Children’s Social Care

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee), and it is great to see such a strong Essex presence in the Chair and in the House.

The Children’s Society has been looking out for our most vulnerable children for 138 years. It has a long history in Essex, and its Essex headquarters are, of course, in Chelmsford. The Children’s Society, Barnardo’s and other children’s organisations wrote to all MPs before this debate with a helpful briefing that particularly highlighted the importance of early intervention in helping to avoid problems for children.

Early intervention is the subject of a detailed study by the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which particularly considered the issue in relation to childhood adversity and trauma. The study shows the importance of early intervention in tackling potential long-term problems. I urge the Minister to look at the report, which particularly points out that the increasing variety of early intervention programmes have been shown to improve life outcomes for those affected by childhood trauma. However, the report says that provision is fragmented and highly variable, and it encourages the Government to identify areas that are working well.

I am delighted that one area that is working exceptionally well is Essex, which is the second largest area of the country for children’s services. Essex is a significant provider of children’s services, and just last week it received the fantastic news of an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted for its children’s services.

The Ofsted inspectors said:

“Inspirational leaders, supported by good corporate and political support and strong partnerships, are tenaciously ambitious for children.”

Ofsted praises the work of the children and families hub, and the exceptional early intervention services. Ofsted says the social workers are

“passionate about securing and sustaining improvement”

in children’s lives. It mentions the joined-up approach to safeguarding, and the county-wide approach to addressing homelessness, whereby children and families who are at risk of becoming homeless are identified and problems are resolved before they become homeless. Ofsted refers to the work of the gangs intervention team; the private fostering team; the adoption managers, who work to keep families together; the support given to unaccompanied asylum seeking children; and the ongoing work to support children after they have left care and grown up, as it were. This really is an exceptional piece of work. We are very proud of this work in Essex and I wish to put on the record my huge thanks and respect to everyone involved.

[Alex Burghart]

I wish to join my hon. Friend, as a fellow Essex MP, by putting on record my admiration for everyone who is working in children’s services in Essex, the extraordinary journey they have been on and the remarkable results they are now achieving.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my hon. Friend for that.

It is important to recognise that this has not always been the position; in 2010, the council’s service was rated as “inadequate”. At that time, its spending was £148 million a year. The turnaround in Essex has not come as a result of pouring more money into the system—quite the opposite. The performance in Essex has been turned around despite the fact that £30 million less is being spent on children’s services. The turnaround whereby the second largest authority in the country for children’s services has gone from “requires improvement” to “outstanding” has been done despite funding coming down from £148 million to £118 million. It has been achieved because of a continual focus on early intervention and preventing children from having to go into care in the first place. In 2010, the number of children in care was 1,615, whereas the latest figure is 1,017—so 600 fewer children are in care because we are getting them support earlier. Essex is working with other councils to improve their local children’s services and I particularly wish to put on the record my thanks to Councillor Dick Madden, who co-chairs the LGA taskforce in this area.

The council has just written a lengthy submission to the Select Committee’s report, not only looking at what the council has achieved, but mentioning some of the challenges ahead: there is growth in demand for services; the county, like many others close to London, has experienced migration, with the children from London boroughs being moved out towards Essex; as some colleagues have mentioned, we are facing new phenomena, such as the criminal and sexual exploitation of young people by gangs via county lines; the casework the council is seeing is increasingly more complex; and of course the national shortage of social workers puts pressure on the service and on salaries. That comes on top of the pressure that many local authorities see in their budgets, partly because of the increased number of older people and then the pressure on adult social services. I hope that the Minister will look at this report that the council submitted to the Select Committee because it outlines the problems and makes detailed suggestions.

It is not only Essex’s children’s services that have just got an outstanding ranking. Just before Christmas the inspectors came in to look at our probation services, particularly the multi-agency youth offending team, who have also achieved an outstanding ranking. Essex social care services have just been awarded the best social worker employer of the year award.

Our children are our future. There are issues to address in children’s social services. The Government will be looking at how to plan for the future. I will leave with one plea to the Minister and to any members of the Select Committee: if they would like to learn a little more about how this works in Essex, they should just pop on the train to Chelmsford—we are only an hour away from Westminster—where they will be able to see it all for themselves.