Government’s Childcare Expansion
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right that grandparents quite often play a very important role in supporting their children and grandchildren. I will take away his exhortations about support for grandparents and perhaps return to that matter directly with him when I have found out more about it.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, further to the questions about the workforce, the point has been made that it is about more than just giving an adequate salary for those in childcare; it is about recognition. The Minister referred in her reply to status and staff development. What steps are being taken to develop a proper career structure so that this field of education can compete with the rest of the education field in having a well-defined career structure for people to aim at?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right; it is of course about reward, but it is also about progression and recognition. We have worked hard already to try to reset our relationship with staff across the education system. Over the coming weeks and months, the Government will set out further plans for reform to ensure that the workforce feels supported and valued. We want a system that celebrates and supports early years carers and embeds it into our wider education system. Alongside the work I have already outlined on recruitment, recognition and status is something that we will want to return to in the early years strategy as we develop it.
Independent Review of Children’s Social Care
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right, I am afraid, in his description of the enormous challenge in children’s social care at the moment, particularly by identifying the role of Ofsted. As I outlined in this House last week, Ofsted will be working closely with the children’s social care sector to determine how it can protect children in the way that he described. Also, on the particular challenges in the children’s social care placement market that my noble friend outlined, local authorities are facing enormous rising costs for these places and, as my noble friend says, for places which increasingly are not serving the needs of children. This Government are clear that excessive profiteering from vulnerable children in care is unacceptable. Through the legislation that we will bring forward, and through the regulation that he described, we will tackle this.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the MacAlister review described foster carers as the bedrock of a social care system. However, in the last five years we have lost 1,000 foster carers, with 5,000 more children in care. For many children, a children’s home with dedicated staff is the right answer, but living with a family in foster care may provide a more stable environment at a quarter of the cost. What is the Minister doing to encourage more foster carers to come forward and provide that care for children?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right: for many children the stability that comes from being in a loving family with foster care is absolutely appropriate for them. Therefore, it is disappointing that, since 2019, the number of mainstream local authority foster carers has dropped by 11%. We will continue the policy of foster care hubs to provide support and resource for local authorities and foster carers in 10 different places—covering 64% of the country—and, where those hubs do not have impact, we will also develop the foster link resource to support children’s social care services in other parts of the country. There is a role to play for all of us and all local authorities in celebrating foster carers and encouraging more people to think about doing it.