Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

We are giving councils a greater role in this process because we recognise that many will be able to create places much more quickly through a different way of allocating funding. We want children and young people to receive the support they need in a local school, not a long distance away. In some cases, that can involve expanded specialist provision in mainstream schools, but I also recognise the critical role that the specialist sector plays—the needs of some children can be met only in specialist provision. That is why we have taken the approach of prioritising funding, and that runs hand in hand with much wider investment running through the system. The hon. Lady knows that I will work with her to make sure we get this reform right and to make sure that children and their education are right at the heart of it.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

15. Whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill on levels of financial oversight for children’s care home providers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)]

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will introduce a financial oversight scheme for children’s social care. That will increase the transparency of children’s social care providers so that we can make accurate, real-time assessments of financial risk so that local authorities can step in and take swift action in the interests of children.

[Sarah Olney]

Last Friday, the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, published its report into the financial sustainability of children’s homes. The report highlights that there is very little financial and governance oversight of private companies, which run 84% of children’s homes in the UK. Given that the 15 largest private children’s homes providers make average profits of 22% on an average charge per child per year of £318,000, what more can the Government do to ensure that children’s homes have appropriate financial and governance oversight?

[Josh MacAlister]

I welcome the hon. Member’s interest in this issue, and the reports from the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. Children’s social care issues looked at through the prism of profit making in children’s homes demonstrate how much radical reform we need for children’s social care. That is why we are putting £2.4 billion into resetting the system overall so that it intervenes earlier. We will also bring forward plans very soon to set out an expansion of fostering. That is in addition to measures in the Bill that is currently going through the other place to introduce a financial oversight mechanism and a profit cap to address the issues that the hon. Member has mentioned.