Lord Laming

All children of compulsory school age, regardless of their circumstances, are entitled to a full-time education which is suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs that they may have. The department consulted and implemented changes to the statutory School Admissions Code in 2021 to improve the in-year school admissions process and fair access protocols. Fair access protocols are the safety net to secure school places in-year for vulnerable and unplaced children, where the in-year admissions process fails. In those changes, the department identified a list of categories of children who are eligible for placement in fair access, which included children who are homeless. The school admissions code can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-admissions-code--2.

The ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance expects schools, local authorities and partners to work with pupils and parents to remove any barriers to school attendance by building strong and trusting relationships, and working together to put the right support in place. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance. In all cases, schools should be sensitive and should avoid stigmatising pupils and parents. They should talk to pupils and parents to understand what they think would help improve their attendance. This allows individual approaches that meet an individual pupil’s specific needs.

All schools should be calm, orderly, safe, and supportive environments where pupils can thrive and reach their potential in safety and dignity. Teachers know their pupils best and are in the best position to identify their needs and to plan which approaches will meet them most effectively.

The department published its plans to reform children’s social care on 2 February 2023 in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1147317/Children_s_social_care_stable_homes_consultation_February_2023.pdf.

‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ sets out how the department will help families to overcome challenges at an early stage, keep children safe and make sure those in care have stability, long-term loving relationships and opportunities for a good life. Over the next two years, the department will address urgent issues facing children and families now and lay the foundations for a whole system reform.

A central aim of the reform programme is to keep more children safely with their families, where this is possible. The department will invest more than £45 million over the next two years through its ‘Families First for Children Pathfinder’, which will test the implementation of reforms across Family Help, Child Protection, and Family Network Support Packages. This will inform wider roll out.

Whilst the government recognises the importance of reducing the number of placements for children in the care system, placements can be the right option for some children. The strategy also sets out how the department is prioritising work with local authorities to ensure children have access to the right placements at the right time.

The government has a comprehensive attendance strategy to ensure that absence is minimised. The department has recently published guidance setting out how we expect schools, trusts and local authorities to work together to improve attendance, which is available in the attached document.

The guidance is clear that schools should develop and maintain a whole school culture that promotes the benefits of high attendance, have a clear school attendance policy, and have effective day to day processes in place to follow-up absence.

The guidance sets out that schools are expected to use attendance data to identify patterns of poor attendance (at individual and cohort level) as soon as possible so that all parties can work together to resolve them before they become entrenched. To help schools to do this, the department has recently launched new functionality which allows mainstream schools that are sharing daily attendance data to compare attendance with other schools within their own local authority. This can be seen under the ‘compare your attendance tab’ via GOV.UK’s ‘View your education data’ site at: https://viewyourdata.education.gov.uk/. The tool will help schools to identify strengths and priorities and signpost to additional guidance and support.

The department has employed expert attendance advisers who are playing an important role working closely with local authorities and a number of multi-academy trusts with higher levels of persistent absence to review their current practice and support them to develop plans to improve. The department has also recently launched a £2.32 million attendance mentor pilot to deliver intensive one-to-one support to a group of persistently and severely absent pupils. The pilot will run for three years supporting a total of 1,665 pupils. The findings from this pilot should enable schools, trusts, and local authorities to address persistent and severe absence more effectively.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has also established an Alliance of national leaders from education, children’s social care and other relevant services to work together to raise school attendance and reduce persistent absence. Schools and local authorities can also use a range of measures to provide support for and/or sanctions against parents when their child’s irregular attendance in school becomes a problem. These measures are used to reinforce parents’ responsibilities and to support them in improving their child’s attendance at school.

As set out in the department’s Adoption Strategy: Achieving Excellence Everywhere, we are committed to improving the matching of approved adopters with children waiting to be found new homes. The strategy can be found attached.

£5 million has been committed for 2022 to 2025 to support Regional Adoption Agency Leaders to focus specifically on reducing the number of children who wait over 18 months for homes from the time of a court placement order being given. Some progress has already been made. This number has fallen from 390 in March 2020 to 240 in September 2022, but the department wants to see further and faster progress.

In addition, government funded recruitment campaigns are helping to provide a greater sufficiency of adopters, as well as targeted campaigns with a focus on recruiting adopters who are more likely to give a loving home to the children who wait the longest to be adopted.

Being in school and ready to learn is crucial to pupils’ attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances.

The department's focus is on supporting children and young people to recover from the disruption of COVID-19 through a multi-year programme and has made available almost £5 billion for education recovery. This includes nearly £2 billion of direct funding to schools so they can deliver evidence-based interventions based on pupil needs.

We have also published new guidance, ‘Working together to improve school attendance’, which makes clear the importance of addressing the barriers to attendance through strong multi-agency working at school, multi-academy trust and local authority level.

The department consulted on making this guidance statutory and received broad support. We intend to make this guidance statutory when parliamentary time allows.

The department has brought together an Action Alliance of lead professionals from key frontline services that support families. Members from education, health, justice, the third sector and parent organisations have collectively committed to use their roles and organisations to undertake activities to improve attendance.

In England, the responsibility for ensuring a looked-after child or young person is in the appropriate placement rests with local authorities as they are best placed to understand the specific needs of individual children in their care. Local authorities have a duty to ensure sufficient appropriate provision for all of the children they look after.

The department recognises, however, that some local authorities sometimes find it difficult accessing the most appropriate accommodation, particularly for children with the most complex needs, and that children are sometimes placed in locations away from home, when they may be better served by a placement in their local area, were one available.

The lack of available and suitable placements for the most vulnerable children is something this government takes seriously. With that in mind, the government is taking significant steps to support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duties. Between now and 2025, £259 million will be made available to develop and expand the provision of both secure and open homes, to reduce out of area placements, to provide for children with complex needs, and to promote innovative practice to maintain placement stability or prevent children from entering the care system.

Recognising the urgency of action in placement sufficiency, and following the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, the department will also work with local authorities on recruiting more foster carers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a market study in March 2021 exploring the lack of availability and increasing costs in children’s social care provision, including children’s homes, and fostering. It examines concerns around high prices paid by local authorities and inadequate supply of appropriate placements for children. The interim report was published on 22 October 2021 and noted that some relevant parties had expressed concerns around the level of profits made by large private sector providers of children’s homes. It considers the profit levels to be a symptom of the underlying problem of insufficient supply of appropriate places and the difficulties local authorities have in engaging effectively in this market.

The full report, including any recommendations, will be published by the 11 March 2022.

In addition to the CMA market study, the independent children’s social care review is taking a fundamental look at the needs, experiences, and outcomes of those supported by children’s social care, and what is needed to make a real difference. The review is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform systems and services, with the aim of better supporting, protecting, and improving the outcomes of vulnerable children and young people.

​The government will respond to both sets of recommendations after the respective reviews have concluded.

The interim report from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is welcome but we are not waiting for the final report before acting. Every child in care deserves to live in accommodation that meets their needs and keeps them safe. Councils are responsible for providing suitable, safe accommodation for vulnerable children in their care. As part of the Spending Review, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced investment of £259 million to help them meet this duty, by increasing the number of places in open and secure children’s homes. This builds on work that has already started to maintain capacity and expand provision in existing secure children’s homes, alongside new capital funding to help councils create new homes. We have also consulted on national minimum standards for any unregulated provision accommodating 16 or 17 year olds

The government is also undertaking a widescale review of children’s social care, taking a fundamental look at the needs, experiences, and outcomes of the children it supports, and what is needed to make a real difference. The review will be bold, broad, and independently led, taking a fundamental look across children’s social care, with the aim of better supporting, protecting and improving the outcomes of vulnerable children and young people. The review will be evidenced based and bring together a broad range of expertise.

The department is engaging with the CMA and the independent review of social care, and will respond to both sets of recommendations when available.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a market study in March 2021 examining the lack of availability and increasing costs in children’s social care provision, including children’s homes and fostering. The CMA will examine concerns around high prices paid by local authorities and inadequate supply of appropriate placements for children. Its interim report was published on 22 October and its full report, including any recommendations, will be published by 11 March 2022.

The department welcomes the findings from the CMA’s interim report but will wait for the final report and recommendations before setting out our response.

The government is clear that children in care and care leavers deserve places to live that meet their needs and keep them safe, and local authorities have statutory duties to ensure this. It is unacceptable for any child to be placed in a setting that does not do this, for any amount of time.

The government has consulted on reforms to the use of unregulated independent and semi-independent provision. This includes banning the placement of children under the age of 16 being placed in these settings. Children of this age need care and should be placed in a children’s home or foster care. We are clear that independent and semi-independent provision can be the right option for older children, if it is high quality and meets their needs. We are, however, concerned that provision is not always as good as it should be, which is why we have consulted on new national standards regarding provision for 16 and 17 year olds.

If an unregistered children’s home – a setting that should be registered with Ofsted as a children’s home but is not – is operating, it is doing so illegally, and Ofsted has powers to prosecute these providers. We have consulted on giving Ofsted additional powers to take earlier enforcement action against illegal unregistered providers.

We will be responding to this consultation, and setting out our plans for next steps in due course.

Local authorities have statutory duties to ensure that care placements are made with consideration of the needs and risks of individual children. This extends to the use of unregulated provision. Local authorities must carry out checks on this provision to ensure that it meets the needs of children and keeps them safe. We are also aware that, due to capacity issues, some local authorities have found it difficult to locate suitable placements for children with the most complex needs. As my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced on 25 November 2020, the government will provide £24 million in 2021-22 to start a new programme to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure children’s homes. This will provide high-quality, safe homes for some of our most vulnerable children and will mean children can live closer to their families and support networks, in settings that meet their needs.

The multi-agency statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) makes explicit the legal requirements and expectations on individuals, agencies and organisations to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It sets out that, as well as threats from within their families, children may be vulnerable to abuse or exploitation from outside their families. Assessments of children in such cases, who are referred to local authority children’s social care, should consider whether wider environmental factors are present in a child’s life, and are a threat to their safety. This should be considered when determining what support and accommodation should be provided. The guidance specifically highlights the risks to children of child sexual exploitation, and from exploitation by criminal gangs such as county lines.

the government is providing councils with an additional £1 billion for adult and children's social care in every year of this parliament. This is on top of the continuation of the £410 million social care grant next year. Funding for children’s social care is not ringfenced, allowing councils to spend based on local need and priorities, including on family support and preventative services.

This government has also made a commitment to continuing and improving the Troubled Families Programme. £165 million has already been made available for the Programme to be extended in 2020-21. This will ensure that more families get access to the vital early support they need to overcome complex problems such as anti-social behaviour, mental health issues and domestic abuse.