Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Accepted
Potential innovation risks being hampered by inflexibility in the wider system of children’s social care.
Recommendation
Potential innovation risks being hampered by inflexibility in the wider system of children’s social care. The Department intended the Innovation Programme to both improve outcomes for children in the social care system and produce savings. Residential care in children’s homes is especially expensive, while outcomes for children appear better for those supported in kinship settings. The Department intends its response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care to promote support for keeping children in kinship groups or foster care as preferred alternatives. However, we have seen many examples of local barriers to supporting children in these settings, including inflexibility around the costs required to accommodate children taken into kinship care or foster homes, and help around the work and lifestyle changes required to effectively support them. The local government funding system is not always good at adapting to these needs, which risks resulting in more expensive residential provision being required. Recommendation: The Department should work with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities and HM Treasury to develop plans for addressing the local funding boundaries and barriers that stop children getting the help they require.
Government Response Summary
The government agreed and stated its implementation strategy addresses the recommendation by working closely with DLUHC and HMT, pivoting service use to early family help and support, testing Family Network Support Packages, and delivering a fostering recruitment and retention programme.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented The department already works closely with both the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and HM Treasury (HMT) at working and ministerial levels. All departments have an interest in children’s social care policy given the considerable impact on local government funding and council budgets. In 2021-22, local authorities spending on children’s and young people’s services was £11.9 billion. This has increased by 32% (£2.9 billion) since 2015. The department has worked in close collaboration with DLUHC and HMT on the publication of Children's social care: Stable Homes, Built on Love which seeks to put children’s services on a long-term sustainable footing by pivoting majority service use to early family help and support and, where appropriate, increased (and more easily accessible) use of fostering and kinship arrangements. The government is therefore satisfied that the publication of its implementation strategy addresses this recommendation. The government wants local authorities to use funding flexibly where there are financial barriers to implementing family-led alternatives to care, through family network support packages. The department will test how to optimise implementation of Family Network Support Packages in local areas, alongside reforms to Family Help and child protection, through an end-to-end Families First for Children Pathfinder. Further, the department will be delivering an initial fostering recruitment and retention programme in the North-East Regional Improvement and Innovation Alliance. This will introduce a regional support hub and targeted communications and will aim to improve retention using the evidence-based model Mockingbird. The aim is to create end-to-end improvements in fostering recruitment and retention. This initial programme will allow the department to test and develop a best practice regional model that can then be delivered more widely.