Tag Archives: Children’s Services

Will local government reorganisation pose a risk to Children’s Services?

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I don’t often comment on Children’s Services in local government, preferring to stick to education about which I hopefully know more. However, having served a period of time as a Cabinet member for Children’s Services in a shire county, I couldn’t resist reading the report published last week by the DfE from the commissioner put into Devon County Council to oversee the improvement oft heir Children’s services.

There were two interesting comments from that report caught my eye.

The first deal with the issue of local government re-organisation: not strictly part of the Commissioner’s brief, but an interesting and thoughtful comment

“Although not in the remit of this particular piece of work it would be wrong not to highlight a second significant risk. The current round of Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) consultations is already consuming large amounts of political and operational time. However, that isn’t the main risk. The bigger concern would be for any recommendation which leads to the break up and fragmentation of Devon CC and the existing arrangements for children’s services. Given the positive improvement trajectory I have seen and identified in this report and the critical importance of having a well led and well functioning children’s services for the local population anything that breaks that model would risk stopping the existing work in its tracks with an even bigger risk that things would quickly slip backwards. As stated, this is not strictly in my brief to comment on, but the potential impact of LGR on services that are now showing signs of improvement should be appropriately considered by government as part of their decision making process.”

The second comment was, of course, interesting to me as a Liberal Democrat.

“Following the recent local elections Devon now has new political leadership. The Lib Dem group have made an impressive ‘fresh start’ and they are very clear that they will be judged on the improvements they are determined to see in Children’s Services. Children’s services are undoubtedly the top priority for Devon County Council. Three cabinet members (including the Leader) hold portfolios across Children’s services – Education, Lead Member and SEND. My observations of two cabinet meetings and scrutiny alongside additional face to face meetings assures me that the Leader and his team are very serious about bringing about the improvements needed.”

Commissioner’s report on children’s services

Managing a Children’s Services is probably a much more complex task than managing adult social services in local authorities, as Children’s Services encompasses not only the whole of the remaining education functions of a local authority, but also children in care or at risk, plus youth justice, and youth services, as well as relationships with the NHS over SEND. This wide range of activities may be why so many local authorities have received adverse reports over the past few years.

Indeed, an analysis of the reports by the size of the authority may well help to support the view of Devon’s commissioner about local government review. Is there a minimum size for a Children’s Service to function effectively, and does it need good political oversight?

Funding SEND – is the current system fair?

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The DfE has just published data that sets the context for the expected White Paper, due this autumn. Looking at the data on the High Needs Block that has been the basic building block for the funding of SEND (special needs and disabilities), I can see why there must have been some very intense discussions between the DfE and the Treasury. Section 251: 2025 to 2026 – GOV.UK

The data on individual special school funding only refers to maintained schools where local authorities are responsible for oversight of the budgets. It would be really helpful to see similar ‘cost per place’ data for academy special schools and alternative provision, including Pupil Referral Units, even though they have a different financial year to maintained schools.    

The data for the municipal financial year of 2025-26 for Oxfordshire was set while I was still the cabinet member for Children’s Services, including maintained schools. The data on funding per place for the three maintained special schools in Oxfordshire is illuminating. There is a total of 522 such schools in England listed in the data. The most expensive costs £8.2 million per place, and judging by its website does a great job educating some very challenged young people from the start of their education journey to adulthood.

Now special schools come in many different forms with clearly different funding needs. A school for pupils with hearing loss and no other disability might need less funding per place than a school for non-verbal young people with physical disabilities in addition

The three Oxfordshire maintained schools were placed 74th, 155th and 170th in the list of 522 schools, with funding per place ranging from £840,000 to £1,2 million. Schools with £2,000,000 per place of more were ranked 373 of higher in the list. Does this mean that Oxfordshire is efficient or under-funded compared with some other local areas? I do wonder.

Even allowing for issues such as higher salary costs in London and surrounding areas, the range of cost per place for similar types of school seems worth looking into more closely, and that is where the academy special schools’ data would be useful in order to allow full consideration of cost per place by local government areas.

The current High Needs block distribution formula clearly isn’t working, and I wonder whether equity of funding is an issue for the team putting together the White Paper? How does anyone judge what is fair in funding levels? Wiser heads than mine will know the answer to that question.

Of course, the other key funding issue for SEND, especially outside of the urban areas, is the cost of transport. The Section 251 budget statement for planned expenditure during 2025-26 by Oxfordshire at Line 175092 of the DfE’s spreadsheet suggests expected spending on SEND transport, including for post-16 students of around f£26.4 million. This compares with expected home to school transport costs of just under £21 million for all other pupils entitled to fee transport.

How will the White Paper deal with this cost? Hopefully, it will recognise that such costs should be met by government up to age 18 or even 19 for all such pupils, and not be discretionary beyond age 16. Could a government funded driver scheme for unemployed adults with a driving licence remove the profit element from such expenditure or would the administration costs be more than the saving made by not using private sector firms?

These are not easy issues to grapple with, but starting with some values about the needs of children with SEND would be a good basis for the outcomes in the White Paper. However, as my earlier analysis of Pupil Teacher Ratios demonstrated, funding and values are not common cause in government spending, regardless of the political persuasion of the government in power. Oxford Teacher Services -publications

Not an area for funding ‘cuts’.

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At the end of September, the DfE published its annual look at local authority expenditure on education and children’s services. Even though the rate of conversion by maintained schools to become academies is a mere trickle these days, the data on education spending on schools is difficult to judge over time in terms of trends, except to note that these are challenging times for schools. Planned local authority and school expenditure: 2022 to 2023 financial year – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Elsewhere in the budgets of Children’s Services, it is not cuts that are uppermost in the minds of directors of these services, rather how to find the cash to fund continued growth in the need for their work.

At least the growth in the number of Looked After Children (LACs or CLA in government terminology) seems to have slowed to just a one per cent increase. According to the government release, ‘in 2022-23 planned net expenditure on CLA is £5.4 billion, a 10.4% increase from 2021-22. Expenditure on CLA consistently forms the largest proportion of LA spending on children’s and young people’s services. It represents 52.6% of this expenditure in 2022-23, slightly higher than in 2021-22 (51.1%).’ 

The notes in the government’s data release add that

‘Planned net expenditure increased across all categories for CLA, with the largest rises seen in asylum seeker children (53.0%), education of CLA (17.1%) and residential care (16.2%). The latest data published by the Home Office, shows a rise of 67.0% in the number of unaccompanied asylum seeker children applications for the year ending June 2022. Accordingly, LAs may be anticipating an increase in UASC numbers.’

Elsewhere, the releases notes that that there was a decline of £11.1 million in universal services for young people, presumably to help pay for the increase elsewhere, but that some £5 million extra was spent on targeted service for vulnerable young people.

There is no doubt some relief in the effects of the decline in the birth rate on spending on Early Years support, where fewer children in the age groups means less expenditure at a constant level of service.

The other area of concern for both central government and local authorities is the spending on Special Needs.  According to the release, ‘there were 96,000 planned SEN places (September to March) with total funding for the financial year 2022-23 of £916 million. This is an increase of 2,300 places and £20 million since 2021-22, and similar to 2018-19 figures which had the highest planned places and expenditure since 2013-14.’ With the growth in the secondary school population this figure is only set to increase further in the next few years.

After falling from around 17,500 in 2015-16, to a low of 11,300 in 2018-19, the number of places funded in Pupil Referral Units, or PRUs, once again remained above 13,000 in the latest data, with a small increase on the previous year’s number. This is an area where schools, whether academies or not can work together with local authorities to try to ensure as many young people remain in mainstream or special schools as possible and are not sent to PRUs.

Overall, these figures were collected in a period when inflation was still low. Those for next year will reflect how well Children’s Services have been able to cope with the turmoil of the past year and that of the coming winter.  

Unlike the previous post, this is not an area of public services where it is easy to areas where cuts can be made without damaging the lives of vulnerable young people.

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.

DfE to review ‘Children’s Social Care’

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Last week the Secretary of State for Education announced a  ‘wholesale independent review of children’s social care will set out to radically reform the system, improving the lives of England’s most vulnerable children so they experience the benefits of a stable, loving home.’ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/education-secretary-launches-review-of-childrens-social-care

According to the DfE, ‘the review will reshape how children interact with the care system, looking at the process from referral through to becoming looked after. It will address major challenges such as the increase in numbers of looked after children, the inconsistencies in children’s social care practice, outcomes across the country, and the failure of the system to provide enough stable homes for children.’

These terms of reference remind me somewhat of the Carter Review into ITT, similarly led by a chair with links to the DfE. This review comes after a period where successive Ministers have not seemed much interested in this part of the work of the DfE.

I hope the review will tackle the issue of the relationship between social work and education. Should the social work part of the system be re-integrated with adult social work in local authorities as a family service; removed from a joint service with education to create a distinct service reporting to a cabinet member in each local authority and with a statutory head of service or remain as it is?

The present system of a hybrid department worked when schooling was travelling towards a national service under Labour and Michael Gove’s academy programme. Now it sits less well with a director often taking strategic decisions about an area of operation where they sometimes don’t know the right questions to ask.

Education departments should retain responsibility for the Virtual School and also need strengthened powers over in-year admissions for children taken into care required to move school. This blog has made that point several times.

I favour a new service for children operating under a cabinet member in each local authority and supported by a corporate parenting committee or scrutiny panel. Each local authority should have a Children in Care Council run by young people that regularly surveys the views of the young people themselves.

I recall being powerfully moved after reading a poem written by a child in care about coming home and finding all her possessions in a couple of bin bags waiting in the hall for the social worker to arrive to take her to a new foster placement. No wonder these children are often troubled and not easy to teach at school.

Every ITT course should be addressed by both a child in care and an adopted child so that trainee teachers can confront the reality that they may never have experienced in their own lives.

Finally, I hope that the review is not long and drawn out, but reports quickly and that there will be the funds to back up its recommendations. These young people should no longer be left on the margins of society.

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.

Fostering needs more discussion

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Congratulations to the BBC’s Today programme for highlighting the issue of children that are in foster care. The discussion was spread across the whole programme this morning. It can be as hard being a child suddenly required to move their placement as it is coming into care for the first time, as listeners heard so eloquently this morning.

I am also concerned about the extent to which the fostering placement service should be a commercial enterprise, with carers seen as assets having a monetary value. There must be a question as to why these carers are not offered shares in such enterprises? More importantly, why are these enterprises not run as social enterprises and not profit-making ventures?

If the DfE has the gumption to take on the private sector and provide a free job-listing service for schools, why should it not ensure all foster placement activity is also in the public sector?

My only serious concern with the BBC programme, that followed an in-depth analysis of the adoption process on The World at One earlier this year, was that the Today programme didn’t mention the issue of school placements for children in care and especially what happens when children are moved school in the middle of a school term? Not all academies subscribe to a local in-year admissions process, and it can be challenging to ensure a quick placement for some of these children, especially in a different local authority area to the authority responsible for the placement.

With lots of children’s homes, and no doubt foster places as well, in areas with selective schools, how do we ensure that these children do not lose out in their education? Virtual schools do great work, but must battle against a system that isn’t in any way integrated to deal with this sort of problem even though the Pupil Premium acknowledges the additional financial needs faced by these young people in schools and colleges.

If either the Secretary of State or the Permanent Secretary at the DfE were listening to the Today programme this morning perhaps they would like to instruct officials and Ministers to review how the education of children in care can be further enhanced, especially over the issue of changing school mid-term.

Finally, there is the issue of what happens to children when they exit care? For those interested in the whole issue of children and the care and adoption services, I recommend a visit to The Rees Centre website at http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/rees-centre/ and some of the research that they have conducted over the past few years.

 

I need convincing about this idea

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As long-time readers of this blog will know, the education of children taken into care has long been a concern of mine. The problem of having to change school both mid-year and unexpectedly has sometimes been further exacerbated by the unwillingness of some academies to take such children when they apply for admission.

As a result, I view this story in the Sunday Telegraph that was brought to my attention by the LGiU cuts service I receive as a Councillor with somewhat missed emotions

Cared-for children to receive private school bursaries

Children in care will be given discounted places at private schools from next September. Children’s minister Nadhim Zahawi said scholarships and bursaries would be made available for disadvantaged children, with ten regional hubs comprising councils, social workers and public schools to be established to start placing the children with private schools. Bursaries provided jointly by councils and schools on a 40/60 split will be used to pay for their full-time education. Other cared-for children will also be able to enrol in debating clubs, drama classes, get help with university applications or have sports and music coaching, while remaining at their state schools.
The Sunday Telegraph, Page: 8

I wonder if these bursaries will only apply to children entering such schools in September at the start of the school year. If so, the children will be taken from whatever arrangements have been made for them already and put into yet another environment where they have no links. Could it work if these were day schools and the children could remain with their foster families or other placements? I am less certain if these were boarding schools. However, that would seem like the most attractive option at first sight, especially if schools paid 60% of the boarding fees. But the question then arises, what happens during the holidays? Do these children return to foster parents required to keep a space for them during term-time, but not paid for doing so? Any other alternative might mean the scheme costs more than present arrangements and that is only worthwhile if one has no faith in the state system of education. Might it also create a new form of children’s homes if they remained at the schools during the holidays?

Overall, the sentiment of the article could be read to suggest that children in care are neglected either by the staff in the homes, where a small minority reside these days, or by their foster families. In fact, many are very good at helping to build the non-academic skills of these children as the regular presentations by the Children in Care Council members to the Corporate Parenting Panel at Oxfordshire County Council can testify. That is not to acknowledge that extra cash will not be helpful. My preference would be to help combat the loneliness of those young adults leaving care and to support them through the especially challenging years of their lives, from 18-25.

Furthermore, the activities listed in the Sunday Telegraph article seem a bit skewed towards the 50% of society that will go to university and miss out on the other half. That is unless sport coaching involves all sports. Centres such as the Riverside Centre for Outdoor Learning in Oxford already do these confidence building. As they say of their work:

We work with learners (of any age) in a wide range of activities from sea kayaking to fairy cake making, from mountain walking to pizza cooking. When someone refers a young person, family, or even a team to us, we focus on what outcomes need to be worked towards. This approach gives us the best opportunity for success and is also the best way to achieve impact. Many of the young people who we work with lack confidence around learning and one of our key tenets is to work with the learner to show that they can be a ‘capable and a good learner’. We also provide accreditation opportunities (both internal and external). Accreditation is vital for young people who have not achieved in school, have low self-esteem or need confidence. It gives them something to put on their CV, or to talk about in an interview for college or work.

I would not want that work damaged by the new scheme just because it seems like a good idea to someone in Whitehall to involve the private school sector.