Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I sincerely thank my noble friend Lord Watson for securing this timely debate and all noble Lords who made such incredibly well-informed contributions today. I also thank those responsible for the many briefings that we have all received. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA, and express my thanks and gratitude to all those working to protect vulnerable children and young people in such difficult circumstances across the country, and to the many carers who do such extraordinary work in all the different settings that exist.

My personal involvement in children’s services goes back a long way, particularly to 2010, when in Leeds, Labour formed a new administration after the local elections and we inherited an inadequate—a failing—children’s services department. I became the lead member, and as a whole council and city we embarked on a journey to become the first core city to achieve an outstanding rating across the board. I am proud to say that Leeds still maintains the outstanding rating today, despite the pressures, which remain immense.

I mention this to illustrate that major change is possible if the collective will of decision-makers is clear and determined, and focused on putting the needs of our most vulnerable children at the heart of everything we do. “Every child matters” was not an empty phrase; surely it should be the bedrock of any civilised society. In the same way, we took the view in Leeds that enhancing the life chances of children and young people is everyone’s business, involving all agencies and all departments, and reflected in all decisions made across the wider community.

To this end, we established Child Friendly Leeds 10 years ago, launched by Her Majesty the Queen and endorsed by King Charles last month in a visit to celebrate its 10-year milestone. A child-friendly city basically means developing a relentless focus on children and young people and taking hard decisions—for example, on targeting funding—that will benefit those vulnerable children whose lives can be blighted without the timely intervention of services to give them, their families and their carers support. One of our collective main priorities was to safely—and I emphasise “safely”—reduce the number of children and young people coming into our care, and to reinvest the significant savings into expanding preventive and early help services on a cross-agency basis.

I was the chair of the children and young people’s board at the LGA, and in that capacity I worked with Josh MacAlister and the review team—along with the noble Lord, Lord Farmer—on the design group, inputting in particular from a local government perspective and bringing Leeds’s experience into the process. I pay tribute to the review team and all the many people who contributed to the process, bringing their rich personal experiences to the discussions and exploring, as we have heard, the commitment to lifelong, loving relationships.

I am deeply disappointed to hear that the Government have delayed issuing their next steps following the publication of the review earlier this summer. We need action now. I am even more concerned that the review will become submerged into the spending review and be seen as a cost problem rather than as an enabler to improve services, achieve better outcomes for young people and their families, and lead to major savings in the wider societal areas that are impacted so heavily by failure in this space.

By way of example, research shows us that roughly 25% of the prison population has had some care experience. That is shocking. Of the young care-experienced people who enter prison, roughly 45% present a substance misuse problem and 61% have a record of being disengaged from education. Indeed, ONS figures released yesterday show that 52% of care-experienced children had been convicted of a criminal offence by the age of 24, and 92% of those who received a custodial sentence had previously been identified with special educational needs. Some 18% had been permanently excluded and 81% had been suspended during their time in education. How much more evidence do we need that action is urgent and that government needs to respond immediately to the recommendations in the review and take action?

The recent figures re skyrocketing incidence of mental health presentations and the worries concerning SEND provision following the scrapping of the education Bill further add to the enormous concern among practitioners. There are so many aspects of the review to highlight. Tackling the workloads and staffing issues in social care remain critical. We hear constantly about the pressures on adult social care budgets but, as said by my noble friend Lady Taylor, we need to shout about the pressures on children’s social care budgets: a 25% higher spend by councils over the last five years, with pressures of over £1 billion estimated for each year. This is simply unsustainable.

From my experience in Leeds, I welcome the focus on early intervention in the review—the right time and the right place being the key focus. I particularly welcome the proposals for strengthening support for kinship carers—we have heard a great deal about this today. Working with kinship carers has been one of the key components of our journey, recognising the huge significance of close family and friend relationships based on understanding and love. The estimate that 162,000 children are being raised by kinship carers across England and Wales is probably an underestimate. I am sure we have all seen the briefings that estimate that every 1,000 children raised in kinship extended families rather than the care system save the Government £40 million and increase the lifetime earnings of those children by £20 million.

In that context, surely the recommendations in the review are fairly modest: for example, non-means-tested financial allowances that match the minimum fostering allowance; the introduction of kinship leave on a par with adoption leave for all special guardians and kinship carers; and, importantly, a requirement for local authorities to use “family group decision-making” as a means to identify kinship arrangements earlier by introducing “family network plans” to offer flexibility, intensive support and funding to give an alternative pathway to children entering local authority care. The focus throughout these recommendations is that better outcomes for children and young people are paramount. I hope the Government will take note of good practice in the sector and learn from its example.

In conclusion, I specifically ask the Minister to assure us that the Government have the ambition and resolve to deliver reforms urgently. By that I mean legislative changes introduced now, and certainly in the next Session. Also, is the urgent need for expanding the number of foster carers being gripped, alongside the support for kinship carers, as I have outlined? We cannot ignore the cocktail of circumstances that are exerting pressure on our families, poverty being front and centre, as well as the mental health experience of parents and children, and domestic violence, to name but a few. Can the Minister assure us that she will use all her experience in this space to personally steer the Government’s response to focus on these issues?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I was hoping not to intervene. I was quite lenient with the previous speaker but one, but I regret that we are now running a bit short of time. I therefore ask all the following speakers either to stick to eight minutes or to go slightly less than that. We do not want to eat into the Minister’s time.