Public Services Committee
Wednesday 11th November 2026
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11:03
Lord Bradley
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Lord Bradley
Welcome Dame Rachel de Souza to to the meeting as children's Commissioner. We're very pleased that you're here. And the next hour, I hope we can gain a lot of your knowledge and expertise in this area for the committee. I'm Keith Bradley, the chair of the committee. I have no interest to declare, and I would like to start the questioning by asking you. To what extent is the children's social care system meeting the demands of and delivering good outcomes for all children, and particularly those with complex needs, including those who've been deprived of their liberty. Thank you so much.
10:44
Baroness Hollins
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Baroness Hollins
Thank you so much, chair. And I've got four points I want to make. But before I do that, I just want to thank the committee. I've been children's commissioner since 2021. March 2021. Your work. You've been shining a relentless light on children in social care, as I have tried to do, and the most vulnerable children. And I can't stop without thinking. We've been thinking of fallen soldiers, thinking of Lord Laming, who was, you know, a great support to me. So yeah, so four things. So I've been children's commissioner for nearly six years. My role, as you know, was born out of the tragic event of the death of Victoria Climbié.
There isn't a day goes by when I don't think about her. But since I have become children's commissioner, we have also had Arthur Labinjo Hughes, Death Star, Hobson's death, Sara Sharif's dreadful death, and Preston Davies dreadful death. All I would say potentially preventable. These are the highest profile failings. But on to my second point. We are letting down children. Children's social care and services are letting down children in quieter ways. To 669 children living in illegal, unregistered children's homes, of which a third are children deprived of their liberty. Do you realise my data? Undercover this that cost us £350 million last year 669 children.
Just think what you could do with that. And the year before that, about the same amount, 36 of those children were cost £1 million each. And can I just say that that million pounds was not spent on Eton style homes? It was on caravans, on B&Bs, it was on children, you know, being put in emergency placements, lower other things, disgustingly lower rates of educational attainment for children in care. Boys in your eyes. I see every boy in prison. I'm about to publish on prison education, hopefully showing what reform could look like on the 23rd of November.
I've been working closely, closely with Jake Richards on this. So many of those boys care experienced, again, looking at the contracts there at the boys in your eyes, look at looking at the contracts we're talking about, you know, £28,000 or so, a boy getting two hours of education a week. How much? How much is education costing per hour? Care leavers more likely to be homeless or frankly, dead? So my third point I published recently, my childhood lottery, 162 metrics on every part of a child's life, collected from my data powers and from publicly available information.
It was out in the press recently. You can see it. You can look at every single area. And what I can tell you is the social care data showed us that children are getting a choice of bad or terrible children placed out of area, 89% in Westminster, 17% in North Lincs. Terrible or bad, it's still too high and we see similar variance in social worker turnover care, leaver accommodation and access to support. My fourth point before we go into questions is simply that children's social care , when I. Children's social care is not adequately wrapping its arms around all the children, it should.
I just gave two hours of evidence on prevent to the Southport inquiry. Over 1000 children referred to prevent three times as the killer was bounced back to schools, no social care, engagement with most of them or signed off social care children stuck in hospitals. I talked to parents who, you know, whose children could be at home if social care and health managed to work together. And instead I talked to a mum the other day who her child has died now, but got him home because. Because social because there were no funds to sort her staircase out.
The boy was dying of cancer, had an oxygen tank on his back. They'd take it off at the bottom of the stairs, run him up the stairs and put it on at the top of the stairs. That's the reality. That's the reality of us not working together properly, not wrapping our arms around each other on social care. All children, children seeking asylum, children with severe disabilities. I'll just say Hesley, you know, we that lack of health and education, health and social care working together to make safe, proper specialist provision and children in the criminal justice system.
When I came in to to finish this this point, when I came in as children's commissioner in 2021, I came in after 20 years of education reform. I was an educationalist. I was Tony Blair's 69th Academy principal back in 2005. I had a sense of what reform was. I was shocked and horrified by what I saw in children's social care in 2021, and I still remain shocked and horrified. And and I think for me, having seen part of the department do so well with reform and understand reform and how we use data and how we use accountability.
And you know that sometimes it takes money, it takes all sorts of things. It needs a light shining on it. What I saw in children's social care was, was just desperate, frankly. And it is difficult. It's a system that fails too many children. I'm furious to hear SOS Children's social Care speak about their reforms. They are not reforms. This country knows how to do reform. We've not got reform. We've got a set of good, nice ideas, many of which have not been delivered and many of which there there is, you know, look, I love Unicode.
I fought for it, you know, regional care cooperatives. Great idea.
There isn't a day goes by when I don't think about her. But since I have become children's commissioner, we have also had Arthur Labinjo Hughes, Death Star, Hobson's death, Sara Sharif's dreadful death, and Preston Davies dreadful death. All I would say potentially preventable. These are the highest profile failings. But on to my second point. We are letting down children. Children's social care and services are letting down children in quieter ways. To 669 children living in illegal, unregistered children's homes, of which a third are children deprived of their liberty. Do you realise my data? Undercover this that cost us £350 million last year 669 children.
Just think what you could do with that. And the year before that, about the same amount, 36 of those children were cost £1 million each. And can I just say that that million pounds was not spent on Eton style homes? It was on caravans, on B&Bs, it was on children, you know, being put in emergency placements, lower other things, disgustingly lower rates of educational attainment for children in care. Boys in your eyes. I see every boy in prison. I'm about to publish on prison education, hopefully showing what reform could look like on the 23rd of November.
I've been working closely, closely with Jake Richards on this. So many of those boys care experienced, again, looking at the contracts there at the boys in your eyes, look at looking at the contracts we're talking about, you know, £28,000 or so, a boy getting two hours of education a week. How much? How much is education costing per hour? Care leavers more likely to be homeless or frankly, dead? So my third point I published recently, my childhood lottery, 162 metrics on every part of a child's life, collected from my data powers and from publicly available information.
It was out in the press recently. You can see it. You can look at every single area. And what I can tell you is the social care data showed us that children are getting a choice of bad or terrible children placed out of area, 89% in Westminster, 17% in North Lincs. Terrible or bad, it's still too high and we see similar variance in social worker turnover care, leaver accommodation and access to support. My fourth point before we go into questions is simply that children's social care , when I. Children's social care is not adequately wrapping its arms around all the children, it should.
I just gave two hours of evidence on prevent to the Southport inquiry. Over 1000 children referred to prevent three times as the killer was bounced back to schools, no social care, engagement with most of them or signed off social care children stuck in hospitals. I talked to parents who, you know, whose children could be at home if social care and health managed to work together. And instead I talked to a mum the other day who her child has died now, but got him home because. Because social because there were no funds to sort her staircase out.
The boy was dying of cancer, had an oxygen tank on his back. They'd take it off at the bottom of the stairs, run him up the stairs and put it on at the top of the stairs. That's the reality. That's the reality of us not working together properly, not wrapping our arms around each other on social care. All children, children seeking asylum, children with severe disabilities. I'll just say Hesley, you know, we that lack of health and education, health and social care working together to make safe, proper specialist provision and children in the criminal justice system.
When I came in to to finish this this point, when I came in as children's commissioner in 2021, I came in after 20 years of education reform. I was an educationalist. I was Tony Blair's 69th Academy principal back in 2005. I had a sense of what reform was. I was shocked and horrified by what I saw in children's social care in 2021, and I still remain shocked and horrified. And and I think for me, having seen part of the department do so well with reform and understand reform and how we use data and how we use accountability.
And you know that sometimes it takes money, it takes all sorts of things. It needs a light shining on it. What I saw in children's social care was, was just desperate, frankly. And it is difficult. It's a system that fails too many children. I'm furious to hear SOS Children's social Care speak about their reforms. They are not reforms. This country knows how to do reform. We've not got reform. We've got a set of good, nice ideas, many of which have not been delivered and many of which there there is, you know, look, I love Unicode.
I fought for it, you know, regional care cooperatives. Great idea.