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Select Committee · Education Committee

Children's Homes

Status: Closed Opened: 15 Mar 2021 Closed: 16 Feb 2023 38 recommendations 21 conclusions 1 report

The inquiry will focus on children’s homes. It will examine a number of areas including educational outcomes and destinations, the quality of support provided by children’s homes, unregulated provision, rates of criminalisation, the sufficiency of children’s home places, and the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read the call for evidence for more detail about the … Show more

Clear

Reports

1 report
Title HC No. Published Items Response
Second Report - Educational poverty: how children in reside… HC 57 8 Jul 2022 59 Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

2 items
51 Conclusion Second Report - Educational poverty: ho… Rejected

Just 2% of care leavers go on to do an apprenticeship.

Just 2% of care leavers go on to do an apprenticeship. To address this, the Department must strategically weigh the apprenticeship levy in favour of care-experienced young apprentices under age 25. Too much of the levy is going unspent, the Department reports that £250 million was unspent in 2020/21. Unspent … Read more

Government response AI summary
The government acknowledges the barriers faced by care leavers in apprenticeships and describes existing bursaries and employer incentives. However, it rejects weighing the apprenticeship levy in favor of care-experienced young apprentices and increasing the apprentice minimum wage, stating that employers should pay wages and the …
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Department for Education
52 Recommendation Second Report - Educational poverty: ho… Rejected

Where a care leaver is over 25, and an apprenticeship would be their first qualification...

Where a care leaver is over 25, and an apprenticeship would be their first qualification since leaving compulsory education, the Department must raise the age limit for receipt of the £1,000 apprenticeship bursary from age 25 to age 30. This would recognise that some looked-after children take longer to fulfil … Read more

Government response AI summary
The government believes that 25 is a reasonable point of transition and that targeting support on care leavers aged 18–24 to help them as they move to independent living is the best use of resources, so they will not raise the age limit for the …
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Department for Education

Oral evidence sessions

6 sessions
Date Witnesses
1 Mar 2022 Fran Oram · Department for Education, Will Quince · Department for Education View ↗
1 Feb 2022 Children's Home - young people session View ↗
11 Jan 2022 Dame Rachel de Souza · Inspiration Trust, Dame Rachel de Souza · Office of the Children's Commissioner for England, Juliette Cammaerts · Office of the Children's Commissioner for England, Yvette Stanley · Ofsted View ↗
16 Nov 2021 Andrew Isaac · Children’s Services Development Group, Charlotte Ramsden OBE · Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Jonathan Whalley · St Christopher’s Fellowship, Michelle Lee-Izu · Barnardo’s View ↗
19 Oct 2021 Hannah McCowen · National Care Leavers Benchmarking Forum, and Catch 22, Mark Russell · The Children’s Society, Patrick Ward · National Association of Virtual School Headteachers (NAVSH), Victoria Langer · Become View ↗
20 Jul 2021 Anne Longfield, Former Children’s Commissioner, Josh MacAlister, Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, The Rt Hon. the Lord Adonis View ↗

Who gave evidence

17 witnesses
WitnessOrganisationSessions
Andrew Isaac · Independent Chair Children’s Services Development Group 1
Anne Longfield, Former Children’s Commissioner — 1
Charlotte Ramsden OBE · President Association of Directors of Children’s Services 1
Dame Rachel de Souza · Chief Executive Inspiration Trust 1
Dame Rachel de Souza · Children’s Commissioner for England Office of the Children's Commissioner for England 1
Fran Oram · Portfolio Director for Children’s Social Care Ref… Department for Education 1
Hannah McCowen · Manager National Care Leavers Benchmarking Forum, and Catch 22 1
Jonathan Whalley · Chief Executive St Christopher’s Fellowship 1
Josh MacAlister, Independent Review of Children’s Social Care — 1
Juliette Cammaerts · Director of Policy and Planning Office of the Children's Commissioner for England 1
Mark Russell · Chief Executive The Children’s Society 1
Michelle Lee-Izu · Interim Co-CEO Barnardo’s 1
Patrick Ward · Chair National Association of Virtual School Headteachers (NAVSH) 1
The Rt Hon. the Lord Adonis — 1
Victoria Langer · Interim Chief Executive Become 1
Will Quince · Minister for Children and Families Department for Education 1
Yvette Stanley · National Director for Regulation and Social Care Ofsted 1

Correspondence

2 letters
DateDirectionTitle
6 Sep 2022 — Correspondence from the Schools Adjudicator on the Children’s Homes Report, dat…
6 Sep 2022 — Correspondence from Ofsted on Calcot Children’s Homes and safeguarding procedur…