Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that this is a period of local government reorganisation. It is also a time when local government finances are under considerable pressure, not least from having to find placements in an unplanned way, which is likely to lead to unexpected and very high costs. The very fact that local authorities can group together to use the planning and spending power of a regional care co-operative is beneficial to them at a point at which local government reorganisation is going on. Even more importantly, it is beneficial for the children who are more likely to have a placement that works for them, rather than simply one scrambled together on a Friday afternoon.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister give us some indication of what is being done to address the culture to make sure that these enduring relationships last? Is anything being done differently in the way the professionals involved are being trained? Is anything being done about the information given to the families in the first place? I was a youth worker for more than 35 years, and the most powerful relationships were where the family knew their rights and were pursuing them and could meet the professionals halfway. Are the Government doing any work to change the way in which the professionals now do their duties because of the new priorities of the Government?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. To come back to the point I made earlier, we have changed things in the law such as the requirement for family group decision-making at an earlier stage. In this strategy we spell out clearly the need to change practice to focus on relationships at all stages of a child’s experience of coming into and being in care. I agree with the noble Lord that there needs to be a change in culture, and we are providing support for kinship care pilots and other initiatives such as the recruitment of 10,000 more foster carers. The central message here, as I suggested earlier, is that at every stage in a child’s journey social workers will be asking themselves: what do we need to do at this point to enable this young person to maintain or re-find the enduring relationships that will set them up for and support them for the rest of their lives?