Strategy for reforms additional funding for all councils
On 2 February, the Department for Education published its long-awaited children’s social care implementation strategy for England – its plan to reform services to ensure children are able to grow up in safe, loving, stable homes.
As with the independent reviews on which the strategy is based, there is a lot to welcome. This includes the focus on earlier help, support that recognises the strengths within a child’s wider family network, and greater ambition for our children in care and care leavers, building on the outstanding work of many councils already.
The strategy also commits to taking action to better manage the children’s social worker agency market, with a consultation focusing on key areas such as pay and quality. Too often, we see a high churn of agency workers, leading to poorer outcomes for children, while high costs mean cutting services elsewhere. Recommendations around recruitment and retention of social workers are helpful, though we’d like to see swifter action that also considers the wider workforce.
We believe that some of the proposed reforms need a far stronger evidence base and are pleased that the department is taking a cautious approach to these. Untested reforms could have unintended consequences for children and their families, so a test-and-learn approach is appropriate. We also welcome the Government’s commitment to co-designing these reforms with councils and partners.
Children’s social care does not operate in a vacuum, so we would have liked to see more cross-departmental focus on issues that lead to more children and families needing support from children’s social care, including financial deprivation and access to mental health services. We agree with the care review that, without addressing issues outside the remit of children’s social care, “reforms to children’s social care risk treating the symptoms and not the cause”.
The strategy commits £200 million in additional funding. However, LGA analysis (predating current high inflation rates) indicates an existing shortfall of £1.6 billion a year simply to maintain current service levels. The care review recommended additional investment of at least £2.6 billion over four years to improve the system to better meet children’s needs.
Furthermore, much of the additional funding will go to pathfinder and pilot areas, with very little being allocated elsewhere. This means that in most areas, children will not benefit from thexcc additional funding that is desperately needed.
While it is positive that there is now a clear direction of travel following last year’s reviews, most of the changes signalled in this strategy will not deliver results quickly, and the system is in crisis now. Inflation and pressures on council budgets will only compound the difficulties facing services, while the impact of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis are increasing children’s need for support every day.
If the Department for Education truly accepts the challenge posed by each of the three major reports on which this strategy builds, it must also accept that the challenge exists everywhere and there is an urgent need for immediate action. We already have a significant amount of evidence about what works, including that developed through the department’s own innovation programme. Additional funding for all councils, not just those in pathfinder areas, can be wisely invested in stabilising the current system to ensure strong foundations on which to build future reform.