(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberI very much enjoyed and got a lot from my visit to Romiley on Friday; I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Discussions with headteachers and governing bodies are so important in learning about specific pressures on schools, and in helping us to develop our response to them.
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberOf course, the safety of children must always be paramount, and we consider it to be the right approach, in the circumstances in Northamptonshire, to do that. These things do not all change overnight in terms of systems and processes, but we do expect to see good progress.
Seventy-three per cent. of children’s residential care providers are now run purely for profit. Alongside this, Ofsted has reported a rise in serious enforcement action against providers with regard to safeguarding concerns, poor use of physical restraint, children going missing, and children at high risk of sexual exploitation. How much longer will the right hon. Gentleman preside over the commodification of vulnerable children, and how many children’s residential homes has he visited in his time as Secretary of State?
I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s characterisation of what she called commoditisation. A variety of providers are operating in children’s residential placements, and we expect the very highest standards of care for those children. That is why the Ofsted inspections are as they are.
(5 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberI take this matter very seriously, and the Minister for Children and Families recently met the executive headteacher of the Coastal Academies Trust to discuss the issue. We want to reduce out-of-area placements and ensure that looked-after children can access high-quality education provision. We are providing funding through our £200 million children’s social care innovation programme to increase councils’ capacity, so that fewer children are placed far away from home.
Legislation and guidance regarding looked-after children—for example, on such children having their own social worker—is vital to safeguarding their welfare. The recent guide for local authorities published by the Department refers to this legislation and guidance as myth, and actively urges local authorities to dispense with their statutory obligations, thereby cutting vulnerable children adrift. Worse still, only this morning the Minister responded to those criticisms by advising that statutory guidance is open to interpretation. Is it now the Department’s policy that statutory guidance in relation to vulnerable children no longer needs to be followed?
(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend is right to emphasise the importance and challenge of that transition. Care leavers can access a personal adviser until they are 25. They can get a £2,000 bursary if they are in higher education, and a 16-to-19 bursary of up to £1,200 from the college if in further education. Care leavers aged 16 to 24 can receive a £1,000 bursary in the first year of an apprenticeship.
The Department’s own figures show a gap of over 10,000 in the overall children’s social care workforce. Unison analysis shows that children’s services have experienced a funding shortfall of £600 million, with more cuts to come. Will the Secretary of State explain why he is happy to see hundreds of millions of pounds cut from vulnerable children, yet he is outsourcing £73 million to train as few as 700 new social workers and introduce an unpopular accreditation scheme?
The hon. Lady is right to identify the importance of funding and resourcing for children’s social work. The spend on the most vulnerable children has been going up. There are some 35,000 child and family social workers and that number has increased a little between 2016 and 2017.
(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Lady raises an important point. In fact, full-time workers account for almost three quarters of the employment growth since 2010. The crucial reform in the welfare and social security system is of course universal credit, which specifically seeks to get over the spikes found in the hours scale so that it always pays to move from being out of work into work and, crucially, to move up the hours scale.
14. What recent estimate he has made of the level of household debt.