Government response
The Government is grateful to the Select Committee
for their attentive and thorough scrutiny of the children's residential
care reforms. The Government has accepted or partially accepted
all of the Committee's recommendations.
Over the last year, the Government has worked with
a range of partners to develop and consult on a range of regulatory
changes designed to improve the safety and wellbeing of children
in residential care. These regulations are now in force. This
is a significant achievement and we welcome the Committee's endorsement
of these reforms.
We share, however, the Committee's view that there
is more for us to do. Challenges remain for all those concerned
with the quality of residential care and other placements for
looked after children. We must be ambitious for our most vulnerable
children, and we intend to keep up the pace of reform.
We are determined to improve placement stability
for all children in care and agree that it is crucial in improving
children's outcomes, whatever their placement type. That is why
we are taking action to improve the quality in both children's
homes and foster care, and continue to fund evidence based programmes
that can help to prevent placement breakdown.
We are also working with the sector to improve the
skills, training and qualifications of the workforce so children's
homes staff have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide
much better support to very vulnerable children. We are carrying
out a workforce census and a workforce research project to inform
future development of new qualifications and a skills framework
for children's homes staff.
For some young people, residential care will be the
best option — but only if provided at the right time and
with a clear purpose matched to their needs. Through the Children's
Services Innovation Programme we want to encourage a positive,
more integrated approach to the use of residential care. We have
already awarded some seed grants through the programme and we
are talking to local authorities and providers to help identify
projects that could lead to significant and sustainable improvements
in the quality of care available. Up to £30 million is available
through the programme this year and considerably more next year.
We want children in children's homes to expect excellent,
high-quality care that enables them to achieve their full potential.
We are determined to move away from a regulation and inspection
framework based on minimum standards to one based on new quality
standards that will require homes to have high aspirations for
the children in their care. We are working on these new standards
with a wide group of stakeholders, including Ofsted and representatives
of children's homes. We plan to consult on these later this year.
The Select Committee's recommendations have shaped
our thinking in many of these areas, and we set out in full below
how we intend to respond.
Response to
recommendations
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION CO-OPERATION WITH COMMITTEE
1. We regret the failure of the Department
for Education to provide us with the responses received to its
consultations in good time without good reason. We recommend that
a clear protocol be established for the provision of such responses
in future. (Paragraph 9)
The Government recognises the important role played
by Select Committees, and the Department always wants to be as
helpful as possible in handling requests for information from
the Committee. It is also important that ministers and departments
have the space and time to consider carefully responses to consultation.
In this particular case, it was decided to consider the responses
to the consultation before forwarding them to the Committee. We
did not in any way intend to cause offence to the Committee.
We welcome the Committee's recommendation regarding
a protocol and will give due consideration to how such a protocol
might work.
GOVERNMENT'S REFORM PROGRAMME
2. We welcome the Government's reforms to
the residential care rules and its plans for a wider programme
of change. We believe that the Government is addressing the main
challenges facing the sector and that its proposals should noticeably
strengthen the safeguarding and welfare of children in residential
care. (Paragraph 13)
We are grateful for the Committee's acknowledgement
of the progress the Government and partners have made on the children's
home reform programme. We share the Committee's assessment that
the changes will strengthen the welfare of children living in
children's homes. Significant challenges remain, however, and
the Committee has made an important contribution to shaping our
future work.
PLACEMENT STABILITY
3. Placement stability is a crucial factor
in determining positive outcomes for children in care. We accept
that young people living in residential placements can be a particularly
troubled and challenging group. However, we recommend that the
Government supplements its proposals for regulatory reform with
a wider programme of reform to improve placement stability. This
should incorporate changes to the care planning system and assessment
processes to ensure that each individual placement matches the
needs of each individual child and that a series of short-term
moves is avoided. It should also improve the mechanisms for ensuring
that the views and wishes of children in care are both heard and
acted upon. (Paragraph 24)
We recognise that placement instability is an issue
for a small but significant group of looked after children, and
welcome the Select Committee's recommendation. Placement instability
is a particular issue for children in residential care, with around
a quarter of children coming into a care home having experienced
five or more previous placements.
We have a programme of work in place to improve permanence
planning and long-term stability for those children that will
remain in care and for those returning home to their families.
The issues that lead to placement instability are complex. Our
approach is to address these issues systematically by considering
what the data tells us, how the statutory framework can be strengthened
and identifying and sharing good practice based on evidence and
research. Improving permanency is fundamentally a matter of better
matching of placement to the needs of the child. As discussed
in the response to Recommendation 4, this is a key element of
the work we are exploring through the Innovation Programme to
encourage more efficient commissioning models.
The Improving Permanence data pack[2],
published in September 2013, highlighted large numbers of placement
moves, including 240 children who moved 10 or more times during
the year. We are undertaking further analysis of the data to help
us gain a better understanding of the reasons for these moves.
We plan to do some detailed case work with local authorities to
understand what leads to placement moves — for example,
how many of the recorded moves are as a result of children being
moved from independent fostering provision to in-house carers.
We hope to expand the data provided by local authorities to include
detail about the reasons children move placements.
The Improving Permanence consultation, published
in September 2013, sought views on a range of proposals to strengthen
the team around the looked after child, improve the status, security
and stability of long-term foster care, and to strengthen the
requirements for returning children home from care. The proposals
support robust assessments, and planning and ongoing support to
ensure stability for looked after children and those returning
home from care. The response to the consultation was largely positive
and we will be publishing a Government response in the summer.
The Department continues to support the development,
piloting and implementation of a range of evidence-based interventions
with more than 70 local authorities. These are specialist interventions
for looked after children, children on the edge of care or custody,
and their families. The aim is to provide carers - including parents,
adopters, foster and kinship carers, and residential childcare
workers - with the skills, knowledge and confidence they need
to address the troubled and challenging behaviours, and therefore
support greater placement stability. These interventions (Multisystemic
Therapy (MST) and Multi-Treatment for Foster Carers (MTFC)) are
mostly targeted to adolescents with challenging behaviours who
would otherwise end up in residential care after a string of unsuccessful
placements.
We continue to invest in evidence-based interventions.
We are funding the development of Multisystemic Therapy —
Family Integrated Transitions (MST-FIT) to support young people
transitioning home from care or to other long-term arrangements
from any care setting.
NATIONAL STRATEGY AND POSITIVE USE OF RESIDENTIAL
CHILDREN'S HOMES
4. We recommend that the Government develops
a national strategy for care provision, with residential care
reconsidered within that context, informed by assessments of need
at local, regional and national level. This should also aim to
re-position residential care as a positive choice for the right
children and young people in the right circumstances. (Paragraph
31)
The Government agrees with the views expressed by
witnesses to the inquiry that the recent regulatory reforms, while
a significant step forward, do not represent the full and final
response to the challenge of ensuring the highest standards of
care for our most vulnerable children. As the report notes, there
is a range of issues around the manner in which the needs of these
children are assessed and the placements commissioned.
The Government remains of the view expressed by the
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families
in his evidence to the Committee, that there should be no attempt
to define at a national level what homes should look like. Our
role is to create the conditions in which quality provision -
residential or otherwise - will thrive. Similarly, we believe
there are significant challenges in realising the aim of the Committee's
recommendation for a national planning exercise informed by local
and regional assessments of need. LGA/OPM research[3]
highlighted the difficulties local authorities face in predicting
demand for placements, and any national attempt to undertake such
an exercise would have to be based on the work of local authorities,
and would likely see these difficulties aggregate.
We believe it is best to work on an approach to improve
commissioning practice in adolescent care. Indeed this is a central
part of the Innovation Programme. In particular, we are encouraging
local authorities to trial regional or sub-national approaches
to commissioning for placements, with a single body acting as
commissioner on behalf of the other members. Support is available
for local authorities who wish to trial this approach.
The Innovation Programme will also particularly consider
other proposals to improve the residential care market, and to
ensure a more positive role for residential care. Further detail
can be found in our paper "Rethinking Support for Adolescents":
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/304684/Rethinking_support_for_adolescents.pdf
Children's homes should not be a placement of last
resort, and we agree with the Committee that the time is right
to highlight the positive contribution that residential care can
and does make. In a recent article, the Chief Executive Officer
of the Independent Children's Homes Association (ICHA) argued
that:
An agreed set of Values and Principles can act
to align, contain and connect, signaling a new direction and vision
for Residential Child Care being seen a positive provision for
young people; children's homes as they need to be and can be[4]
We agree, and the introduction of new quality standards
for children's homes provides an opportunity to achieve this.
We will consult on draft standards later this year, and as part
of this we will consult on new 'principles for residential care'
based on those proposed by the ICHA and Institute of Education
(IoE) in the above article. These principles might be incorporated
in the document that succeeds the current National Minimum Standards.
This should help to realise the Committee's recommendation that
residential care be re-positioned as a positive choice in the
right circumstances.
CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP
5. The culture and leadership of children's
homes is an area which deserves much greater attention. The Government
has put together a working group to help generate proposals for
the training and development of the children's homes workforce
by summer 2014. We recommend that, as part of this exercise, the
working group considers the best ways of ensuring that staff and
managers have the skills and outlook necessary to create a culture
which promotes the safety and welfare of children living in residential
homes. (Paragraph 37)
We welcome this recommendation, and agree —
as Ofsted found in Outstanding Children's Homes (2011)[5]
— that effective, hands-on leadership is essential. Leadership
and 'creating the right culture' are issues that are central to
one of the working groups working closely with the Department
on training and development needs of the children's homes workforce.
Furthermore, as part of our research programme, we are conducting
case studies, which include interviews with children's homes staff
and managers to gather their views on how to move forward. In
developing proposals, we will build on the recommendations in
the Narey report for social work, and set out agreed knowledge,
skill and — crucially — behaviours for those working
in and managing residential care.
COMPLIANCE WITH EXISTING REGULATIONS AND GUIDANCE
6. Changing the residential care rules will
only improve outcomes for children in care if those rules are
effectively implemented. The Government's longer-term plans to
reform the regulatory and inspection framework must address the
compliance issues raised in evidence to this inquiry, including
the provision of return interviews. (Paragraph 48)
The Government agrees that revisions to regulations
are not in themselves sufficient to ensure real change and improvement.
Implementation is also crucial.
Ofsted has a key role to play as the inspectorate
for both children's homes and local authorities. Ofsted's recent
thematic inspection of the effectiveness of local authorities
in discharging their responsibilities to looked after children
who live away from their home community highlighted areas where
practice must be improved. Similarly, the Department's data packs
have brought greater transparency to local authority decision-making
in this area, which will help to drive improvement.
The Committee's report cites the difficulty highlighted
by Ofsted in ensuring compliance by children's homes with relevant
guidance. The Children Act 1989 guidance only applies to local
authorities and local authority homes. More generally, we recognised
that the regulatory framework for children's homes, and the standards
underpinning Ofsted inspection, were in need of an overhaul. The
Children and Families Act 2014 put beyond doubt the relationship
between children's homes regulations and standards. These measures,
together with our plans to introduce new quality standards, will
ensure that the regulatory framework underpinning inspection is
clear and coherent.
Furthermore, in introducing quality standards for
children's homes, we will work with the sector to consider how
best the standards should address the quality of the home's partnership
working. Capturing partnership in the standard would ensure that
homes are held to account for their work with others; it might
also empower homes to demand the necessary support from stakeholders.
Any concerns with local authority performance that are uncovered
as a result of children's homes could then feed into the relevant
children's services inspection. We will continue to work with
Ofsted on these issues.
COLLABORATION BETWEEN HOMES AND OTHER AGENCIES
7. Whilst the Government appears confident
that its reform programme will encourage providers, authorities
and other services to work together more closely, a significant
number of those on the frontline are more sceptical about this.
We recommend that the Government monitors very closely the effects
that its reforms are having on collaboration between children's
homes and other agencies. (Paragraph 50)
We accept that more effective protection for children,
and improvements in the quality of residential care, will not
be achieved without stronger partnership and collaboration between
homes and services in the areas where they are located. As mentioned
above, the new quality standards may well have a role to play
in facilitating this collaboration.
We are also keen to support collaboration through
the Innovation Programme. We have discussed proposals with a number
of local authorities and providers who are considering developing
such approaches and we have particularly expressed an interest
in funding collaborative models where children's homes provide
a 'hub' of specialist services to other settings.
As we take forward our wider programme of children's
homes' reform and develop future quality standards for children's
homes, we will be continuing to work very closely with Ofsted,
children's homes providers and local authorities. This engagement,
alongside analysis of Ofsted's inspection activity, will provide
the opportunity to continually assess the extent to which our
reforms are encouraging the development of the constructive local
relationships essential to achieving long-lasting change in the
support provided for children in residential care.
THE PLANNING SYSTEM
8. We recommend that the Government carries
out a review of the planning system to assess the potential role
that it might play in ensuring those children's homes are located
in safe and suitable areas. (Paragraph 58)
9. It is a matter of great concern to us that
there are children's homes situated in areas where the risk to
the safety of young people is increased considerably. The new
area risk assessments are intended to assist in identifying where
homes are in unsuitable or dangerous locations and preventing
children being placed in such homes. Given the importance of this
issue, we recommend that the Government closely monitors the impact
of the new risk assessments and how they are used and reports
back to this Committee within a year. The Government should be
prepared to bring forward further reforms if the evidence indicates
that current measures are not adequately addressing the problem.
(Paragraph 59)
The Government shares the Committee's concern that
some children's homes are located in unsafe and unsuitable areas.
To ensure consistent national implementation of location
assessment, we have developed a comprehensive location assessment
process with stakeholders. This specifies that in carrying out
location assessments, providers of new or existing homes should
contact local authority children's services, the police (the Head
of Public Protection for each force) and probation providers.
This should enable informed decisions to be made about the benefits
and disadvantages to children of a home being located in a particular
community.
In making its recommendations, the Committee's report
sets out fairly and thoroughly the potential complexities and
issues that would arise from an attempt to use the planning system
to tackle concerns around the location of children's homes and
other establishments in the vicinity of children's homes.
The location assessment process considers a broader
range of issues than those that would be covered by a planning
application, such as how children living in homes will be able
to access services in the local community such as schools, secondary
health services and leisure and cultural activities. Importantly,
managers of children's homes must review the home's location assessment
annually. This recognises that the characteristics of an area
may change over time. It will be essential for providers of homes
to take the initiative in developing a strategy, in partnership
with children's placing authorities and local police and child
protection services, for managing any risks identified during
the location assessment process.
The Minister for Planning and the Parliamentary Under
Secretary of State for Children and Families agree that they will
ensure that local planning authorities are informed about the
new 'location assessment' process for children's homes. When planning
guidance is next revised, in 2015, it will include information
about the location assessment process for children's homes. Where
homes apply for planning permission, consideration of the provider's
location assessment may be a material factor in in determining
the application. We also agree to keep under review the impact
of the location assessments and report to the Committee within
a year.
CLOSURE AND RECEIVERSHIP
10. We welcome the Minister's willingness
to consider placing a duty on a receiver to have regard to the
welfare of children placed in a bankrupt children's home. We expect
the DfE to set out a course of action in its response to this
report. (Paragraph 67)
The Government agrees with the Committee that children's
welfare must be paramount in cases where a home goes bankrupt.
We welcome the Committee's proposal and will consider how best
to ensure that in such circumstances the receiver has regard to
the welfare of children living in the home. We will consult on
amendments designed to achieve this as part of our consultation
on quality standards later this year. We aim to have these new
provisions in place by April 2015.
OVER-CRIMINALISATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN CARE
11. We recommend that the Government works
with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to develop
a national protocol for residential children's homes that follows
the protocol for schools whereby school managers and staff, rather
than the police, are given responsibility for dealing with behavioural
incidents involving children on a school site in the first instance.
(Paragraph 71)
Ministers across Government agree that every effort
should be made to avoid looked after children being drawn unnecessarily
into the youth justice system. Where the police come into contact
with looked after children, who may have committed an offence,
they have a range of powers enabling them to exercise discretion
about the necessary response. Approaches such as community resolution
may allow them to resolve the situation without children being
charged over relatively trivial incidents. As the police already
have discretion about how they should deal with incidents involving
looked after children, we do not agree that national prescription,
in the form of a protocol, represents the best means of responding
to this important issue.
We support existing initiatives designed to improve
practice; for example, the innovative work developed in the south
east region, noted in the Committee's report, to prevent children
in care being unnecessarily criminalised.
The Government will look closely at local approaches
and will consider how best to ensure effective practice is spread
across the country. The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
for Children and Families and the Minister of State for Crime
Prevention will write jointly to ask the College of Policing to
look at what best practice exists on this issue and consider whether
any further guidance is necessary.
Finally, from April 2014 amendments to the Children's
Homes Regulations require the 'registered person' for each home
to monitor and report to Ofsted on how the home encourages positive
behaviour, including whether children in the home have been charged
with an offence. Encouraging children to develop constructive
relationships with others, and helping them take responsibility
for their behaviour will be part of the new Quality Standards.
DISTANT OUT-OF-AUTHORITY PLACEMENTS AND THE "SUFFICIENCY
DUTY"
12. We strongly endorse the view that, except
where it is clearly in the interests of that individual child
to move out of the area, local authorities should provide a placement
as close as possible to the child's home and that they should
have sufficient placements within their own area or that of their
neighbouring authorities to fulfil this requirement. We will closely
scrutinise the next DfE Data Pack for an indication of whether
the current reforms are having the desired effect in reducing
the numbers of children given distant placements. (Paragraph 81)
13. To go further, we recommend that the Government
commissions a study, assessing the impact of a rule prohibiting
local authorities from placing a child more than 20 miles from
home, unless there is a proven need to do so. (Paragraph 82)
The Government agrees with the Committee, and the
law is clear, that a child should be placed within their local
area when this option is in the best interests of the child. Most
children will benefit from a placement close to home, but the
needs of some children mean that a distant placement will be the
right option for them. This may be to meet a specific therapeutic
need or to move them away from an environment which is not conducive
to their physical or mental wellbeing.
While the Government understands the Committee's
concerns, we do not believe that conducting a separate study on
the implications of a 20-mile radius cap, in isolation from other
factors, would help to resolve the core issues affecting the quality
of local authority placement commissioning and social work support.
The decision to place a child must remain based on their needs
at that time irrespective of where that placement is. The solution
we and the sector continue to work towards is ensuring sufficient
local provision to accommodate the needs of the children in care.
We have already changed regulations so that the Director
of Children's Services must approve distant placements, and should
do so only if satisfied that this is in an individual child's
interests. We plan to publish shortly revisions to statutory guidance
outlining the factors that the local authority will have to take
into account in assessing whether a placement is 'distant', including
placements being over 20 miles away. To address issues of sufficient
local provision, we are encouraging bids through the Innovation
Programme to establish different models of local commissioning
to expand access to provision.
We will continue to monitor the impact of regulatory
changes, and the 2014 children's homes data pack will include
an analysis of out of area placements. We must caution though
that this will not necessarily reflect the impact of recent policy,
because of the time between the changes and the date of the data
collection. We will also continue to monitor out of area placements
as standard in the statistical first release.
COMMISSIONING CONSORTIA
14. The Government should do more to encourage
the creation of commissioning consortia, particularly consortia
that take account of local health structures as recommended by
the Expert Group. (Paragraph 91)
The Government agrees with the Committee that more
should be done to encourage the creation of commissioning consortia,
particularly those who look across the range of support that children
and young people in care need throughout their time in care. We
are working through the Innovation Programme to encourage proposals
for different commissioning models and commissioning consortia
to effectively meet the diverse needs of young people in care.
We need to find innovative ways to improve and re-design service
delivery to achieve higher-quality, improved outcomes and better
value for money.
The care system is currently caught between two competing
priorities: to provide an immediate place of safety; and to develop
a long-term plan based on individual needs. The Innovation Programme
should help develop creative proposals to managing these priorities,
and improve outcomes for young people. We are particularly keen
to look at models of commissioning pathways through care, rather
than individual placements. We have already received some encouraging
bids in these important areas.
LISTENING TO CHILDREN
15. Many of our witnesses emphasised that,
alongside formal qualifications, personality, interpersonal skills
and experience are important factors in making for good residential
care workers. We agree that if children in care played a greater
role in selecting care workers, they would be more likely to find
staff that they could relate to. We recommend that the Government
works with local authorities and children's homes providers to
set up pilots where children in care are given a greater role
in selecting their care workers. (Paragraph 99)
We welcome the Committee's support for children helping
to select their care workers, and agree with the views expressed
by Roger Morgan and Maggie Atkinson around the importance of recruiting
staff who have qualities that enable them to genuinely listen
to children. However, we do not believe that pilots are necessary
given that this practice is already widespread amongst local authorities
and providers, and it seems to us that the case for such involvement
is broadly accepted, even if it does not necessarily take place
in every instance.
In considering the Committee's recommendation, we
sought information from the seven largest providers of independent
children's homes, on the extent of participation by children in
the recruitment of their care workers. All but one involved children
in selecting their care workers. Three providers reported that
children were involved in the recruitment process for every care
worker appointment, and another reported that children were involved
in 80% of appointments.
Rather than establish pilots to test the merits of
involvement, we think the case is sufficiently well made to be
part of the new Quality Standards that will underpin Ofsted inspections.
These could set out that selection processes should, where possible
and appropriate, involve children in a meaningful way. Ofsted
has been closely involved in the development of the Quality Standards,
and is committed, as is the Government, to a strong emphasis on
listening to children's views, wishes and feelings — not
only in the selection of care workers, but in all aspects of the
home's practice. We will consult on this as part of the overall
work to introduce Quality Standards.
2 Improving Permanence data pack (Department for Education,
2013) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-permanence-for-looked-after-children-data-pack Back
3
Action research into the more effective strategic commissioning
of children's residential care homes: Final report to the Local
Government Association (OPM, July 2013) www.opm.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Action-research-into-the-more-effective-strategic-commissioning-of-children%E2%80%99s-residential-care-homes-final-report.pdf Back
4
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jonathan-stanley/values-and-princples-rol b 5116813.html Back
5
Outstanding Children's Homes (2011): www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/outstanding-childrens-homes Back
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