Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to replace the Residential Care Leadership Board; and for what reasons that Board was abolished.

The Residential Care Leadership Board is no longer being convened because the board’s remit of responding to recommendations made in Sir Martin Narey’s 2016 Review of Residential Children’s Care, has been successfully completed. The department is taking steps to ensure that we draw on sectoral expertise through a range of different forums to address current issues affecting the sector, not least in our response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The government has committed to undertaking a bold, broad and independently led care review. This will launch as soon as possible and will support improvements in the children’s social care system.