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Children and Families Act 2014: A failure of implementation Contents

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Appendix 3: Call for evidence

Aim of the inquiry

The House of Lords Select Committee on the Children and Families Act 2014 was appointed on 19 January 2022 “to consider the Children and Families Act 2014”. It must agree a report by the end of November 2022. The Government has undertaken to respond in writing to select committee reports, usually within two months of publication.

The Committee invites written contributions by Monday 25 April 2022.

The Committee expects to hear from invited contributors in public evidence sessions from March to September 2022 inclusive.

Background

Post-legislative scrutiny is undertaken by a select committee of the House of Lords to assess what effect an Act of Parliament has had in practice. It is an important element of the House’s work to check and challenge the work of the Government. The first post-legislative scrutiny committee, on adoption law, was appointed in May 2012. Subsequent committees have considered mental capacity, extradition, equality and disability, the natural environment and rural communities, licensing and bribery. This committee will consider the Children and Families Act 2014.

The central question for this committee is whether the Children and Families Act 2014 has achieved its aim of improving the lives of children and families, particularly the most vulnerable children and young people in society.

The Children and Families Act 2014 is wide-ranging. It made several changes to the adoption system, most of which were designed to streamline the process, making it easier for adoptions to happen, whilst ensuring child safety and welfare (Part 1). It made major reforms to children and young people’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services which were designed to bring about greater integration and personalisation of services (Part 3). The Act also introduced provisions relating to family justice (Part 2) which sought to make the system faster, simpler and less adversarial. It made reforms to the registering of childcare agencies (Part 4) and extended the remit and powers of the Children’s Commissioner (Part 6). It introduced a range of provisions aimed at advancing child welfare including greater support for young carers and parent carers and the introduction of free school meals for students in reception years one and two (Part 5). The Act also made changes to working rights to leave and pay, introducing shared parental leave and statutory shared parental pay and extending the right to request flexible working (Parts 7 and 9).

Since the Act was brought into force the number of adoptions reached a peak in 2015, but have been falling steadily since. In 2021, the number of children under local authority care who were adopted had fallen 46%.345 The number of children leaving care through a special guardianship order overtook the number of adoptions in 2019.346 A special guardianship order places a child or young person with someone other than their parent(s) on a long-term basis. In the family justice system, between July and September 2021, only 24% of care proceedings were disposed of within the 26 week limit set by the Act.347

The Act has an impact on the lives of a great number of children and families, often significantly. It affects the education and care children and young people receive, can determine how family separation takes place, how those in care navigate and exit the system, what support is given to families, and how they are represented in central government.

There has been no holistic post-legislative scrutiny of the Children and Families Act 2014, although the House of Commons Education Committee undertook scrutiny of Part 3 of the Act on special educational needs and disabilities,348 and the National Audit Office produced a report on support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in England.349 In light of this work, and considering the absence of in-depth scrutiny on the adoption and family justice elements of the Act, the Committee will consider all elements of the Act in some detail, with a particular focus on the adoption and family justice elements.

Questions

1.To what extent has the Act improved the situation for the most vulnerable children, young people and families in England? To the extent that it has not, is this because of the Act itself, its implementation, or challenges which subsequently emerged, whether lasting or temporary?

2.If there were to be a Children and Families Act 2022, what should it include and what might be the barriers to implementation?

3.Is the Act enabling faster, more secure and stable adoptions which are in the best interests of the child?

4.What has been the effect of provisions on fostering to adopt?

5.What has been the effect of the repeal of the requirement to consider ethnicity, religion, race, culture and language in England when placing a child for adoption? Are any further legislative or other measures needed to address disparities?

6.What effect has the suspension of the Adoption and Children Act register had on the matching process?

7.Are families receiving the right information, budgets and support to assist them post-adoption?

8.Have the reforms to the family justice system succeeded in making the system faster, simpler and less adversarial? How has the Act interacted with other reforms to the family justice system, for example the changes to legal aid?

9.Does the 26 week limit on care and placement proceedings strike the correct balance between justice and speed?

10.How well have the limitations on expert evidence served children in the family justice system?

11.What has been the effect of the requirement to consider mediation?

12.How has the presumption of the involvement of both parents in the life of the child after family separation affected proceedings?

13.Has the Act achieved its goal of improving provision for children and young people with SEND, in all settings including mainstream schools, special schools and further education colleges? If changes are needed, could they be achieved under the framework of the Children and Families Act 2014 or is new legislation required?

14.Have the reforms to childcare agencies and childcare provision introduced by the Act improved the quality and availability of childcare? Are the reforms introduced by Part 5 of the Act sufficient to safeguard the welfare of children?

15.Does the Children’s Commissioner have the correct remit and powers? Are the correct accountability structures in place to ensure they discharge their duties effectively?

16.Is the system of shared parental leave and statutory shared parental pay functioning adequately? Is the system of flexible working functioning adequately? In light of the changes to working styles brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, what changes, if any, are needed to provisions in the Act on flexible working?

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