched.
The Government announced last month that the Newly Qualified Social
Worker programme, which provides supported induction and supervision
for social workers in their first year of practice, will be available
to all new children and families social workers from this autumn.
A large scale social work marketing campaign will
be launched later this year. The Government also announced in
May a new £58 million 'Social Work Transformation Fund' to
provide an immediate boost to social work training and support,
as well as to recruitment and retention. This is in addition to
the £73m the Government announced in April last year to support
frontline children and families social workers.
7. We recommend that the Government consider,
through the Social Work Taskforce or otherwise, the practicalities
and possible benefits of guidance specifying optimum caseloads
for children's social workers. (Paragraph 47)
The Task Force's remit is to look at the whole of
the social work profession, including more preventative social
work with children and families and work with children and young
people in care.
The Government has specifically asked them to focus
on front line practice in the different areas of social work and
how this makes a difference to outcomes. One of the things they
are doing is conducting a workload survey intended to reach up
to 1000 social workers in the full range of settings, which will
give a picture of how social workers are able to use their time
at the moment and what might be done to address any problems.
The Task Force is also advising the Government on
how Lord Laming's recommendations should be implemented. Lord
Laming's work relates to the whole of children and families social
work, although he focused primarily on safeguarding. Like the
Select Committee, he is concerned about caseloads and the Task
Force will be advising on how optimal caseloads can be achieved.
8. While we welcome the opportunity for innovation,
it is not clear to us that the Remodelling Social Work pilots
have been designed to address directly the wishes of children
in care about their relationship with their social worker. We
seek reassurance that evaluation of the pilot programmes will
provide robust evidence of ways to achieve these specific aims.
(Paragraph 49)
The Remodelling the Delivery of Social Work pilots,
run by CWDC, were established with the aim of looking at new ways
of organising working practices, organising staff teams more effectively,
and looking at how to provide more contact between social workers
and children and young people. The focus of these pilots was
never intended to be solely about children in care. A number
of the pilot areas are however looking at how to improve the delivery
of social work for children in care (others are looking at improving
early intervention). Where the pilots are focusing on looked
after children, children's wishes for their relationship with
their social worker will form an important part of CWDC's evaluation.
9. We recommend that other examples of innovative
local authority practice which aim to improve children's relationships
with social workers be considered and evaluated alongside the
Children's Workforce Development Council's Remodelling Social
Work programme. (Paragraph 50)
The Government agrees on the need to look at all
innovative practice and will work with the CWDC to consider how
this can be done.
10. We ask the Government to examine carefully
whether independent practices might lead to greater compartmentalisation
of social work tasks, rather than the continuity we believe is
desirable. We urge the Government to ensure that the views of
children and young people are given particular prominence in the
evaluation of the pilots. (Paragraph 56)
11. Independent Social Work Practices seem to
offer the potential to address many of the long-standing problems
in the relationships between looked-after children and their social
workers, and we welcome the piloting process. However, if independent
practices are found to create insurmountable problems, or are
not deemed workable by all local authorities, other ways will
still have to be found to change the structures of social work
to promote better relationships. The Government must not delay
in investigating other solutions that can be adopted by all local
authorities. (Paragraph 57)
Social Work Practices (SWPs) will be independent,
social worker-led organisations that contract with the local authority
to provide social work services to children in care.
Pilots in six local authorities (Blackburn with Darwen,
Hillingdon, Kent, Liverpool, Staffordshire and Sandwell) were
announced as part of the Workforce Strategy in December 2008.
These local authorities are currently tendering for providers.
Once this stage is complete, contract negotiations will begin,
with a view to the Social Work Practices "going live"
in autumn 2009. The Government will consider very carefully the
evaluation of the pilots, within which the views of children and
young people will be critical, in the light of the recommendations
of the Social Work Task Force. Social Work Practices are just
one of a number of ways in which Government is exploring how best
to deliver social care services. We are aware that there are some
other innovative approaches to organising and supporting social
work being developed in local areas, including in Hackney—about
which the Committee took oral evidence as part of its deliberations.
We are watching progress with considerable interest.
Relationships between the child and their carer
12. Foster care approval processes should be reviewed
to ensure that they are capable of identifying and assessing the
most important personal qualities. Important as training is, fostering
agencies must require that those who look after children possess
the personal qualities needed to deliver genuinely warm and secure
family life. (Paragraph 60)
Of course I agree that all looked after children
need to have kind, understanding and committed carers. The National
Minimum Standards (which are used by Ofsted to inspect all fostering
service providers) make clear that fostering service providers
should have foster carers who provide a safe, healthy and nurturing
environment. In addition, the standards require that the fostering
service provider, in assessing the suitability of the carer, takes
into account a range of qualities, competencies and aptitudes
for fostering. This includes the need to help the child make sense
of their past, promoting secure attachments between children and
appropriate adults, and the foster carer's approach to bringing
up children. All of this requires the provider to look at the
personal qualities and motivations of the carer which are so important
to successful outcomes for the child.
As part of the assessment process for potential foster
carers, Schedule 3 of the Fostering Services Regulations 2002
states that the fostering service provider must obtain information
about the person's skills, competence and potential, relevant
to their capacity to care effectively for a child placed with
them. They must also obtain personal references for the person.
Foster carers are supervised by their social worker
and receive at least one unannounced visit a year. A foster carer's
approval is reviewed at least annually and the views of the child
are taken into account, as well as those of the foster carer and
any local authority who has placed a child with the carer in the
preceding year.
13. We ask the Government to enforce rigorously
the requirement for foster placement agreements. (Paragraph 66)
Foster Placement Agreements are already strictly
enforced and regulated. The law is clear that placements should
not be made without a placement agreement in place. Regulation
34(3) of the Fostering Services Regulations 2002 requires all
fostering service providers to enter into a written agreement
with the foster carer relating to the child before the placement
is made, which covers issues specified in Schedule 6 of the same
regulations. The Foster Placement Agreement includes information
that the fostering service provider considers necessary to enable
the foster carer to care for the child. Ofsted inspect against
the Regulations which set this out and, in view of the Committee's
concern, we have asked them to pay particular attention to checking
in all future inspections that placement agreements are in place
before placements are made. The Government will also remind LAs
about their legal responsibilities on this issue in revised statutory
guidance on the Children Act 1989.
During the passage of the Children and Young Persons
Act 2008, the Government announced its intention to amend the
Fostering Services Regulations 2002 so that Placement Agreements
are reviewed annually, or whenever there is a substantive change
in the placement. This should ensure that the Placement Agreement
is kept up to date and the carer and provider are clear about
its content.
14. Care Matters adopts too narrow
a view of 'support' for foster carers, concentrating mainly on
developing their own training and skills. Important as this is,
foster carers should also be able to expect a detailed specification
of the practical and financial support that will be provided to
them and their families to maintain placements and help children
develop, including the education and health services that will
be available. (Paragraph 67)
Care Matters
gives priority to supporting foster carers to develop their own
training and skills, which will allow them to respond more appropriately
to children in their care, promoting placement stability. However,
the Government agrees with the Committee that foster carers should
also be given practical support, including financial support and
information about how to access education and health services.
More generally, we agree that there is a need to
improve the support that CAMHS services provide to children in
care, and this is addressed under the Committee's recommendation
number 44.
The Government has introduced a personal education
allowance of £500 a year for each child in care at risk of
not reaching expected levels of attainment, to give them greater
access to extended services, personal tuition outside school,
and trips and visits that will enrich their learning. In our revised
guidance we will ask local authorities to inform foster carers
about this funding.
The stresses placed on foster carers by the need
to respond to challenging behaviour, without the right support,
can be a cause of placement breakdown. That is why the Government
has funded a number of initiatives in recent years to improve
the support for foster carers. These initiatives include:
· working
with the Children's Workforce Development Council to develop the
Foster Care Training, Support and Development Standards, which
describes the skills and competences that all foster carers should
be supported to achieve;
· piloting
the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) programme.
This programme is an intervention targeting children with the
most challenging needs for whom more conventional approaches do
not offer an effective solution. It uses social learning theory
to provide both a structured and therapeutic environment. The
pilots have already enabled many children to move to long term
foster placements, where otherwise they may have had difficulty
achieving any placement stability;
· the
Care Matters White Paper commitment to exploring how elements
of the MTFC model could support regular foster care. The Government
is working with five local authorities to pilot the KEEP Intervention
Project (Keeping Foster Carers Safe and Supported). The aim of
the KEEP project is to increase the parenting skills of foster
and kinship carers to reduce the likelihood of placement disruption,
promote positive relationships and improve child outcomes. The
programme will help foster carers use effective parenting strategies
and provide them with the support to do so. This will strengthen
the foster carer's confidence and skills to manage difficult behaviours.
· funding
a national roll out of the Fostering Changes programme. This
programme uses a practical, skills-based, cognitive behavioural
approach to train foster carers. Its aim is to equip foster carers
with the skills to respond appropriately and positively to the
children they care for and to develop capacity to use positive
parenting techniques to manage difficult and challenging child
behaviour;
· introducing
a national minimum allowance for foster carers in 2007 to ensure
that no foster carer is left out of pocket due to the cost of
looking after a child placed with them. The Government is amending
the National Minimum Standards to make clear to fostering service
providers that they should publish a clear statement of what foster
carers will be paid. The amendments will also make clear that
fostering service providers who pay a fee to their foster carers
should continue to do so whilst an allegation is investigated;
· funding
Fosterline, a national, independent advice line for foster carers.
15. We recommend that the Government strengthen
its guidance about planning for long-term foster care, and include
in this guidance the financial and other support that should be
available to help maintain long-term placements. (Paragraph 68)
A child's care plan should include the plan for achieving
permanence in their lives. Every effort should be made to encourage
the rehabilitation of the child with their parents, where this
is the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote the child's
welfare. If this is not possible, then a residence order, special
guardianship order or adoption can provide a stable home for a
child. In some cases, long term foster care will be the most
appropriate option, but it must be a positive option and decision
underpinned by clear arrangements for current and future support.
Revised Children Act guidance, to be consulted on later this year,
will highlight the need to provide services to maintain the long
term placement if there are difficulties, in the same way as services
are provided to keep a child in their birth family, rather than
removing the child. The new requirement for placement agreement
to be reviewed at least annually will ensure that long placement
arrangements are discussed regularly and concerns are addressed,
including about the support that is available to the foster carer.
With respect to financial support, all foster carers,
whether the child is placed with them long term or short term,
should receive at least the national minimum fostering allowance
set by the Government. This covers the full cost of caring for
the child, regardless of whether the foster carer is caring for
a child on a short-term or long-term basis. The Government has
published good practice guidance to help fostering services organise
their payment systems. The guidance is clear that payments should
be subject to ongoing review to ensure that they continue to reflect
the needs of the child. We will amend the National Minimum Standards
to make clear to fostering service providers that they should
publish a clear and transparent policy regarding their payment
structures for foster carers.
16. We are pleased to note the prominence being
given in Care Matters and in the Public Law Outline
to family and friends care as an option of first resort. An increase
in these placements will be neither possible nor desirable, however,
without more consistent and equitable services and support for
family and friends carers. The specifications of support for foster
carers recommended elsewhere in this Report should include these
carers, taking into account the distinctive task and context of
family and friends care. (Paragraph 73)
The Government recognises the important role played
by family members and friends in taking care of children who cannot
be cared for by their parents. The Children Act 1989 already places
a duty on local authorities to support the upbringing of children
by their families wherever possible. This has been strengthened
by the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 and will be further
reinforced in the revised Children Act 1989 regulations and guidance
to be published for consultation in the autumn.
The Government is aware that, in some areas of the
country, there is a lack of support and recognition for friends
and family carers. We will strengthen the framework to set clearer
expectations of an effective service to support these children
and families.
To help local authorities meet their duties in this
area, the Government will issue statutory guidance, as part of
the revised Children Act Guidance, which will identify barriers
to more effective use of family and friends care and good practice.
The guidance will seek to address current variations in the use
of family and friends placements, a lack of policy frameworks
at local level, lack of transparency in entitlements and the suitability
of approval processes for the carer where the child is a looked
after child. It will cover how longer term support provided under
section 17 of the Children Act 1989, as well as tax and benefits
entitlements, can be used to support permanence for the child.
Where a child is placed with their relative or friend
by the local authority, and so is a looked after child, the relative
or friend must become approved as a foster carer. Since the Munby
judgment of September 2001, local authorities have been required
to set their rates of fostering allowance in a way that does not
discriminate between foster carers who are related to the child
and those who are not. This is subject to Ofsted inspection.
17. We recommend that the Government's promised
new framework for family and friends care take full account of
the very many children who are supported in this way outside the
legal boundaries of the care system, while having needs comparable
to those within it. We ask the Government to give careful consideration
to ways in which those carers and children might be supported
more thoroughly and consistently, including through the benefits
system, without bringing children formally into care solely as
a trigger for support. (Paragraph 74)
Where a child being cared for by a relative or friend
is not a looked after child, the carer is entitled to claim child
benefit and to apply for child tax credits on the same basis as
parents, subject to the usual eligibility criteria. If a relative
or friend is bringing up a child single-handed and can't go out
to work, they can claim Income Support on the same basis as other
lone parents.
Where a child is assessed as being "in need",
the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 amended section 17 of
the Children Act 1989 to remove the barrier to local authorities
providing longer term financial aid to support the welfare and
upbringing of such children by their families. The new guidance
will include examples of these kinds of arrangements.
Where a child who is not looked after is living with
a carer who is not a close relative with the intention that the
arrangement will be for 28 days or more, the arrangements
will be subject to the Private Fostering Regulations. There is
a legal requirement on the carer, the parent and any other person
involved in making a private fostering arrangement to notify the
local authority of the arrangement. The local authority will then
take steps to ensure the arrangement is suitable and
safe for the child and offer advice and support to the carer
as necessary.
18. Local authorities need more persuasion and
reassurance to delegate responsibility for everyday decisions
to carers who know a child well, so that their life in care can
be 'normalised' as much as possible. Guidance should encourage
a presumption in favour of delegation, and care plan reviews should
be used as an opportunity to consider whether more responsibility
should be delegated to the carer of the child concerned. Specifically,
the Government should reconsider the process for allocating Personal
Education Allowances to encourage greater involvement of foster
carers. (Paragraph 80)
The Government agrees with the Committee that looked
after children should have the opportunity for as normal an upbringing
as possible, and that foster carers should be able to make day
to day decisions affecting the child they care for.
The delegation of responsibility is an important
issue, and the Government has awarded Fostering Network £120,000
over 2009-2011 to consult with stakeholders and develop a toolkit
on delegated responsibility. The toolkit will take account of
the legal requirements which may impact on delegation of responsibility.
Guidance on how to ensure looked after children benefit
from Personal Education Allowances was issued in May 2008. This
states that it is the responsibility of local authorities to establish
a process for ensuring these allowances reach children and that
the process is understood by carers. The Government is keeping
a watching brief on the implementation of Personal Education Allowances,
and guidance will be reviewed if they are not implemented effectively.
Guidance issued in 2004 provides information to carers
to help them support young people in their care through education.
The Government is considering what further steps should be taken
to support carers' involvement in the education of the children
they care for. The Fostering Changes Programme, which is being
rolled out nationally, has specific modules which support the
engagement of foster carers in children's learning. The MTFC Programme
also emphasises the role of foster carers in supporting educational
attainment.
The importance of placement supply
19. We recommend that the Government assess at
a national level the supply of placements that will be needed
to make the Care Matters reforms a reality. The
problem of how to ensure sufficient placements cannot be solved
merely by imposing a new duty on local authorities; the Government
must do more to enable them to meet it without making any compromises
on quality. (Paragraph 88)
Local authorities are best placed to know the needs
of the looked after children in their area and to ensure that
they commission sufficient placements to meet those needs effectively.
However, the Government has made support available through the
Commissioning Support Programme to help local authorities in commissioning
across children's services. This will include support around
placements for looked after children where authorities, with the
aid of the Programme, have identified a need for support in that
area.
Foster care
20. While local circumstances and the many different
types of foster care will always require some variation, we cannot
expect more people to consider fostering as a potential career
without greater clarity about the financial terms that are on
offer. We recommend that a national framework for fee payments
be developed, and that it include stipulations about 52-week payments
or retainers when foster carers do not have placements. (Paragraph
93)
The fostering allowance is to meet the costs of caring
for the child, so it is appropriate that a minimum rate is set.
It would not be appropriate for central government to determine
the level of fee which individual carers should receive, as this
is in recognition of the time, skills and experience a foster
carer brings to the role, and so depends on a wide range of factors,
such as the carer's experience and expertise.
The way in which providers structure their payment
system is extremely diverse, taking account for example of levels
of training, qualifications, experience, and the needs of the
child in placement. The solution is not necessarily a single
model, but transparency for carers about the payments they receive
and the circumstances in which they are made. The Government is
amending the National Minimum Standards to require local authorities
to publish details of the way in which their payment systems are
structured.
21. We recommend that the Government reconsider
its opposition to a national registration scheme for foster carers.
We believe that such a scheme would be a useful tool to improve
quality and take-up of training, and to cement the status of foster
carers in the teams of professionals caring for a child. (Paragraph
94)
Foster carers are substantially different from other
groups which are registered and regulated by a central body.
Foster carers are already approved, and strictly regulated, through
a local approval process set out in legislation. The introduction
of a national registration scheme would not be compatible with
this.
The status and profile of foster carers will not
necessarily be enhanced by a national registration scheme. Under
existing legislation, carers' performance must be reviewed regularly,
and the Government has funded the Children's Workforce Development
Council to develop a set of 'training and development standards'
for foster carers.
22. We consider it unacceptable that foster carers
are not afforded the same considerations as other professionals
in the children's workforce when an allegation is made against
them. We ask the Government to stipulate that carers continue
to receive fee and allowance payments while an allegation against
them is being investigated. (Paragraph 95)
The Government has announced its intention to amend
the National Minimum Standards to make clear that fostering providers,
who usually pay their foster carers a fee, should continue to
pay it whilst an allegation is investigated. The fee should be
paid at the same level as would have been paid had the child or
children not been removed from the placement. Payment of the
fee should continue until the allegation has been resolved.
The allowance is to meet the cost of caring for the
child, so it would not be appropriate to require it to be paid
if the foster child or children have been removed whilst the allegation
is investigated. However, the local authority or other provider
may want to consider continuing to pay at least an element of
the allowance if there are special circumstances.
Residential care
23. We welcome the Government's investment in
programmes that aim to improve the capacity of foster placements
to benefit the most challenging young people. We hope that this
will allow residential care to be considered on its merits rather
than as a last resort for children who have been especially difficult
to place elsewhere. (Paragraph 97)
24. We recommend that the Government commission
research on the flexible use of residential care as part of a
planned package of care, and that it consider the resource and
structural implications of enabling such uses. (Paragraph 100)
25. We recommend that the Government show its
commitment to addressing underperformance against the current
National Minimum Standards for staff qualifications by making
the Level 3 NVQ mandatory at the soonest practicable opportunity,
and by analysing the reasons for the persistent failure of the
sector to meet this standard. In the long term, a more coherent
and ambitious strategy for the residential care workforce must
be a priority, above and beyond the set of professional standards
promised by the 2020 Children's Workforce Strategy. (Paragraph
104)
26. The social pedagogy pilot programme is very
welcome. We urge the Government to think broadly and creatively
about the possible future applications of the social pedagogy
approach in the care system rather than looking to import wholesale
a separate new profession. (Paragraph 108)
27. While the emphasis the English care system
places on family environments is right, the potential of the residential
sector to offer high quality, stable placements for a minority
of young people is too often dismissed. With enforcement of higher
standards, greater investment in skills, and a reconsideration
of the theoretical basis for residential care, we believe that
it could make a significant contribution to good quality placement
choice for young people. (Paragraph 110)
The Government agrees with the Committee that residential
care has an important role to play as part of a range of placement
options. For some children, particularly older children, a residential
placement will be the right choice. Residential care can also
have a role to play in helping other placements to succeed, for
example, it may be used to provide a bridge for young people not
ready to settle into a family placement. It may be that a combination
of foster care and residential care is the right choice for some
young people. Local authorities should see residential care as
a positive placement option which is considered if it meets the
child's needs and not just as a last resort where fostering placements
break down.
The Government is committed to improving the quality
of residential care. We will work with the sector to look
at the barriers to all residential staff having
a Level 3 NVQ. We have also commissioned the Children's Workforce
Development Council to develop a training and development framework
for residential care staff. This will enable staff to train for
higher level qualifications caring for children and young people
in group settings. This work is underway and stakeholders have
been consulted about the framework. As part of our wider workforce
strategy, we will consider with the CWDC and the sector how
to encourage more staff to take up these opportunities and achieve
higher qualifications.
The National Minimum Standards and underpinning regulations
for children's homes are being reviewed, and in light of the Committee's
concerns will strengthen the requirements relating to training
and development. The new standards will be published for consultation
in the autumn.
The social pedagogy pilots in children's homes focus
on building relationships through practical engagement with children
and young people using skills such as art and music or outdoor
activities. Pedagogic training involves the following elements:
· behavioural
and social science theory;
· skills
training in working with conflict and challenging behaviour, and
teamwork;
· creative
and practical subjects, such as art, drama, woodwork, music or
gardening, through which pedagogues can work with and relate to
children. Arts and practical subjects can also help children
enjoy life and feel good about themselves, and
· optional
modules for specific settings, such as work with disabled children
or in residential care.
All the pilot children's homes have now been selected
and twelve social pedagogues have been offered and accepted posts.
A full evaluation of the benefits of this approach
will be conducted, with a view to spreading the use of the social
pedagogic approach more widely. The evaluation will help to inform
whether and how to implement a pedagogic approach more widely
in English children's homes. The Government agrees with the Committee
that any future roll out should not result in a separate new profession
being created from the current workforce.
The Children and Young Persons Act allows new powers
to be granted to Ofsted to strengthen the enforcement regime for
children's homes. The Chief Inspector will be able to issue compliance
notices to providers who fail to meet the expected standard.
The notice will set out the ways in which the provider has failed
to comply with regulations, the action needed to address the failings,
and the timescale within which this must happen. In addition,
the provisions will enable the Chief Inspector to restrict new
admissions to the home, creating a financial incentive to tackle
problems quickly.
Local authority commissioning
28. We seek reassurances that cost constraints
are not compromising children's access to the most appropriate
placement for them, and that children's views are given particular
consideration when 'value for money' decisions are made about
providers. (Paragraph 111)
29. We are concerned that spot purchasing of placements
on a large scale would indicate a failure of needs analysis and
planned commissioning. We recommend that the DCSF's Commissioning
Support programme explicitly addresses good practice in planning
for the future needs of the in care population. (Paragraph 112)
The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 clarifies
the process that the local authority should follow whenever they
are considering making a placement for a looked after child. This
is within their overarching duty to safeguard and promote the
welfare of the child. The first placement duty should be to re-unite
the child with their parents and in general to work towards making
sure that the child can be safely supported by their family.
If it is not possible to unite the child with their
immediate family, then the Act sets out the other factors that
the local authority must take into consideration when placing
a child. These include placement with kin, proximity to home,
and school stability. The relative importance of these factors
will vary depending on the circumstances of the individual child.
Local authorities are responsible for delivering
best value in the commissioning of services. The Government recognises
that to help improve outcomes for looked after children and the
stability of their placements, local authorities need to improve
the way in which they plan and commission services for looked
after children, taking account of a wide range of factors including
the views of children and young people themselves.
The Commissioning Support Programme was launched
in October 2008 to support Children's Trusts to help them plan,
design and implement services more effectively. The Programme
provides tailored support and online resources and networks to
help commissioners share best practice, as well as national and
regional conferences. A key priority is commissioning services
for children in care. The Programme will highlight and promote
good practice around the importance of commissioning evidence-based
services for children, young people, families and carers, including
in planning for the future needs of the care population. The Programme
will run until April 2011, working at national, regional and local
levels to build sustainable capacity.
Consistency and compliance in local authority
practice
30. The quality of experience that children have
in care seems to be governed by luck to an utterly unacceptable
degree. When implementing the Care
Matters reforms,
we urge the Government to place the highest priority on ensuring
that every child gets everything
they are entitled to.
(Paragraph 116)
The Government agrees with the Committee that more
and faster progress is needed to make best practice common practice
and to ensure that the requirements set out in legislation and
statutory guidance are delivered more consistently. We hope the
result will be that every child gets the support they need and
deserve. This is an aim which is shared with our partners in local
government and the health and voluntary sectors, as set out in
the Care Matters Implementation Plan published last year.
There are 4 key strands to the Care Matters
programme: getting the legislation framework right; piloting and
spreading evidence based practice; improving the inspection and
performance framework and developing workforce and commissioning
arrangements. All of these are underpinned by strengthening the
voice of the child and young person in the care system. A key
development to support this is a stronger role for Independent
Reviewing Officers whose job will be to ensure that the voice
of the child is heard and that care plans meet the full range
of their needs.
Government offices also have an important role in
supporting and challenging local authorities to improve their
performance to the best through:
· facilitating
and hosting learning networks to share experience and knowledge
between authorities, and
· the
annual improvement cycle providing support and challenge on the
children in care indicators.
Children in care councils will also help to ensure
that children and young people in care have greater influence
locally. The Government will be listening carefully to what children
and young people tell us about progress in the first annual Stocktake
of Care Matters this autumn.
Size of the care population and decisions about
entry to care
31. We are convinced that for some children, in
some circumstances, care should be seen as the best available
option rather than a last resort. (Paragraph 122)
32. While some differences in care populations
are inevitable, we are concerned by the huge variations in the
rates of children in care across the country. Not only is this
situation unfair on children and families, it seems to betray
a lack of common understanding about the place of care in services
for vulnerable children. The Government's commitment to investigate
the causes of such variation is welcome, but a greater priority
must be placed on reaching a national consensus on the rationale
behind decision-making about entry to and exit from care. (Paragraph
123)
33. We are pleased that the Government has set
aside any notion of a 'target' number of children in care, but
urge that there should instead be an unrelenting focus, through
research, guidance and performance monitoring, on ensuring the
quality and promptness of decision-making about individual children.
(Paragraph 124)
34. We recommend that the Government keep under
close review the potential relationship between the transfer of
care proceedings costs to local authorities and the number of
care proceedings that are issued, with a view to reverting to
the previous system if it can be shown that children in care are
being left at risk as a result of the changes. (Paragraph 128)
The Government believes that children should be supported
to live with their parents wherever possible, with families given
extra support to help keep them together wherever this is necessary.
The Care Matters White Paper stressed the importance of
developing services to enable families to stay together and we
are piloting intensive family intervention programmes such as
Multi-Systemic Therapy to support this aim. However, the Government
agrees with the Committee that for some children who cannot be
cared for by their families, the best available option is for
them to become looked after.
The decision to take a child into care is never an
easy one. While local authorities must act to protect children,
decisions on whether to take a child into care are a matter for
the courts, except where a child is voluntarily accommodated.
The prime consideration is the welfare of the child and it is
for the court, or the local authority where the child is voluntarily
accommodated, drawing on a range of evidence, to decide how
the child's interests can best be met.
There is no clear basis on which to determine the
"right" number of looked after children in any particular
area, as shown by Martin Narey's working group on the future of
the care population. Whilst the Government will investigate the
cause of variation, what is of crucial importance is the skill
and judgement of the professionals working day to day with children
and families and the quality of their decision making, and that
the courts are able to make the right decision in the best interest
of every individual child.
That is why the Government has established the new
Social Work Task Force to see how practice can be improved. Also,
the Public Law Outline has introduced a simpler, more streamlined
court process for cases with a greater emphasis on pre-proceedings,
one which promotes the identification and resolution of key issues
earlier in the case, with a timetable for completion based around
the needs of each individual child.
Following the publication of Lord Laming's report
The Protection of Children in England: a progress report
the Government has accepted a recommendation to conduct an independent
review of the impact of court fees in care proceedings. Although
Lord Laming found no evidence to support the view that court fees
influence a local authority's decision whether or not to commence
care proceedings, if the independent review finds that fees are
a barrier for local authorities the Government will abolish them.
35. While the intention of integrating budgets
for children's services was laudable, we are concerned that one
effect is that child protection, children in care and family support
work are in competition for shares of the available resources.
We are particularly concerned that those authorities which are
managing a historically large care population will not be able
to invest greater resources in family support without an unacceptable
reduction in the quality of services for looked-after children.
We recommend that the Government ensures that such services become
universally available at agreed minimum levels. (Paragraph 133)
Councils need to take a long-term view of their budget
cycles to enable the effective implementation of invest to save
programmes, including some of the evidence-based interventions
such as Multi-Systemic Therapy and Multi-dimensional Treatment
Foster Care. In general, the Government believes that councils
should have the maximum flexibility to take local decisions on
the funding necessary to deliver effective local services.
That is why the new local performance framework is designed to
hold local authorities and their partners to account for the outcomes
which they are responsible for delivering, rather than for the
level of resource they decide to devote to particular services.
However, the Government is committed to helping vulnerable
families and ensuring that all families are able to access additional
support when they need it. From April 2009 all local authorities
have access to two years funding to support "Think Family"
reforms and introduce targeted services for parents and families
experiencing particular problems. "Think Family" means
reforming systems and services provided for vulnerable children,
young people and adults to secure better outcomes for children,
by co-ordinating the support they receive from children, adult
and family services. In 2009-10 all authorities will receive part
of a £75 million pot of ring-fenced funding to deliver a
range of services. These include the delivery of family intervention
projects, the parenting early intervention programme and continued
funding for parenting experts and practitioners, as well as introducing
reforms to ensure that families are better supported through integrated
adult and children's services. A similar level of ring-fenced
funding has been set aside for 2010-11.
Local authorities' accountability to children
in care
36. We welcome the introduction of Children in
Care Pledges and Councils, and we hope that they will better enable
children to hold local authorities to account for the disparities
in the care they provide and to challenge poor practice. (Paragraph
134)
37. The Government must spell out how local authorities
will be held accountable for robust development of their Children
in Care Councils and Pledges, and the impact these measures have
on improving practice. It is not clear at present what the consequences
will be for a corporate parent that fails to keep its promises
to children, nor what action a child will be able to take if those
promises are broken. Pledges must be detailed enough to be meaningful
to young people, and we urge the Government to encourage local
authorities to show ambition in their undertakings. (Paragraph
137)
38. Councils and Pledges must not become the sole
means of consulting with or involving children in policy and services.
Local authorities should also be judged on the quality of their
mainstream children's participation and children's rights work,
and how effectively they involve looked-after children in it.
(Paragraph 138)
39. We are persuaded by the evidence received
for this inquiry that these two distinct roles of Independent
Reviewing Officer and independent advocate should in fact coexist,
and that the degree of inconsistency in the way local authorities
are discharging their care duties makes it even more important
that children have every possible opportunity to make their views
count. Advocacy services should be routinely available for all
looked-after children whenever decisions about their care are
being made, not just when they wish to make a complaint. (Paragraph
143)
40. We recommend that the duty on local authorities
to ascertain and give consideration to children's views when decisions
about their care are made should be strengthened by a requirement
for Independent Reviewing Officers to record those views when
care plans are reviewed. (Paragraph 144)
The Government is committed to the whole of the care
system being child focused. This means decisions should always
be made in the best interests of the child based on a thorough
assessment of the child's needs and taking the child's wishes
and feelings fully into account, just as any parent would.
All local authorities have been asked to establish
children in care councils to give children and young people a
real opportunity to influence services and support in their area
and how they should be provided. The councils should have direct
access to the Director of Children's Services and the Lead Member.
The Government expects every local area to develop a pledge for
the children in their care, to ensure that children's views can
be put directly to those responsible for corporate parenting.
The Government has asked the charity A National Voice,
which represents children in care, to contribute to the Ministerial
Stocktake in the autumn on the progress of children in care councils
and what more can be done to make them more effective.
Local authorities and their partners in the Children's
Trust must consult children and young people in developing their
Children and Young People's Plan. Guidance also states that the
needs assessment should include outcome measures for looked after
children, and because they have particular complex needs, the
assessment should consider targeted action within a wider pattern
of universal services. Funding has also been made available to
local authorities to improve participation arrangements.
For individual children in care, the current framework
of legislation and statutory guidance already requires the local
authority to involve children and record their views, or where
necessary, why it has not been possible to establish these. The
Children and Young Persons Act will enhance this framework and
reinforce the responsibility of the child's social worker for
establishing and recording the child's views. The child's care
plan should record the child's views and how the authority intends
to take these into account. The responsibilities of social workers
to make accurate routine recordings about the child's wishes and
feelings will be re-emphasised in revised Children Act Guidance
about care planning for looked after children.
The Government acknowledges that Care Planning often
has not taken proper account of the child's wishes and feelings.
The role of the Independent Reviewing Officer is being strengthened
to ensure the child is able meaningfully to participate in planning
for their own care and that their care plan is based on a through
assessment of all aspects of the individual child's needs. In
future, the Government expects IROs to have a much broader scrutiny
and monitoring role of the local authority's performance across
every aspect of the child's care plan. For example, the child's
individual IRO will also need to meet the child on a regular basis
prior to review meetings to record their views, and establish
that the child is able to make a meaningful contribution to plans
for their care.
Flowing from the Children's and Young Persons Act
2008, revised care planning guidance and guidance explicitly for
IROs will be issued for consultation later this year. These will
ensure:
· a
named IRO for each child reports on the quality of their care
plan;
· the
IRO sees the child before each review;
· more
information is provided on supporting the child to participate,
and
· the
IRO function is represented at senior management level so that
the child's voice and scrutiny function is at the heart of the
LA strategic planning for looked after children.
The Government expects IROs to have the authority
necessary to scrutinise care plans for each individual child and
to offer robust challenges on behalf of the child if the plan
falls short of being in the child's interests and meeting their
needs.
Looked after children are entitled to support from
an independent advocate if they wish to complain or make a representation
about their care. The Government has made a commitment that future
statutory guidance will set out explicitly that children are entitled
to the support of an independent advocate whenever they wish to
make their views heard, and not just when they wish to formally
complain. This guidance will be issued to complement the wider
revision of Care Planning and IRO guidance.
Extending the scope and rigour of corporate parenting
41. We are concerned that the scope of corporate
parenthood as usually understood leaves bodies other than schools
and children's services too much leeway in the priority they give
to looked-after children. If corporate parenting is to emulate
family life, it must not be compartmentalised, nor truncated at
age 18. We recommend that all Children's Trusts take responsibility
for multi-agency corporate parenting training, to include managers
within adult health and social care services, and officers and
members of district councils where relevant. (Paragraph 148)
The Government agrees with the Committee on the need
to ensure that all local partners in Children's Trusts see themselves
as the corporate parents of children in care. The Apprenticeships,
Skills, Children and Learning Bill currently before Parliament,
sets out the Government's proposals to strengthen Children's Trusts,
including extending the number of statutory partners to include
schools and colleges. The guidance for Children's Trusts published
in November 2008 says that all partners involved in the Children's
Trust should ensure that their strategy and practice takes particular
account of how they work with the local authority to improve the
prospects of these vulnerable children.
In preparing the local Children and Young People's
Plan (CYPP), LAs should consider including in the plan coverage
of the needs of children in care in the locality, and must also
consult them in preparing the plan, for example through Children
in Care Councils, or special consultation events. As corporate
parents LAs should work with the other partners of the Children's
Trust, including district councils, which should consider how
to improve access to positive activities for the children they
look after, including free access to their leisure facilities.
Primary Care Trusts as key partners of the Children's Trust are
required to work closely with the LA to ensure the health of children
in care is ascertained, monitored and improved. The statutory
partners must also work together to promote healthy living, and
intervene quickly where health problems do arise. The statutory
guidance makes clear they must provide the support and services
required by children and young people who have acute or additional
health needs, and support for vulnerable groups such as looked
after children is particularly important. The joint DCSF/DH child
health strategy published in February (Healthy lives, brighter
futures) contains a clear commitment to support better those
from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds, including children
and young people in care.
Health and wellbeing of children in care
42. Looked-after children must have a higher profile
in NHS performance frameworks. Children in care need 'champions'
in senior strategic positions in the health service, and corporate
parenting training should be mandatory for relevant senior NHS
officers and board members with relevant responsibilities. (Paragraph
156)
43. By comparison with its policies for the education
of children in care—virtual school heads, designated teachers,
priority in admissions and mandatory performance indicators—the
Government has seemed timid in specifying what looked-after children
should be able to expect from health services. The Government
should seek to specify a range of good practice, in particular
the roles of designated doctors and nurses, as a matter of urgency.
(Paragraph 161)
The Government has been working to improve the health
of children in care, and there has been an increase in recent
years in the proportion of children who have had their annual
health assessment and their teeth checked by a dentist. By 2007-08
87% of looked after children had received a dental check and a
health assessment in the previous year.
The Child Health Mapping survey in 2007 found that
76% PCTs reported having a designated doctor for looked after
children in post and 93% of PCTs reported having a designated
nurse for looked after children.
However, the Government agrees with the Committee
that more needs to be done. The Government is currently consulting
on guidance on the health of children in care. For the first time
this will be statutory for PCTs as well as local authorities.
It builds on good practice taking place on the ground and will
help to ensure this good practice becomes common practice. The
guidance sets out expectations of the roles of a designated doctor
and designated nurse for children in care.
44. Children and young people in care should have
guaranteed access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services,
and resources must be provided to ensure that this is achievable.
Urgent action must be taken to address the shortage of therapeutic
services for children in care. We recommend that the Government
should assess how specialist mental health teams for children
in care can be put in place and sustained in all areas. (Paragraph
167)
The Government agrees with the Committee on the need
to improve the support that CAMHS services provide to children
in care. Forty-five per cent of looked after children aged 5-17
have a mental health problem. This issue is being explored as
part of the consultation on the revised statutory guidance on
the health and well-being of looked after children, and in the
work taking forward Recommendation 12 of the independent CAMHS
review which relates specifically to services for vulnerable children.
The Government is addressing the issue of the emotional wellbeing
of children in care through the introduction of a new National
Indicator. Baseline data on this will be available in autumn 2009.
45. The Government's support for a holistic view
of the wellbeing of children in care is very welcome, but it sits
oddly with the withdrawal of national funding for the Healthy
Care Programme, which appears to embody this principle. We recommend
that the Government monitor the impact of the end of national
funding for Healthy Care Partnerships on local collaborative working
and the priority that looked-after children are given in services.
(Paragraph 169)
Funding for the Healthy Care Programme has not been
withdrawn but was devolved to Government Offices and is no longer
held centrally. Most regions do still have a Healthy Care Partnership.
The Government will ask the NCB, which run the Healthy Care Programme,
to report to the Ministerial Stocktake in the autumn on progress
of the programme and what more could be done.
Leaving care
46. We welcome the Government's assertion that
it should become exceptional for a young person to leave care
before they turn 18, and hope that it will precipitate a culture
change in local authorities. We recommend, however, that the Government
show more ambition by making a commitment to narrowing the gap
between the average age of leaving care and the age of independence
for other young people. Remaining in care in some form until at
least age 21 should become routine. (Paragraph 173)
The Government agrees with the Committee that looked
after young people should benefit from the same support as other
young people in their transition to adulthood. The 'Staying Put'
pilots enable young people who turn 18 to remain with their former
foster carers until age 21. Early messages from the pilots are
promising with young people in three authorities already routinely
having the option of remaining with their foster carers at 18+.
As part of the evaluation of the 18+ pilots, the
Government will consider how children in residential placements
can be enabled to make a more gradual transition to adulthood.
47. We welcome the Right2BCared4 and Staying Put
pilots, and urge the Government to make their benefits available
to all young people in care—including those in residential
placements—at the earliest possible opportunity. (Paragraph
175)
48. The success of efforts to ensure that young
people stay in care for longer will depend on factors the Government
has not yet fully addressed, such as supply of foster placements,
support to prevent placement breakdowns, and the effectiveness
of Independent Reviewing Officers and review processes. Local
authorities must be given all necessary assistance to achieve
these changes. (Paragraph 177)
49. The Right2BCared4 and Staying Put pilots should
be used to explore how more flexibility can be built into the
process of leaving care, so that young people who find they are
not yet ready for independence are able, and encouraged, to revert
to a higher level of support. (Paragraph 178)
A key part of the ethos of the Right2BCared4 and
Staying Put pilots is to ensure young people have the necessary
support and security to be able to make decisions for themselves
around how they prepare for independence. These pilots give those
young people participating the flexibility to experience the level
of independence they require while at the same time offering them
a safety net of support should they wish to return to a more organised
form of parenting. Comprehensive evaluations of both the Right2BCared4
and Staying Put pilots will allow the learning to be shared with
all local authorities. Right2BCared4, which involves young people
who have not yet reached legal adulthood, includes provision to
allow children to return to foster care if their attempt to move
to greater independence does not work out the first time around.
Legislation flowing from the Children and Young Persons
Act 2008 will strengthen the role and functions of the IRO. Each
IRO will ensure that the child is able meaningfully to participate
in planning for their own care and that the care plan prepared
for them is based on a thorough assessment of all aspects of the
individual child's needs.
The Government recognises that this will involve
developing a culture in every local authority where children are
routinely provided with information about their options at an
early point so that they can make informed decisions about the
support they need to make a successful transition to greater independence.
The strengthened role of the IRO will result in greater
stability for looked after children by promoting a culture where
young people have a central voice in any decisions regarding when
they leave care. Guidance will be issued to IROs and their managers
in 2010, highlighting the importance of putting the interests
of the child first. Planning for transition will be one very important
aspect of this revised guidance.
The Government agrees with the Committee that key
to children leaving care later will be to improve the
range of foster placements available and the number that breakdown.
That is why, as explained elsewhere in this response, we will
be supporting local authorities to improve their commissioning
of placements through the Commissioning Support Programme and
funding the national roll out of the Fostering Changes programme,
which aims to help equip foster carers with the skills to better
support children in their care.
50. The vulnerability of care leavers to sexual
exploitation is a matter of great concern to us. We urge the Government
to analyse any ways in which features of the care system itself
expose young people to greater danger, and take urgent steps to
protect care leavers from this sort of exploitation. (Paragraph
179)
The Government agrees with the Committee that safeguarding
the needs of sexually exploited young people is vitally important.
Government guidance, 'Working Together to Safeguard Children',
sets out how organisations and individuals should work together
to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
New guidance on 'Safeguarding children and young
people from sexual exploitation' was published in June. This is
supplementary guidance to Working Together. The guidance
is statutory guidance for Local Authorities. It is aimed at Local
Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) partners, practitioners and
other professionals working with children and young people. The
guidance provides information on factors that should be considered
when looking at how to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
and young people in particular circumstances, including looked
after children and those leaving care.
Through work to improve the emotional health and
wellbeing of looked after children, steps are also being taken
to improve protective factors including self-esteem and resilience.
51. We recommend that national standards for leaving
care services should be developed with local authorities so that
these services can be objectively assessed. The standards should
include a greater degree of consistency and transparency in the
financial support available to care leavers and the criteria on
which it is determined. Each authority should include details
of what it will provide in its Pledge. (Paragraph 184)
The Government agrees with the Committee that there
is great variability in the leaving care support that young people
receive in different parts of the country. The Government funds
the National Care Advisory Service (NCAS) with a strategic grant.
NCAS have developed a set of National Standards in Leaving Care,
which they provide free from their website, alongside a self-assessment
tool and practice database. The National Leaving Care Benchmarking
Forum, a national network of 50 local authorities, already uses
this framework to improve the quality of their services through
benchmarking and shared learning. We will draw on these standards
when revising Leaving Care Guidance later this year which will
set out the statutory responsibilities of local authorities for
care leavers.
52. We are concerned that the benefits of specific
support to enable young people with disabilities to move on from
care, as distinct from the care services related to their disability,
have not been recognised in the Care
Matters programme. Equal
access to all features of effective leaving care support must
be guaranteed to care leavers with disabilities. (Paragraph 185)
Disabled young people leaving care are amongst
the most vulnerable. It is therefore particularly important that
the statutory requirements of the Children (Leaving Care) Act
2000, whereby all children looked after by a local authority
on their 16th birthday have a pathway plan covering education,
training and employment, is followed. New Leaving Care Guidance
will include much more detail about planning transition for particularly
vulnerable groups of care leavers—including those who are
disabled.
Guidance produced by the Government suggests
that each local authority should have a protocol that covers
the roles and responsibilities of all agencies working with
young people during their transition to adulthood. As well
as the protocol, each LA should also have a strategic transition
planning group working with the wider Children and Young People's strategic
planning board and the Children's Trust.
The Transition Support Programme (part of Aiming High
for Disabled Children) will monitor whether these arrangements
are in place through a questionnaire sent to each local area.
53. The duty to provide a Personal Adviser should
be extended to all care leavers until age 25, not just those who
have education or training plans. The terms on which this provision
has been extended risk excluding some of the most vulnerable young
people from continuing support. The role of the Personal Adviser
should include facilitating access to health and social care services
when needed. We recommend that the Government explore ways of
ensuring that care leavers have full and proper access to health,
social care and education services, commensurate with their needs,
until they are 25 years old. (Paragraph 187)
The rationale behind providing the Personal Adviser
up to the age of 25 is to ensure that young care leavers have
the support available to enable them to develop the required skills
and qualifications to lead fully independent lives. Not all young
people will want to remain in contact with the local authority
that looked after them. But those most in need of this kind of
support are likely to be young people who have missed out on education,
training or employment or who wish to re-engage with this.
Care leavers up to the age of 21 are entitled to
support from the local authority in respect of health and social
care services, and beyond the age of 21 they have access to universal
services as well as adult social services.
When the Government publishes revised guidance on
local authority duties to provide leaving care support later this
year, it will emphasise that in putting these new duties into
effect, local authorities are expected to recognise that education/training
includes a wide range of opportunities for young people. This
can include for example, basic skills training, vocational training,
modern apprenticeships, as well as participation in formal full
or part time courses leading to academic qualifications. This
approach will extend the benefits of this entitlement to all care
leavers who wish to enhance their skills and opportunities.
54. We seek reassurance from the Government that
funding will be made available to local authorities that experience
particular difficulties in finding suitable accommodation for
care leavers due to local housing shortages. We recommend that
the Government extend the new 'sufficient placements' duty to
include supported and independent accommodation for those leaving
care. (Paragraph 190)
The Government will work closely with other key departments
and agencies to ensure that the guidance produced for local authorities
on the transition to adulthood highlights the importance of services
taking a holistic view of the needs of care leavers.
Revised statutory guidance on transition to adulthood
for care leavers will set out the areas approval must cover (quality
of accommodation—e.g. health and safety, placement agreement,
support for carer, etc) and will gather and disseminate existing
best practice and lessons from the Staying Put pilots.
This guidance will also set out in greater detail the support
that LAs must make available to care leavers in independent accommodation.
In May 2008, the Government published good practice
guidance on joint working between Housing and Children's services
to avoid homelessness for vulnerable children and families, including
care leavers. Key messages from this guidance will be included
in revised Children (Leaving Care) Act Guidance which local authorities
will have to follow. This will stress that it would be exceptional
for care leavers to be expected to go down a homelessness route
in order to be placed in suitable accommodation.
55. A quality assurance framework for care leavers'
accommodation should be developed so that housing options can
be assessed against nationally agreed standards; it should not
be left up to a young person to say that the accommodation they
are offered is unsuitable. No care leaver should be placed in
bed and breakfast accommodation, and the availability of suitable
accommodation must be considered a prerequisite for a move to
independent living. (Paragraph 191)
The Children and Young Persons Act introduces a requirement
that children in foster placements or children's homes who move
to independent living or any other kind of placement that is not
inspected and regulated by Ofsted, can only do so as a consequence
of a review of their care plan, chaired by an Independent Reviewing
Officer. This is to ensure that care leavers are not forced out
of care and are only expected to move to accommodation suitable
to their needs when they are properly prepared and ready. Housing
providers should be closely involved in this review process, as
a means of making sure that that care leavers' needs are well
understood when they do move into the community and that they
are able to access the right level of housing support.
Children's services and housing agencies should have
arrangements in place that will ensure that placing care leavers
in Bed and Breakfast is avoided. Revised statutory guidance, to
be issued for consultation later this year, will highlight this
and will also include detailed advice against which housing options
can be assessed. We will take account of the National
Standards produced by the National Care Advisory Service when
drafting this guidance.
56. There should be a presumption against declaring
any care leaver intentionally homeless. Every children's services
authority should be required to adopt a joint working protocol
with the relevant housing departments or authorities, to ensure
that care leavers are given every possible support in maintaining
tenancies. Key managers within housing departments should be included
in corporate parenting training. (Paragraph 193)
No care leaver should become homeless. Housing Services
and Children's Services should adopt a shared strategic approach
to the provision of housing and support pathways for young people.
New revised guidance, to be issued for consultation later this
year, will include expectations that services responsible for
the welfare of looked after children and care leavers must work
very closely with housing services at all levels.
Currently, the responsible authority must keep in
touch with care leavers until they are at least 21, or later if
they are still being helped with education or training. We are
extending entitlement to a leaving care Personal Adviser to any
care leave who wishes to resume education before they reach age
25. (Education will be defined widely to include support to achieve
basic skills as well as more conventional participation in formal
academic learning or training).
The Government will strengthen Statutory Guidance
to make clear that in circumstances where young people continue
to be vulnerable as they move towards the age of 21, their responsible
local authority should be seeking to identify sources of continuing
support from adult social care services, the NHS or from voluntary
sector agencies.
Preventing involvement in the criminal justice
system
57. To some extent, we recognise that general
improvements in the care system—stable placements that are
properly supported, help to achieve at school, and a gradual transition
to independence—will help to prevent looked-after children
offending. However, opportunities have been missed to take further
specific steps to address this. We ask the Government to revisit
the Youth Crime Action Plan to address explicitly the state's
responsibility as corporate parent for the disproportionate criminalisation
of young people in care. (Paragraph 197)
The Government expects all care settings to have
active strategies in place to divert children from offending or
anti-social behaviour and to provide them with opportunities and
services necessary to offer them positive opportunities that put
them on the path to success.
In future, revised Care Planning Guidance will include
requirements that in each and every case, local authorities should
establish meaningful strategies so that looked after children
are provided with every support to become responsible citizens.
Similar expectations will be included in revised National Minimum
Standards for children's homes and fostering services. This
work will include how corporate parents should avoid unnecessary
criminalisation of young people in the care system.
Independent Reviewing Officers, as part of their
strengthened role, will be responsible for rigorously scrutinising
this aspect of care planning. This will include reporting back
to local authority senior managers on any concerns that children's
placements are failing to supervise them adequately and are having
to involve the police to manage behaviour.
Where a looked after child is placed in a children's
home, a key role for the home will be to provide a supportive
and structured environment with appropriate rules and expectations
around behaviour. It will also be important that children's homes
do not unnecessarily involve the police to enforce discipline
and control, since this is likely to lead to vulnerable children
being needlessly criminalised. For misdemeanours such as minor
property damage, homes should have in place clear strategies which
make the child involved compensate for their behaviour but do
not involve the police in trivial incidents.
The Multidimensional Treatment Foster Programme (MTFC)
which is being piloted and funded by the Government is already
showing positive results in reducing offending and addressing
mental health difficulties in looked after children.
The Government accepts that there needs to be improved
co-ordination between services for looked after children and youth
justice services so that the system works more effectively to
support looked after children. In particular, support for looked
after children who enter custody needs to be carefully coordinated
between local authorities and the youth justice system.
Looked-after children in custody
58. We recommend that children accommodated under
voluntary agreements should retain their looked-after status when
entering custody; we consider that this would be a greater safeguard
of the continuity of each young person's care than the new requirement
to continue visiting children. We are concerned that even children
on care orders may not be receiving the services they are entitled
to when in custody, and we seek reassurance that inspection will
be an adequate tool for enforcing the new visiting requirements
when it has apparently failed to enforce existing requirements.
(Paragraph 202)
The Government does not agree that children accommodated
under voluntary agreements should retain their looked-after status
when entering custody. Voluntarily accommodated children are looked
after by the local authority by agreement with, or at the request
of, their parents, perhaps because of problems within the family
which are making it hard for them to cope. It would be wrong to
impose on local authorities responsibilities for providing services
to children for whom they do not have parental responsibility
and who are living in accommodation over which they have no control.
Furthermore, blurring the distinction between care
as a result of a voluntary agreement and custody is not the way
to solve the problem. Instead, the Government will improve co-ordinated
support and impose new visiting requirements. This will ensure
that whenever a voluntarily accommodated child is sentenced to
custody they have to be visited by a representative of the local
authority to assess their needs and where necessary contribute
to resettlement planning.
The Government will prescribe the functions of the
person making the visit. These will include assessing and reporting
to the local authority on the child's needs and liaising with
the responsible YOT and youth custody services to ensure there
is a proper plan for resettlement services to be in place when
the child is released from custody, including access to appropriate
and suitable accommodation on release and the basis on which it
will be provided. This will mean that for those children unable
to return to the care of their families on release, the local
authority will have to give serious consideration to them becoming
looked after again.
We believe this is the best way to tackle this issue
and ensure children get the right support in custody and when
they leave.
The Children and Young Persons Act also strengthens
the care planning duties of local authorities for all looked after
children, regardless of whether they are looked after as a result
of a voluntary agreement or under a Care Order. Responsibility
for inspection of arrangements for children and young people in
custody rests with Her Majesty's Inspectorates of Prison and Probation
and with Ofsted. Ofsted is the lead inspectorate for provision
for children detained in Secure Training Centres or in Secure
Children's Homes. As part of the inspection process, inspectors
track individual cases, including those of looked after children,
to evaluate the quality of provision and the effectiveness of
local authority support. In future, this will include the visiting
requirements for local authorities.
59. We recommend that the Government identify
and implement a mechanism for automatically triggering a needs
assessment by the relevant children's services authority when
a child comes into contact with the criminal justice system. (Paragraph
203)
The Government is determined to see effective co-ordination
of services for former looked after children in custody, with
shared support from children's services and YOTs. Revised Children
Act 1989 Guidance and National Minimum Standards will set out
the expectation that whenever a looked after child comes into
contact with the criminal justice system, their carers and the
local authority responsible for their care must consider the reasons
for this in order to take necessary actions to divert the child
from any further anti-social or offending behaviour.
60. We recommend that the lead responsibility
of children's services for looked-after children in the youth
justice system be re-asserted, so that extremely vulnerable children
are not denied the support they need by being excluded from mainstream
services when they come into contact with Youth Offending Teams.
(Paragraph 204)
The Government agrees with the Committee that the
care and pathway planning responsibilities must continue with
the local authority with statutory responsibility for the individual
child, taking the lead whenever a child subject to a care order
or a "relevant" care leaver is in custody. The new visiting
requirement provided for under the Children and Young Persons
Act 2008 provides a mechanism to ensure continuity of care for
children who lose their looked after status because they were
voluntarily accommodated prior to receiving a custodial sentence.
61. We ask the Government to guarantee future
funding for social workers posts in Youth Offending Institutions.
(Paragraph 205)
Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide
social work services to young people in Young Offender Institutions
who are children "in need" of such services under the
Children Act 1989. In 2005 the Government provided initial funding
for the recruitment and appointment of social workers at Young
Offender Institutions. The first social workers were in post in
autumn 2005. The Government provided funding until 2009. In January
2009 the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS),
on behalf of local authorities, confirmed funding for social workers
through 2009/2010. This recognises the obligations that local
authorities have towards under-18s in custody. The ADCS, acting
on behalf of local authorities, is currently in discussions
with the Government about longer-term funding for social workers
in Young Offenders Institutions.
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children
62. We recommend that the Department for Children,
Schools and Families assume formal joint responsibility with the
Home Office for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. (Paragraph
208)
63. Clear guidance must be given to local authorities
that all of the provisions of Care
Matters, and the principles of good care
planning, apply equally and without exception to unaccompanied
asylum-seeking children. We are particularly anxious that the
Government resolve the contradiction between the importance that
Care Matters
places on continuity of care for looked-after
children older than 16, and the expectation that young asylum-seekers
will leave their foster placements at that age. (Paragraph 209)
64. We support the idea of appointing guardians
for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, to ensure that they
are properly supported through the asylum process, and that swift
access to services such as education is arranged on their behalf.
We are concerned about the particular vulnerability of this group
of children to trafficking, and would like the role of guardian
to include a remit to ensure that children do not go missing.
(Paragraph 210)
The Government agrees with the Committee that unaccompanied
asylum seeking children should be considered as "children
first and foremost" and is committed to improving support
to them.
These children will benefit from the reforms being
introduced following the Care Matters programme and the Children
and Young Persons Act 2008 (such as the strengthened IRO function
and our education proposals). When these young people reach legal
adulthood at 18 (and the asylum claim is still being determined
or asylum/leave to remain has been granted), then the authority
will consequently have related responsibilities to provide them
with support and services as "care leavers".
The Committee is right to have pointed out the vulnerability
of these children, particularly those suspected of being trafficked.
Police, immigration officers and social workers are making great
progress at ports of entry, for example through the highly successful
Operation Paladin at Heathrow Airport, which identifies perpetrators
and victims, and we will spread this good practice to other areas.
Where unaccompanied children enter public care it
will be necessary for services to be particularly vigilant to
prevent children from being drawn back into the control of traffickers.
The Government published multi-agency guidance targeted specifically
at safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children who may
have been trafficked in December 2007. This sets out the reasons
for child trafficking; the methods used by traffickers; the roles
and functions of relevant agencies and how practitioners should
follow procedures to ensure the safety and well-being of children
who are suspected of being trafficked. It is supplementary to
Working Together to Safeguard Children (2006).
The Guidance says that in making any placement the
local authority will need to give consideration to the risk that
a trafficked child may go missing and to how the placement provides
support to minimise this. The local authority must have a care
plan for each looked after child, based on a thorough needs assessment.
It should set out how the local authority intends to safeguard
the young person or child who may have been trafficked; it should
also include a contingency plan to be followed if the young person
goes missing.
In the Care Matters White Paper we made commitments
to revise and update the guidance Children Missing from Care
and Home which will include more information about managing
support for especially vulnerable groups, such as unaccompanied
asylum seekers who may have been trafficked into the UK. We shall
shortly be publishing this new guidance, following extensive consultation.
At present, the Government does not see the need
for a statutory role of guardian specifically for trafficked children.
There is no evidence to show that the creation of another agency
will add any appreciable value and it is more likely to blur lines
of accountability and unhelpfully complicate service delivery,
we believe.
The performance framework for the care system
65. We fear that the increased emphasis on self-assessment
and light-touch, "proportionate" inspections in schools
and children's services as a whole is exerting an inappropriate
influence on the inspection of children's social care. In particular,
it may lead to unwise over-reliance on the National Indicator
Set as a barometer of authorities' ability to keep children safe.
There is potential for quarterly updates of performance profiles
to engender false confidence, and this practice seems to be at
odds with the Chief Inspector's reassurance that on-the-ground
investigation will be a prerequisite for passing judgement on
services. We recommend that ways of promoting more frequent, informal
contact between inspectors and local authorities be explored,
such as designating a named inspector for each authority who would
make regular visits. (Paragraph 215)
66. We consider that the evidence on which performance
assessments are based should be retained by Ofsted for at least
three years after publication. (Paragraph 216)
67. We recommend that the Government reassess
how the new inspection regime for children's services can be made
a more effective vehicle for spreading good practice, perhaps
through the inclusion of a peer review element, or whether a different
mechanism is needed. Ofsted must also improve the representation
of officers with extensive social work experience in its senior
leadership positions. (Paragraph 217)
68. There is at present too much emphasis on measuring
processes in the care system and not enough on assessing its quality.
The quality of decision-making and the quality of relationships
are difficult things to measure, but they are fundamental to the
success of the care system. To help address this problem, children's
satisfaction with the care they receive—independently sought
and expressed—should feature prominently in performance
indicators and assessments of the care system both locally and
nationally. (Paragraph 222)
The Government agrees wholeheartedly with the Committee
on the need for a strong performance framework, including a robust
inspection regime. Ofsted has already taken steps to increase
the number of officers with extensive social work experience in
senior leadership positions. This includes new posts at Director
and Divisional Manager levels as well as more inspectors for social
care at HMI level, with new responsibilities for maintaining closer
links with local authority services.
Arrangements for assessing and inspecting local authorities
changed from April 2009, with the introduction of Comprehensive
Area Assessment (CAA). This will be undertaken by the relevant
inspectorates working jointly, led by the Audit Commission, but
with Ofsted fully involved.
Ofsted will provide an annual performance rating
for local authority children's services which is informed by a
quarterly performance profile. The evidence base for these has
been increased to include a clearer focus on the quality of provision
and the impact of services on outcomes for children. Thus, the
outcomes of all Ofsted inspections of services for children and
young people, serious case reviews and complaints from children
and young people or other stakeholders will be considered along
with data on performance, as against the national indicator set
for children's services. Ofsted is currently reviewing its arrangements
for the retention of evidence underpinning the annual performance
rating and will report on these at a later stage.
All Ofsted inspections of provision for children
and young people will include a judgement on safeguarding.
Ofsted will undertake an unannounced annual visit
to each local authority to assess front-line practice in relation
to contact, referral and assessment services. This means that
future annual assessments will involve direct inspection.
There will also be a three yearly inspection programme
of children's services focusing on safeguarding services and services
for looked after children. This will consider the effectiveness
of multi-agency arrangements in improving outcomes. Whenever
inspectors report an inadequate judgement, on overall children's
services or on an individual Every Child Matters outcome, the
Government will consider urgently whether support or intervention
action is appropriate.
For each inspection, surveys of children who are
in the authority's care and who have recently left care will be
carried out through the office of the Children's Rights Director
at Ofsted.
The annual stocktake
69. We look forward to examining the first of
the annual ministerial 'Stocktakes' of the care system, and we
welcome the focus and priority this process promises to place
on how well the whole state is performing as a corporate parent.
We recommend that children's views and their satisfaction with
the care system should form a crucial part of the evidence used
in the Stocktake. In order that Government as a whole can be held
to account for its performance, the Stocktake must involve the
Home Office and Ministry of Justice as well as the Department
of Health and Department for Communities and Local Government.
(Paragraph 223)
70. The present performance framework is insufficiently
flexible to allow the progress children make in care to be captured.
The Stocktake should promote a comprehensive view of outcomes
for young people who have been in care (up to age 25). (Paragraph
224)
71. We consider that lack of data about some sections
of the care population, and care leavers, compromises the corporate
parenting task. The Stocktake should be used as an opportunity
to fill some of the gaps in data relating to looked-after children;
specifically, the lack of information about the circumstances
and outcomes of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and about
looked-after children in the criminal justice system. (Paragraph
226)
72. We are pleased that data on children missing
from care will be included in the Stocktake, and we look forward
to seeing evidence of improved performance in this area. (Paragraph
227)
Children's views and their satisfaction with the
care system will form a crucial part of the evidence for the annual
stocktake. A number of events are being organised where the Government
will hear directly from children and young people what they think
about the care system. This will be done in partnership with the
Children's Rights Director and key voluntary sector organisations.
It will include a national event for representatives of children
in care councils, as well as smaller events where young children
in care will be invited to share their views and experience of
the care system with Baroness Delyth Morgan.
The stocktake will gather evidence from across England,
showing good practice as well as barriers to progress. It will
assess progress against all the Care Matters indicators.
Evidence will also come from Ofsted and from voluntary sector
organisations that work with children in care, as well as from
Government Offices. A range of Government Departments will also
be involved.
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