Tag Archives: Children’s Commissioner for England

Children in secure units

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After a difficult year in 2021/22 when the number of children taken into secure units rose from 142 to 165, there was a welcome reduction back to 139 children in 2022/23; more in line with the longer-term trend, despite the overall growth in the population within the age groups likely to end up in secure custody. Now, one child in such institutions should be one too many, so how do children end up in such places?

There are three possible routes by which a child can end up in a secure unit, often many miles from their homes:

Children detained or sentenced and placed by the Youth Custody Service.Thisincludes children detained for, or convicted of, a serious offence under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 or the Criminal Justice Act 2003; or subject to a Supervision Order with a residence requirement or a Detention and Training Order under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.

Children placed by the local authority in a criminal justice context. This group includes children remanded by a court under section 102 (Remand to youth detention accommodation) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012; or accommodated pursuant to section 38 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

Children placed by the local authority on welfare grounds. This includes children who are placed into the homes by their local authority under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 for the protection of themselves and/or others.

Children accommodated in secure children’s homes: 31 March 2023 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

On the face of it, the criminal justice system appears to be working better for children than a decade ago, if the aim is to reduce the number held in secure accommodation for either their protection or for the protection of others. The largest group in secure units is of boys aged 15, a similar age to where exclusions from schools tend to peak.

Resources could well be aimed at working with schools to devise strategies to divert these young men from the behaviours that put them on the track to a spell in a secure unit before they reach the peak age. After all, the characteristics of those likely to become high risk are well known.

Academies must be expected to play a part, and schools of all descriptions must not just ‘pass the buck’ to someone else to deal with. Of course, there will be the rare offender with no previous history of involvement with public services, other than a school but, even in this group, such individuals are likely to be a rarity.

Around half of the children spend less than three months in secure institutions, but it seems worrying that a portion spend a considerable time locked-up. It would be interesting to see the category of child spending more than a year in a secure institution. Are they the serious offenders eventually destined for a place in a prison, or are they there because a local authority cannot find a suitable placement in the community. Some commentary on the outcomes of these children would also be of interest in order to know whether or not a spell in a secure unit changes lives or just entrenches behaviour?

Children in Care: the civil rights issue for our time

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An important independent report on children in care was published today Final Report – The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (independent-review.uk) Those of you that have read my blog post about the need for a Jacob’s Law will find much to be encouraged by in the suggestions for change contained within this new report. Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Sadly, there is also much to be concerned about as well. One outstanding section of the Executive Summary really resonated with me when I read it for the first time.

The disadvantage faced by the care experienced community should be the civil rights issue of our time. Children in care are powerless, are often invisible and they face some of the greatest inequalities that exist in England today. In spite of these injustices so many ‘care’ experienced people go on to run businesses, start families, earn doctorates, produce drama, write poetry, become government ministers and contribute to the world in countless ways

Five ambitious missions are needed so that care experienced people secure: loving relationships; quality education; a decent home; fulfilling work and good health as the foundations for a good life. Central government and local authorities, employers, the NHS, schools, colleges and universities must step up to secure these foundations for all care experienced people. This will require a wider range of organisations to act as corporate parents for looked after children, and the UK should be the first country in the world to recognise the care experience as a protected characteristic.

Executive-summary.pdf (independent-review.uk) Page 11

This afternoon, the House of Lords debates the Second Reading of the new Schools Bill, and I hope that a need for a Jacob’s Law, ensuring rapid admission to schools for children taken into care and required to move school, will receive at least a passing mention. Adding a Clause about in-year admissions and local authority requirements on academies to take such children would be a quick win for this group of what one might call ‘bin bag kids’. They earn that epithet because all too often they come home and find all their possessions in black bin bags in the bag of a social worker’s car. Just imagine how you would feel if that happened to you as a teenager?

Perhaps it is not surprising that a significant number of young people in our young Offenders Institutions have experienced a period in care. In the Inspection Report on Werrington YOI published recently 42 of the 91 young people survey had been in care at some point before receiving a custodial sentence or serving time on remand. Werrington-web-2020.pdf (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk)

Even though these are difficult economic times, some rebalancing of government priorities remains necessary, and both ensuring services are in place to prevent child neglect – often the most common reason for young children being taken into care – and creating better outcomes for those that are taken into care is a vital necessity as the report published today makes clear.

Every councillor with responsibility as a corporate parent should ask themselves the question: can my Council do more for these young people?

Attendance Group must address in-year admissions issue

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I recently caught up with news about the DfE’s Attendance Group, and the Minutes of its December meeting.  Attendance Action Alliance January meeting notes: 9 December 2021 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

I am delighted to discover the high-profile nature of membership the Group and that the Secretary of State has taken an interest, as owner of the work. However, although the Group discussed the question of a register for home educated children and the concerns over those children just missing school on a regular basis, I didn’t find any emphasis on ensuring that children taken into care are offered a school palace as swiftly as possible and within set time limits. The same standards also need to be put in place for children with special needs whose parents move to a new location during the school year and need a new school placement.

Taking a new job should not be conditional on whether there is a special school place available for your child.

In a previous post on this blog, calling for a ‘Jacob’s Law’, I laid out the case for in-year admissions to academies not to be held up by such schools not wanting to admit such children. The 2016 Education White Paper: Education Excellence Everywhere recognised there was an issue with in-year admissions to academies because local authorities had no powers to over-rule the decision of a school not to admit a pupil. This was why Jacob was out of school when he died. Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com)

Sadly, nothing significant has changed since 2016. I hope that the Attendance Group will consider the issue of in-year admissions at a future meeting, and not just focus on the parents that don’t send their children to school. The system must work for the benefit of all and not just those that are easy to educate. The same is the case of children with SEND requiring in-year admission to a school.

These young people must not be ignored, and just offering tutoring is not the same as admission to a school. Home tutoring doesn’t provide the same social interaction that being in a school provides however good the ‘virtual school’ is at its job.

Of course, there are risks where the school community is hostile to incomers and many schools could well look to improve the transfer experience for in-year admissions that can be even worse than that experienced by pupils transferring at the start of the school-year.

Being taken into care as a school-age child is a traumatic experience, and we owe it to these children to make sure that their education is affected as little as possible. So, it is my hope that the Attendance Group will as a minimum endorse the 2016 White Paper suggestions and, if possible, go further and set time limits for school places to be offered to children taken into care and requiring a new school placement. For most, it wasn’t their fault that they have ended up in the care of the local authority where all the secondary schools are academies.

Take Care Seriously

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Anne Longfield, the former Children’s Commissioner has published an important report on children in the care of local authorities entitled ‘Out of Harm’s Way. https://thecommissiononyounglives.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/OUT-OF-HARMS-WAY-CYL-DEC-29-2021-.pdf?utm_source=HOC+Library+-+Current+awareness+bulletins&utm_campaign=834a4dd143-Current_Awareness_Social_Policy_E_29-12-2021&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f325cdbfdc-834a4dd143-103730653&mc_cid=834a4dd143&mc_eid=ae5482b5b9 the report by the Commission on Young Lives should be essential reading for all Councillors, Teachers, Social Workers and Emergency Service personnel, and members of police forces across the country.

The report starts with the case of Jacob, a teenager failed by authorities and who eventually took his own life. I wrong a blog about his case when the Serious Case Review was published back in January Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson (wordpress.com) But Jacob sadly isn’t the only child let down by a system that is overloaded and under-funded. Not only are children in the care of local authorities suffering but, as seen recently in the outcome of court cases, young children below school age are dying at the hands of those supposed to love and care for them.

But for Jacob and for many children in care one of the key issues is the support they receive from the education system. The pioneering work by the TES more than a decade ago that helped with the creation of virtual schools to oversee the education of children in care on behalf of the ‘corporate parents/guardians’ must not be undermined by an education system that is still too geared to satisfying the needs of able middle-class parents who can make full use of a market-based schooling system.

In my post in January, I called for a Jacob’s law to ensure no child was left without a school place following a move either in care or for any other reason during the school year. Since then, I have heard of too many examples of children, often with complex educational needs, where a family move has meant the child has been denied a school place for far too long. We can debate home schooling when at the behest of the parents, but ‘no schooling’ because of the failure of some part of the state, whether a local authority, a diocese or an Academy Trust, is just not acceptable.

I hope that many Councillors and activists will read this report from The Commission on Young Lives and take action ahead of local authority budgets being set in February to ensure everything possible is done to improve the lot of these young people.

Some children do need to be moved away from their ‘home’ area for safety reasons, but these moves should be exceptional and not routine. No child of secondary age should be moved from a comprehensive system to a selective system where they have no access to selective schools regardless of their perceived ability levels.

We must care for the most vulnerable of our young people in a fit and proper manner and not as an afterthought.

Time for Jacob’s Law

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The naming of a young person in Serious Case Review Report is rare. But this week the Report into the death of Jacob in Oxfordshire contained his name. The family gave permission, and hope it will ensure the report is more widely read and acted upon. If so, it is a brave decision, and one that I applaud.

You can read the Report at https://www.oscb.org.uk/oscb-publishes-a-child-safeguarding-practice-review-concerning-jacob/ Full report link at bottom of the press notice

Three agencies, the Police, Children’s Social Services and Education have learning points to take from the Review. In this blog, I will concentrate on the education aspects, as they contain a message heard before on this blog.

Jacob was born in Oxfordshire, later moved to Northumbria, where I suspect he was educated in a First School, and then a Middle School, before being moved in Year 6 to an ‘alternative education provision’ – presumably a PRU?

In July 2017, note the date, the family returned to Oxfordshire. The Report concludes that:

5.1 He was not on roll at any education provision and was a child missing education for 22 months

Jacob’s mandatory need for education was not provided by Oxfordshire County Council when he lived at home and when he was in the care of the local authority both in and when out of county for 5 months. Four educational settings were asked to take Jacob on roll, however largely due to his perceived behaviours and risks to other students he remained off roll for almost 2 years. Jacob’s family were offered the right of appeal when places were refused. His situation was considered by education panels such as the In Year Fair Access Panel and Children Missing Education to little effect and his needs were overseen and monitored by various professionals, including the Virtual School and the Independent Reviewing Officer Service whilst in local authority care. There were no formal dispute resolutions raised14 by Children’s Social Care and his situation was not escalated to the Education Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA) as it should have been.

Had this been an isolated case then this would be understandable, but a month before Jacob arrived back in Oxfordshire I had had an exchange in public with the Cabinet Member for Education at the June 2017 Cabinet meeting of the County Council. Not all questions are for political gain, and this was one where I genuinely thought that there was an issue to be addressed. The question asked:

Oxfordshire county council CABINET – 20 JUNE 2017 ITEM 4 – QUESTIONS FROM COUNTY COUNCILLORS

Question from Councillor Howson to Councillors Harrod and Hibbert-Biles “How many children taken into care over the past three school years and placed ‘out county’ have had to wait for more than two weeks to be taken onto the roll of a school in the area where they have been moved to and what is the longest period of time a child has waited for a place at a school in the area where they have been re-located to during this period?” 

As you will see, I asked both the Education Cabinet Member and Cllr Harrod for Children’s Social Services and received this answer:

Answer Over the past three years it has been exceptional for a Looked After Child to be taken onto the roll of an out of county school in under two weeks. Indeed, of the nine cases of primary age pupils we’ve looked at, the quickest a pupil was placed was 12 days (there were two) and the slowest was 77 days. For the 22 secondary age pupils the picture is even worse, with 3 weeks the quickest placement and a couple taking fully 6 months to get some of our most vulnerable young people into a stable school setting.

The main reason for this completely unacceptable state of affairs is that the Council has no power to direct an academy to admit a Looked After Child. The only way we can force an academy’s hand is to get a direction from the Educations & Skills Funding Agency and this, as you can see from the foregoing times, can be a very long winded bureaucratic process.

The fact that it takes so long for academies to admit our Looked After Children shows how doggedly our officers pursue the matter; I suspect that many other local authorities simply give up when they meet an intransigent academy that doesn’t want to take responsibility for educating their vulnerable young people.

The minutes of the meeting note my supplementary question and the response as:

Supplementary: In response to an invitation from Councillor Howson for the Cabinet Member to work with Councillor Howson and the labour opposition to see what could be done Councillor Hibbert-Biles recognised that it was a national situation, and she would be asking for a meeting with local MPs and relevant minister.

How distressing to read the national recommendation in the Serious Case Review that:

Recommendation 2: This Review asks the Department for Education to acknowledge the education key learning and findings from Jacob’s Review and provide feedback as to the effectiveness of the Education and Skills Funding Agency process in resolving issues in a timely manner. The Review asks the Department of Education to provide statute and guidance to local areas and their communities on how to manage the Governance arrangements with academy run schools and local education departments who currently cannot be mandated to accept children on roll.

And in the local recommendations that:

Action Plan 2: The Education System

The key learning set out below is fully addressed in this action plan for children in the education system in Oxfordshire, overseen by the Chair of the OSCB Safeguarding in Education Sub-Group Key Learning:

An education system that ensures:

1. The paramount importance of the role of schools in keeping children safe

2. An education package is put in place in a timely manner for those children who may show challenging behaviours

3. Those children missing education are known and action is swift

This Action Plan should pay particular attention to ensuring: – Restorative work to resolve the fragmented arrangements between academy schools, alternative provisions and the local authority to ensure collective ownership – Policy and procedures to track when children are not on roll – The function of Education Panels in Oxfordshire (In Year Fair Access and Children Missing Education) – The local application of the Education Skills Funding Agency intervention – Education packages for children who may be at risk of exploitation and also present a risk to others.

For those that read the whole Report, there is further evidence on page 31 and footnote 56 of other issues about school admissions around the same time.

Here’s what I wrote on this blog on the 23rd June 2017:

In my post on 11th June, after the outcome of the general election was known, I suggested some issues that could still be addressed by a government without an overall majority. First among these was the issue of school places for young people taken into care and placed outside of the local authority. They have no guarantee of access to a new school within any given time frame at present. It seemed to me daft that a parent could be fined for taking a child out of school for two weeks to go on holiday but a local authority could wait six months for a school place to be provided for a young person taken into care.

The Cabinet Question reproduced above then appears followed by:

I found the answer deeply depressing. However, the good news is that MPs from the three political parties representing Oxfordshire constituencies have agreed to work together to take the matter forward. Thank you to MPs, Victoria Prentice, Layla Moran and Anneliese Dodds, for agreeing to seek action to remedy this state of affairs.

If readers have data about the issue elsewhere in England, I would be delighted to hear from you, so pressure can be put on officials nationally to ensure a rapid change in the rules.

I had forgotten that unique letter signed by every Oxfordshire MP after I had made my suggestion.

Nothing happened. Jacob died. We cannot wait any longer.

The DfE must act now to ensure all children have a school place within a specified time frame, whether they move to a new area or are excluded by a school. There must be a register of unplaced children of school age that is regularly reviewed by a senior officer and a politician in each local authority, and Ofsted should update the Secretary of State each year about the national picture.

It is time for a Jacob’s Law. His death will not then have been for nothing.

Read more on this BBC Report into the case https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-55841644

Children in Care

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The reports from the Children’s’ Commissioner on Children in Care published today are alarming. https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/ The number of young people taken into care has been increasing over the past few years for a number of different reasons. Some local authorities tend to take children into care at a younger age than others. Some have more than can be placed with families, albeit sometimes even those placed with families are not located close to where they have been growing up.

A lack of foster families – not just parents since other children in the family need to be part of the decision to foster – especially for more challenging teenagers and groups of siblings can be a real problem. My own family ancestry includes a family group split up in the 1920s. They were fortunate that they were able to keep in touch and retain their familial bonds, even after one was adopted.

The challenge of being moved around, often at short notice and involving a change of school, must be a terrible burden.

A child in care once wrote:

“I moved again toady

Discoloured, ripped bin bags struggled to hold my things.”

We cannot countenance the pain felt by such a young person. Their need to hit out becomes more understandable. Less so, the failure of the State to recognise their needs and to allow any undue profits to be made from their situations by the private sector.

The Children’s Commission Stability Index 2020 identifies that

Just over 1 in 10 children in care (8,000 children) experienced multiple placement moves in 2018/19. This rate has remained largely unchanged since 2016. Looking over the longer term, 1 in 4 children in care in both 2018 and 2019 (13,000 children) have experienced 2+ placement moves over 2 years.

More than half of children in care in both 2017 and 2019 have experienced at least one placement change over this 3 year period. These rates have remained broadly constant since 2016.

Older children are more likely to experience multiple placement moves in a year than other children in care. 14% of children in care aged 16+ and 11.5% of children aged 12-15 have had two or more placement moves in 2018/19. Rates are highest amongst 12-15 year olds who also entered care aged 12-15, where nearly 1 in 5 of these children experienced multiple placement moves in 2018/19.

Along with Special education Needs, where demand has also risen significantly, children and young people in care is also an area that need additional funding to address the current shortcomings in the system.

We must also ensure that the young people have a voice that can be heard through groups such as local Children in Care Councils and that local councillors take an active interest in those for whom that have corporate parenting responsibility. Do civil leaders or even ward councillors often visit their local children’s homes and acknowledge the work that foster families are doing? I know that the best do.

These reports need to be read and acted upon at all levels.

No room in the school

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Last week the Children’s Commissioner for England published a disturbing report about children placed into care and moved away form their local area. Entitled Pass the parcel: children posted around the care system is resonated with concerns raised by this blog in the past about the education of these children. https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/cco-pass-the-parcel-children-posted-around-the-care-system.pdf

The report highlighted the fact that 30,000 children are placed in care setting ‘out of their area’. Of these, some 11,000 are more than 20 miles from what they term ‘home’, with 2,000 placed more than 100 miles away. There may be good reasons for such a move. These include safeguarding issues such as avoiding former gangs or groups that were sexually exploiting the child.

However, the Children’s Commissioner Report suggests that often this type of move is because there is nowhere locally for these children to live. Pressure on Children’s Social services was always going to intensify as the number of children taken into care increased.   With local government having experienced a period of significant funding cutbacks from government it is not a surprise that services where need is expanding, such as this, are facing particular challenges, especially as the concept of  a ‘just in time’ economy meant resources could not be funded to be on stand-by if needed..

This blog has highlighted the issue of schooling for these children placed ‘out of area’ in several previous posts. Indeed, all Oxfordshire MPs in 2017 wrote to the Minister about the matter. As a result, it is disturbing that the Children’s Commissioner’s Report highlight this issue as still a matter for concern.

We spoke to children during September and October and many of them had no school place for the beginning of the school year. This was a common occurrence for older children, a number of whom were stuck waiting for decisions from professionals. This waiting game could last weeks or months, despite statutory duties to prioritise education, and in the case of emergency placements to secure suitable education within 20 school days.14 Virtual School professionals responsible for managing education plans for looked after children informed us that when children are placed outside of their local area it can contribute to delays because different areas have different application procedures to be understood and navigated. We were advised that children with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans15 usually suffer further setbacks because their applications must go via Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) teams and because schools take time to assess whether they can meet children’s needs. Page 15 of the Report – my emphasis.

In all, the Report concludes that ‘5% (140 children) of this out of area group missed a term of school or more, compared to 2% of those staying in their home local authority.’ The Report doesn’t identify the reasons why finding a school place should be so time-consuming for these young people whose lives have already been disrupted. Is the issue especially bad in areas where there are clusters of Children’s homes taking in children placed into care?

The Report concludes with the recommendation that:

‘The DfE ensure that its review of the role of virtual school heads looks at education processes in response to out of area placements. This review, which is already in progress, should consider: how virtual school heads can have a greater role in placement decisions; giving local authorities powers to direct academy schools to admit children placed away from their home areas; how delays in school transfers can be minimised for these children, especially unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) and children with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans, including how admissions processes can be simplified; how children can be kept in mainstream schools as far as possible.’   Page 17 of the Report

I would add and also look at what happens when children used to a comprehensive style of schooling are placed in secondary modern schools. These young people deserve better from Society.