Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Written evidence submitted by Polaris Community (CWSB120)

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee

House of Commons

Palace of Westminster

SW1A 0AA

Dear Members of the Committee,

I am writing to you as the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill moves into the Bill Committee stage in response to your call for written evidence. Please find enclosed an annex which provides our assessment of the measures in the Bill which are particularly relevant to us, setting out how we believe they can be taken forward in the best interests of children.

Polaris is on the frontline as one of the country’s leading providers of children’s services. Across prevention, adoption, fostering, residential care and education, we work every day to deliver better outcomes for some of the most vulnerable children in the country.

We care for nearly 4,000 young people across 80 different services, all of which are rated as either ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Good’ by Ofsted (or the equivalent regulatory body). 92% of children aged 16-18 in our care are in employment, education or training. Our community includes 2,600 registered foster parents who care and support 3,500 young people, and we are achieving net growth in foster carers at a time when numbers are falling nationally.

We welcome the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and are heartened to see steps being taken to improve the lives of children, especially those in care. More must be done to prevent children entering care in the first place, while bad behaviour by some private providers should not be allowed to go unchecked.

We support measures in the Bill including a strengthened Ofsted regime, greater cost transparency and a streamlined process for opening children’s homes. We also support the introduction of a financial oversight scheme, provided it is well-designed, and we made an offer to the Department for Education to pilot it.

Over the last 3 years we have reinvested over 95% of our post-tax profit in order to improve and expand our services, such as upgrading our facilities and opening new schools for children with Special Educational Needs and new residential children’s homes. We would like to see uncertainty around the sector’s future minimised so that investment is not put at risk.

In particular, further clarity is needed over the profit cap "backstop" power, for example over its level, scope, how reinvestment would be treated, and the circumstances in which it would be introduced. This clarity will enable the sector to continue delivering better outcomes for vulnerable children.

As the Bill proceeds, we would like to have an open and constructive dialogue with parliamentarians in order to ensure the Bill achieves its admirable objectives and avoids unintended consequences.

If you would like any further information or you would like to meet to discuss any of these points in more detail, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Yours sincerely,

Jo August

CEO Polaris Community

ANNEX - FEEDBACK ON THE MEASURES IN THE CHILDREN’S WELLBEING AND SCHOOLS BILL

Ofsted

We wholeheartedly support the measures to give Ofsted new powers to oversee private provider groups, by issuing improvement plan notices and enforcing their development. We also support measures to improve re-registration for managers moving between homes and to strengthen enforcement against providers of unregistered settings.

With 40% of our children’s homes rated "Outstanding" and the remaining 60% rated as "Good", we believe Ofsted oversight at provider group level will provide a means of sharing and spreading best practice, driving up standards across the sector and delivering better outcomes for children.

We are happy to work with the Department and Ofsted on how this is implemented in practice. We have a history of constructive engagement with Ofsted, and earlier this year worked with them to establish how best to regulate leaving care services.

Cost and price transparency

We support proposals to share more cost information with local authorities to inform their commissioning and allow them to get best value for money. This is consistent with our experience in fostering, where 95% of our placements are made through tender processes with local authorities and as such there already exists a high degree of cost transparency. Alongside cost, the commissioning process already in place also focusses on the quality of the service provision and the outcomes delivered for young people, which we believe is equally important.

It will be important to consider carefully how these additional transparency measures will work in practice. For example, providing a retrospective cost figure for every individual child in residential care, has the potential to place an undue administrative burden on both local authorities and care providers. However, we do believe it is possible to meet local authorities’ needs for greater transparency in a proportionate and practical way.

Financial oversight scheme

We fully support the measures to introduce further financial oversight of the sector. We have been engaging with officials in the Department for Education (DfE) since the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) produced its report into the children’s social care market. Last month, we made an offer to the DfE to pilot the Financial Oversight Scheme for Looked After Children’s Placement Providers.

Of course, it is vital that the details of the scheme are right so that it is workable in practice. For instance, we would recommend a quarterly reporting system, as this would align with normal business practice and reduce duplication.

Profit cap backstop

We re-invest 95% of our post-tax profit into improving services and providing additional places where they are needed most. Any business needs to generate a profit or surplus to ensure its long-term financial stability, and we quite rightly pay UK corporation tax on our profits.

In order for the sector to continue delivering better outcomes for vulnerable children, it is vital that any profit cap is set at a reasonable level, communicated clearly in advance, based on a fair definition of profit, and takes account of the capital reinvestment we make into our services.

Our primary concern is to minimise the uncertainty around how this measure would be applied, as it is this uncertainty which risks deterring investment that the sector needs in the coming months and years. It will also be important that a cap is carefully designed to ensure it does not inadvertently drive bad behaviour.

Measures not currently in the Bill

Restrictions on entering and exiting the market

Though these restrictions are not included in the Bill in its current form, the DfE’s Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive policy paper sets out measures which could be introduced in due course. We would be supportive of a mandatory notice period for market exit. With respect to potential restrictions on new providers entering the market, it will be important to ensure such restrictions do not prevent providers looking to reputable prospective owners such as pension funds, which may not be UK-based. It is of course vital that providers are registered to pay tax in the UK.

Making it easier to open new children’s homes

We support the Government’s ambition to make it easier to open new children’s homes through reform of the planning system and Ofsted’s registration system. We have experienced numerous obstacles to opening residential care settings in areas with high levels of need and would be happy to share them. We also support the vision for Regional Care Cooperatives and are planning to consult with Greater Manchester on setting up an RCC.

21 January 2025