How to fix children’s social care and restore care leavers’ life chances – Education committee report
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Overstretched children's social care services, in the face of
rising need, has led to an alarming number of children leaving the
care system and becoming homeless, not in employment or not in
education. A new report by the Education Committee on the
children's social care sector makes a series of recommendations on
issues affecting all types of care, including foster care,
adoption, kinship care, children's homes, and support for disabled
children. MPs are urging the...Request free trial
Overstretched children's social care services, in the face of rising need, has led to an alarming number of children leaving the care system and becoming homeless, not in employment or not in education. A new report by the Education Committee on the children's social care sector makes a series of recommendations on issues affecting all types of care, including foster care, adoption, kinship care, children's homes, and support for disabled children. MPs are urging the Government to act now on these recommendations, which they believe are essential to transforming the life chances of young adults leaving the care system. A summary of the report's key recommendations is included further down this press release, after comments. Across England, the number of looked-after children stood at 83,630 in 2024 – an increase of over 20% since 2014. Outcomes for young people who leave the care system are also poor. 39% of care leavers aged 19–21 are not in education, training or employment and a third of care leavers become homeless within two years of leaving care. The rising level of demand on local authority children's services departments has been attributed to rising poverty, cost of living pressures, and a decrease in funding for early intervention programmes. Education Committee Chair Helen Hayes MP said: “It is unacceptable that thousands of young people leaving care are being left to face homelessness, unemployment or barriers to education – it is a moral failure. The system that should be supporting our most vulnerable children is far too often abandoning them at a critical moment in their lives. Urgent action is needed to fix this broken system and give all of our young people the futures they deserve. “Throughout this inquiry we heard that a false economy of cuts over the past decade has led to postcode lotteries in provision across different areas of the country, and has instead caused some parts of the system to become more expensive. “We also heard directly from young adults with recent experience of the care system and I would like to thank them for sharing their experience with us. I know that it was not easy to speak about challenging and sometimes traumatic experiences, but they have helped to make our report stronger by doing so. “Our report calls for new funding provided by the Government to be directed back to early intervention services, which reduce both children's suffering and costs in the long run. “A National Care Offer of support for care leavers would bring consistency across the country, so that care leavers receive a guaranteed level of support, rather than a cliff edge as they approach adulthood. “The Government must develop a new strategy to recruit foster carers and offer more support to kinship carers – the type of care which provides the best outcomes for vulnerable children. And more effort is needed to improve the availability and quality of residential placements while the reforms, that should reduce the need for residential placements, take effect. “There is a long road ahead to improve the children's social care sector, but doing so will reduce children's suffering and produce a system that helps give young people the best chance to live happily and independently.” Louise Fitt, age 24, a care-experienced person who gave evidence to the inquiry, said: “Giving evidence to the inquiry was powerful. It felt like my voice was finally heard. I want what happened to me, being moved far away from everyone and everything I knew, to never happen again to young people in care. “The care system must truly live up to its name: a place where children are supported, protected, and loved. Leaving care should not mean facing another round of hardship, but a time of hope and opportunity. “My experiences should lead to real, lasting change not just for me, but for everyone who comes after. The system can and must do better.” Become CEO Katherine Sacks-Jones said: “We warmly welcome this report and the committee's commitment to driving meaningful change. Most importantly, young people's voices have been put at the heart of these recommendations, right where they belong. “Keeping children close to the people and places that matter to them is essential to good care, as is ending the care cliff and the drop-in support when young people turn 18, sometimes younger. These are two key issues we've campaigned on, so we're pleased to see the focus and recommendations here to support that. “We look forward to the Government acting upon these proposals and making the changes care-experienced young people have long called for.” Coram CEO Dr Carol Homden said: “This vital report highlights the urgent need to improve the continuum of care for our most vulnerable children across all aspects of fostering, adoption, kinship care, residential and supported accommodation so that we have the right homes and carers for children when they need them. We welcome the key recommendations including a national sufficiency strategy, a national fostering strategy, more support for kinship carers and better mental health support for children in care. It is crucial that care leavers have a consistent national offer that leaves no young person behind. We call upon Government to take immediate action to consider and address these well framed recommendations and achieve positive outcomes in children's lives.” Better support for care leavers The Department for Education's (DfE's) evidence to the Committee said: “care leavers have some of the worst long-term life outcomes in society across health, housing, education and employment.” Care leavers aged 19-21 are three times more likely than their peers to end up not in education, training or employment. A third of care leavers become homeless within two years of leaving care and 24% of the prison population have spent time in care. The report's recommendations:
Funding and early intervention Local government expenditure on children's social care increased from £8.1bn in 2014/15 to £12.8 billion in 2022/23—a 30% increase in real terms. The Government announced in the Spending Review that £555m would be allocated to reform the sector over the next three years, as well as £560m capital expenditure to “refurbish and expand children's homes and foster care placements”. Recommendation: The Government must ensure that a significant majority of the new funding announced in the Spending Review is allocated to early intervention programmes and work towards restoring the level of funding for early intervention back to real terms 2010 levels. Recruit more foster carers We heard that there are serious shortages of foster carers, with an additional 6,500 needed to fill gaps. Recommendation: DfE must put in place a national fostering strategy to complement the existing strategies for adoption and kinship care and should work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to ensure that housing policy is designed to support the recruitment of foster carers. Kinship carers should get same support as foster carers When a member of a child's extended family, or a family friend, steps in to care for the child when the child's parents cannot, they should receive enough support so that they are not left to struggle. Kinship care is the most common type of arrangement in the care system and the evidence is clear that, where it is appropriate, it is also the most stable and beneficial to the child. Recommendation: DfE should ensure that the financial support available in its forthcoming kinship allowance pilot is on a par with that given to foster carers, and it should legislate for entitlements to kinship leave at the earliest opportunity. Out of area placements There is a severe shortage of placements for children in care and the scarcity has also made placements more expensive. In 2024, 45% of looked-after children were placed outside of their local authority, and 22% were placed over 20 miles from home, which had distressing impacts on the children involved. The Committee heard from a young woman, Georgia Sullivan, who described having to get up at 4am and take long-distance trains to go to school while her local authority was attempting reunification with her birth family. Lamar Mohsen told of how she had been moved 100 miles away for respite placements when her foster carers went on holiday. Recommendation: DfE must publish a national sufficiency strategy for children's social care, require all local authorities to develop and publish strategies for reducing the number of out-of-area placements, and work with local authorities to share and scale up examples of good practice. Barges and caravans used to accommodate teenagers The Committee agrees with DfE that residential care should be a last port of call, but it is concerned by the poor quality and supply of children's homes and the low quality of some supported accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds. Reports of children being placed in barges and caravans with little or no support are unacceptable. Recommendation: The new regulation and inspection regime is an important step in the right direction, but DfE must develop universal standards of care that apply to all homes, including supported accommodation. Social worker recruitment and retention There is a serious problem with recruitment and retention in the social care workforce, with high turnover and overstretched staff exacerbating the instability experienced by children in care and increasing the risk of safeguarding concerns being overlooked. The charity Frontline said that 54% of social workers struggle to manage their high caseloads and 47% do not have enough time to spend with the families they work with. Recommendation: DfE should develop a workforce strategy for children's social care setting out how it will address this. This should include measures such as increased pay, bursaries for studying and training, and improving awareness of the different roles. Disabled children The limited resource at local authorities means that services that should be provided to families of disabled children are simply not there in many cases, and many families are unaware of the support they are entitled to. Recommendation: DfE should introduce national eligibility criteria for disabled children's social care and ensure that local authorities are clearly communicating these to families. The Department should conduct a review of the availability of short breaks, respite care and holiday provision for disabled children to understand where the shortages are most acute. DfE should work with MHCLG to fund local authorities to be able to offer this provision to all families who are entitled to it. The report also makes recommendations to the Government on the role of Ofsted, responding to the Independent Review of Children's Social Care, dysfunction in the market for children's homes, a mandatory reporting duty for child sexual abuse, and other issues. |