Local Authority Children’s Services

John Whitby Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) for making a powerful speech.

As a foster carer, a member of an adoption panel and a former lead member of a tier 1 local authority, I have seen at first hand the damage that austerity has caused to local authorities across the country, in particular to children’s services. The lack of resource and support has contributed to the number of children in care rocketing. That in turn has created a placement sufficiency crisis in children’s social care. The number of children in residential care more than doubled between 2010 and 2024. That has presented extra pressures on authorities, as children have to be routinely placed at a distance from their local area. Every day that the previous Government were in power, an average of 140 children—equivalent to nearly five full classrooms—entered poverty.

We now have a Minister for Children and Families who understands the problems we face, as he delivered the independent review of children’s social care. I will focus on some of the changes Labour has made to improve children’s services thus far. First, the continued roll-out of the Mockingbird programme, which brings new foster carers together with those who are more experienced, helping to create an extended family-like community around foster families, providing advice, expertise and support.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to a group of foster carers about their experiences. Many told me of the positive impact the Mockingbird scheme had had on them. Therefore, I welcome the additional £40 million that the Government are investing in children’s social care, which is helping to ensure that programmes such as Mockingbird continue to be rolled out across the country. If we cannot attract enough new foster carers—and that is always a challenge—then we need to keep hold of and support the ones we have.

Secondly, the Government are bringing in important changes in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that will protect local authorities from paying exorbitant fees to large, privately run children’s home providers. As I have said previously, many more children are living in residential care due to the placement sufficiency crisis. As has been mentioned this morning, in 2022 the largest 20 providers of children’s residential placements collectively made £310 million in profits. That was all off the back of the public purse. It is therefore welcome that, as a result of the Bill, large children’s placement providers will have to give regular financial information to a newly created financial oversight scheme. I am glad that the Bill will give the Government the power, if necessary, to cap the profits of private children’s home providers.

There are many other positive changes to highlight, including those ensuring greater oversight on home schooling for children subject to a child protection order. The roll-out of the Staying Close programme will give care leavers from residential care—the number of whom has grown significantly—extra support to stay in housing and to get education and work. New requirements will ensure that all local authorities offer family group decision making—a move that will keep more children out of care altogether, and which in turn will save authorities money. We are opening new Best Start family hubs in all English local authorities—something that we have really missed.

Taken together, the changes will alleviate pressures on local authority children’s services and give greater protection to our children and greater support to carers. It will, of course, take time for many of these changes to be felt. However, having been on the frontlines of children’s social care for more than two decades, I know that these changes will make a real and tangible difference to our most vulnerable and at-risk children.