Education Secretary launches wide-ranging independent review of children’s social care

I am announcing a major review of the children’s social care system and it is going to be a vital step in our mission to realise the potential of every child, whatever their circumstances or whatever their background.

The review will be a bold and wide-ranging one. It won’t shy away from exposing the problems in the system. And I am so delighted to tell you that Josh MacAlister has agreed to lead this review. From his work at Frontline, Josh brings both an understanding of the challenges facing the system and direct experience of tackling them.

He is going to explain shortly exactly what the review’s remit is but before he does I would like to explain a little more about why we need to have a review at all.

The Review of Children’s Social Care was a key commitment in our manifesto and is part of the golden thread that runs through everything we are doing to level up society, especially for those who are too often forgotten or marginalised.

There are many thousands of children who have had their lives turned around by the actions of a dedicated care worker, foster parent or adopter and who have gone on to rise above a challenging start. We are indebted to all of those who give so much of themselves to helping these young children.

But in spite of their best efforts and in spite of the uplifting cases of those they have managed to help, the care system is still not delivering a better quality of life for enough of those people it is designed to help.

The global pandemic has only made a bad situation worse for many young people, such as the care leaver who is struggling to cope without the normal support network of family or friends, or the child whose parents have lost their jobs because of Covid.

Far from being the launchpad to a happier life, contact with the care system is all too often associated with negative outcomes and underachievement for many children and young people.

The Care Review is going to help us raise the bar for these vulnerable children, it’s going to help us improve their life prospects and most importantly, it’s going to help give them the chance to achieve their potential and not be held back from the futures that they deserve.

But as well as looking at how we can better protect children from harm both inside and outside the home, we want to see what more could be done to help families stay safely together.

What we must move away from is the idea that a family should conform to certain ideals…

Britain is a diverse and tolerant society, we must accommodate very different styles of parenting, which may include approaches to family life that might strike many of us as different to our own lived experiences.

All we should care about is that a family loves a child, supports that child, keeps that child safe, warm, fed.

What we cannot ignore is that some families may need support to do this and the social care system is about supporting families to care for their children, as much as it is about safeguarding children.

But this is where we come to one of our key obstacles. Because people know that social workers can remove a child from a home, they can be nervous and distrustful of them. They fear the judgements that will be made about them that could result in their family being separated. And we cannot ignore the fact that these problems are worst in some of our most marginalised communities, whether that is down to income or ethnicity.

We need a system which always starts with support and encouragement, so families are given the chance to stay together and care for their children. When this doesn’t work though, the system needs a harder-edged intervention, such as when it is needed to safeguard a child

We therefore need to rebuild trust and make the system work better for everyone and for that we must have frameworks and accountability and transparency.
At this point, I would like to make clear that the review is not about muscling in on the frontline practice. I have nothing but the greatest admiration for those who work so tirelessly and with such incredible dedication in frequently stressful and distressing situations.

But equally, the review mustn’t hesitate to call out bureaucracy if it is causing problems rather than solving them. It must shine a light on how all of our partners work together to make life better for those who are hard to reach or who go unheard…

In the meantime we will continue to work as hard as we can to improve life prospects for children through the social care system.

We will continue to build on what we know is already working well. Initiatives like North Yorkshire’s No Wrong Door or Hertfordshire’s Family Safeguarding, which have shown very promising evidence and have been able to deliver real change for families and children. We are already investing in expanding these models through the Strengthening Families Protecting Children Programme and there is much the review can learn from these successes.

The review will also work alongside ongoing programmes for reform around raising standards in local authorities, boosting adoption , improving support for care leavers and looking at the use of unregulated provision.

Any parent wants the best for their child. We must not ease up for a second on giving children who are looked after by the state exactly what we would want for our own child... a stable home with a loving family, opening up opportunities for them that we would want for our own children.

If we get this right, we give children a far better chance to make the most of their potential and go on and lead a happy and fulfilled life.

I am excited and optimistic that this ambitious review will enable us to start making that a reality for thousands and thousands of children.

Thank you."