Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

On the last point that my noble friend made, it is precisely because of the importance of accountability that we will work with Ofsted to ensure that the measurement of enduring relationships and the development of enduring relationships are at the heart of the inspection process.

My noble friend also makes a very important point that, particularly for those young people who are in care but have already lost their most important relationships, it is not enough to simply say that is there nothing we can do to help them rebuild those. That is the reason for the announcement in the Statement about what is described as the

“national sprint to roll out family finding services”.

Those services do exactly what my noble friend has said: they sit down with young people, talk to them about who is now or was an important link and support in their lives, and then help them to remake those links to those people, who will support them while they are young but, as my noble friend says, will also be the people alongside them as they go into adulthood.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, from these Benches, I also warmly welcome what is in the strategy. Enabling children in care to sustain or make long-lasting relationships is absolutely crucial. When it comes to the lifelong relationship ceremonies, we on these Benches are certainly very interested in looking at what can be done to effect that. My question has come out of the work I did on my Private Member’s Bill for care leavers in the last Session. So many care leavers need to move from one local authority area to another, perhaps to maintain those relationships or to rebuild a relationship with a sibling, yet what traditionally happens is that the authority they have left washes its hands of them and the authority they land in considers it has no responsibility because they were never in care in that authority. What will the Government do to ensure that, where young people move from one authority area to another after they have just left care, they do not fall through the net any longer?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate makes a very important point. It is, of course, the objective of the Staying Close programme to enable young people, once they have left care, particularly if they were in residential care, to be able to continue to receive support. I will certainly go back and talk to my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families about this point. I think that that is partly covered in the requirement for all authorities to have a support package for those who have left care, but the point about how we maintain the relationships that are at the heart of this strategy is a really important one that I will take up with him.