Written statement: Children’s Social Care Reform - May 21

Minister for Children and Families (Josh MacAlister): Transforming children's social care is central to this government's mission to break down barriers to opportunity for all children. It is fundamental to ensuring that every child grows up safe, supported and able to thrive, and is key to putting our public services, and our public finances, on a sustainable long‑term footing.

In November 2024, this government published ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive', which set out a clear and ambitious vision for reform to support more children to remain safely with their families, to strengthen wider family networks where children cannot live at home, and to ensure that those who need care receive stable, enduring relationships.

We have laid strong foundations for whole‑system reform through the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which is the most significant overhaul of children's social care legislation in a generation. This Act strengthens multi-agency safeguarding, oversight and accountability across the system. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 has further strengthened our response to child sexual abuse and criminal exploitation, with tougher offences, modernised enforcement powers and a clearer focus on protecting victims. Our reforms to children's social care are also backed by sustained investment, including £2.4 billion for the Families First Partnership Programme.

Today, we are publishing an implementation plan to support local partners to deliver reform. This plan builds on activity to reset the system, including prioritising intensive, earlier family help, renewing the focus on family‑based care, strengthening child protection; reforming the care market and workforce. It also follows recent work to update the Children's Social Care National Framework, Working Together to Safeguard Children and the Families First Partnership Programme Guide. As we drive delivery of reform forward, we will focus on three areas.

By 2026–27, every local authority will be embedding a single, seamless Family Help offer, ending the divide between early help and child‑in‑need services. Safeguarding partnerships will establish multi‑agency child protection teams, bringing together social workers, health professionals, police and education, while new statutory duties on family group decision‑making will ensure families are involved earlier and in decisions about their children. Alongside this, we will strengthen kinship care, recognising that children do best when cared for by people who know and love them. From 2026, every local authority will publish a clear local kinship offer underpinned by national standards, alongside targeted investment through Kinship Zones and pilot programmes to address practical and financial barriers for carers. We are also improving the evidence base through new data, robust evaluation, and the first government-led study of kinship care.

Second, we are placing a renewed emphasis on the importance of stable, lifelong relationships for children in care and care leavers. We will expand foster care capacity from 2026, including by strengthening support and financial stability for foster carers and simplifying fostering standards by Autumn 2026, to ensure a greater supply of high‑quality placements. In parallel, we will scale Regional Care Cooperatives from Spring 2026 onwards to deliver more homes, improve commissioning, and enhance forecasting. This will be underpinned by enhanced financial oversight of the children's homes market, including the introduction of the first provider oversight scheme for groups of children's homes, targeted capital investment to build provision in the right locations, and tighter regulation of unregistered homes. Care leavers will continue to benefit from support through Staying Put, while Staying Close will become a national offer in Spring 2029. In addition, new corporate parenting responsibilities for Government Departments and relevant public bodies will be introduced from Autumn 2027, ensuring a more consistent and joined‑up approach to supporting young people as they move into adulthood.

Thirdly, adoption support is a key element of reform. We will continue to provide vital therapeutic support through the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund, consult on the fund's longer-term future, and introduce a new universal parenting offer from Autumn 2026 to support families and children as they transition to secondary school. Adoption England will also work with local authorities and Regional Adoption Agencies to improve adoption practice, Ofsted will undertake a thematic review of Regional Adoption Agencies, and we will strengthen adoption record retention by establishing a consistent 100‑year standard.

Finally, supporting the whole workforce is a central aim of this programme. Our plan sets out a comprehensive package of actions to strengthen capability, stability and professional standards. This includes enhancing training and standards for children's homes staff from Spring 2026, streamlining Ofsted registration processes for children's home managers, and investing in the early career development of social workers. Alongside this, we will work in partnership with local authorities to embed a strengthened professional development offer for social workers, underpinned by clear and consistent standards. We will also take steps to improve workforce stability by strengthening the regulatory framework for agency workers from Spring 2028, supporting more expert practice for children and families.

I am also pleased to inform Parliament that Foundations, the What Works Centre for Children & Families, is today publishing ‘An Implementation Framework for Designing and Delivering Services for Children and Families'. The Framework supports the implementation plan published by government today, and sets out a clear, consistent and evidence-based framework to support local authorities and their partners to map local systems, identify strengths, convene key stakeholders, and follow defined steps to design and deliver evidence-informed children's services.

In reforming children's social care, we are investing in children's futures. I would like to thank all those across children's social care, policing, health, education and wider public services who are working tirelessly alongside the government to bring the change our children need and deserve.