The appointment of specialist social workers to lead child protection cases will be piloted while a new framework will be introduced to support practitioners at the start of their careers, the government has said in its response to the care review.
The long-awaited children's social care implementation strategy, published today by the Department for Education (DfE), also includes plans to support councils recruit up to 500 social work apprentices and consultative proposals on reducing authorities' reliance on agency staff.
More on the DfE response to the care review
Announcing the strategy, children's minister Claire Coutinho said: “Children in care deserve the same love and stability as everyone else. Yet we’ve seen from the two tragic murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson that more needs to be done to protect our most vulnerable children.
'Strong relationships at heart of care system'
“Our wide-ranging reforms will put strong relationships at are the heart of the care system. From supporting our brilliant foster carers, kinship carers and social workers to getting early help to families and improving children’s homes, we want every child to get the support and protection they need.”The strategy is the DfE's response to the Independent Review of Children's Social Care, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel's inquiry into the murders of Arthur and Star and the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) study of the children's social care market, all issued last year.
DfE social care strategy: key points
- Funding: £200m in funding over two years. The care review called for £2.6bn over four years, with £1bn spent over the first two years.
- Social work training and development: An early career framework will be established, replacing the ASYE, as recommended by the review. Practitioners will be supported to develop, and be assessed against, the "skills and knowledge needed to support and protect vulnerable children", and, in years three to five, to develop into "expert practitioners". This will be tested by a group of early adopter councils with a view to full implementation in 2026. The National Assessment and Accreditation System, scrapped last year, will not be revived.
- Social work recruitment: The DfE will "explore ways to support the recruitment of up to 500 additional child and family social worker apprentices" to help tackle staff shortages, though it has not provided details on how this will happen.
- Agency social work: The department has proposed bringing in national rules to reduce the cost and use of agency social workers in children's services. This would include capping the rates local authorities pay so that agency staff receive the equivalent of permanent workers doing the same role, once benefits have been taken into account.
- Family help: £45m will be allocated for up to 12 'families first for children pathfinder' areas to trial the care review proposal to introduce multidisciplinary family help services, to provide "non-judgmental", joined-up support for families affected by issues such as domestic abuse or poor mental health. This will bring together existing targeted early help and child in need services. As part of this, the DfE will consult on removing the requirement for social workers to lead child in need cases.
- Child protection: Child protection lead practitioners, who will have received "advanced specialist training", will be appointed to lead safeguarding cases in the pathfinder areas, as called for by the care review. As recommended by the care review, they will co-work such cases with family help teams. In addition, the pathfinders will test the national panel's proposal to set up multi-agency teams consisting of social workers, police officers and health professionals to carry out child protection work. The DfE will also consult on new multi-agency child protection standards as part of a review of Working Together to Safeguard Children in 2023.
- Independent reviewing officers and child protection conference chairs: The DfE has rejected the care review's proposal to abolish the independent reviewing officer role. Instead, it has proposed to review and strengthen it. The strategy did not reference the care review's separate proposal to abolish the child protection conference chair role.
- Involving family networks: The 12 pathfinders will test using family group decision-making, such as family group conferences, at an early stage to support parents minimise risks to children. In addition, seven areas will test providing family support network packages providing resources to help families care for children and avoid them going into care.
- Kinship care: A kinship care strategy will be published in 2023 while £9m will be spent on improving training and support for kinship carers. The government will also explore the case for the care review's recommendations of a financial allowance and the extension of legal aid for those who become special guardians or responsible for children through child arrangements orders.
- Foster care: £27m will be spent on a carer recruitment and retention programme over the next two years focused on shortage areas, such as sibling groups, teenagers, unaccompanied children, parent and child placements and children who have suffered complex trauma. The care review called for the recruitment of 9,000 carers over three years. In addition, foster carers will receive an above-inflation rise in minimum allowances to deal with rising costs.
- Commissioning care placements: The DfE has backed the care review's proposal to transfer responsibility for the commissioning of care placements from individual councils to regional groupings of authorities, regional care co-operatives (RCCs), which will initially be tested in two pathfinder areas before being rolled out. It has also accepted the CMA's proposal to commission a national body to provide help for authorities/RCCs in forecasting demand and procurement. It said these measures would address the insufficiency of placements for children in care, improve outcomes and tackle the excess profit-making identified by the CMA among the largest providers.
- Financial oversight of providers: It will also introduce a financial oversight regime for the largest children's home providers and independent fostering agencies (IFAs), similar to that for adult social care, to reduce the risks of providers exiting the market suddenly.
- Relationships for children in care and care leavers: £30m will be spent on family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes for looked-after children and care leavers, to help them find and maintain relationships, as the care review recommended.
- Support for care leavers: The suggested grant made available to children leaving care will increase from £2,000 to £3,000, while the bursary for those undertaking apprenticeships will rise from £1,000 to £3,000, broadly in line with care review recommendations.
- National standards and outcomes: The DfE will consult on a children's social care national framework, as proposed by the review, setting expected outcomes for children and families that should be achieved by all local authorities. The proposed outcomes would be for children and families to stay together and get the support they need, for children to be supported by their family network and to be safe in and out of home and for children in care and care leavers to have stable, loving homes. These will be underpinned by two "enablers": that the workforce is equipped and effective and leaders drive conditions for effective practice. Ofsted inspections will be aligned to the national framework.
Early career framework to be introduced
The DfE has accepted the care review's call for the establishment of an early career framework, replacing the assessed and supported year in employment once established. This would likely be in 2026, though the DfE said it would be trialled from this year.This would provide two years of "consistent, high-quality support and development", with "rigorous, supportive and fair assessment processes, which are integrated into the development and training aspects of the programme".
The care review recommended a five-year framework, with those who completed it gaining the status of expert practitioners.
The DfE said it would "look to develop an expert practitioner level of the ECF for years 3 to 5 post-qualifying", creating "a cohort of highly trained social workers capable of dealing with the most complex cases and spreading best practice".
Lead child protection practitioners
As recommended by the review, the DfE said it would pilot the introduction of a lead child protection practitioner in up to 12 areas that will also be trialling the care review's proposed establishment of 'family help' teams to provide early intervention to families in need.The department will also test the headline recommendation from the national panel's inquiry into Arthur and Star's murders, namely the creation of multi-agency expert units to lead child protection cases in each area.
"We want a model of child protection where multi-agency practitioners work as a team on a day-to-day basis, to provide better consistency and robust critical thinking and challenge to each other when making child protection decisions," it said.
However, it has rejected the care review's recommendation to abolish the independent reviewing officer role, though it said it would look to review and strengthen the role.
Action on agency social work
The care review also proposed a number of measures to reduce the "inexcusably high" use of agency social workers.These included restrictions on who can be hired and stricter adherence to regional agreements, plus funding to help councils set up not-for-profit staff banks that would be their first port of call for hiring temporary staff.
The DfE has set out proposals for national rules that local authorities would have to adhere to in engaging agency staff, in a consultation also published today.
It is proposing:
- National price caps on what local authorities may pay per hour for locums.
- A requirement for social workers who graduated in or after April 2024 to have a minimum of five years' post-qualified experience working within children’s social care and completion of the ASYE to be appointed to an agency post.
- A ban on agency project teams.
- A requirement for employers to request and provide references for all agency social worker candidates.
- That councils do not engage agency workers for a period of three months after they have left a substantive role within the same region (excluding certain exceptions).
- A requirement for a minimum six-week notice period for agency social workers.
- The collection and sharing of core agency and pay data, to support better workforce planning and the ability to monitor, enforce and assess the impact of the proposals.
