As mainstream British media focuses on crisis news and ignores government work that makes a real long-term difference to people’s lives, important legislation is swept under the rug.
Instead, people are interviewed in the streets after the local election results, referring vaguely to the need for ‘change’ without further questions about change in what exactly. This suits the media’s need to keep sensationalizing, moving from crisis to crisis. The result is that most people do not cast their vote for policies which make a long-term difference to people’s lives, and some do not bother to vote at all.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act
Where was the media coverage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act which passed into law on 29 April? It will result in the biggest change in decades to the schooling of children in England. Here is brief list of improvements it will bring:
- More children eligible for free school meals.
- Free breakfast clubs in every primary school.
- Caps on cost of school uniform.
- All teachers must be qualified and pay will be standardised across the sector.
- All state-funded schools, including academies, to teach the new curriculum.
- Councils allowed to open all types of school, not just academies.
- School improvement orders to be more case-specific.
For vulnerable children:
- More local authority checks on children not in school or home-schooling.
- A single unique identifier (SUI) per child to share information between schools and other services.
- Teachers to have greater role in decision-making about safeguarding, by better links to social workers, health services, and the police.
- £2.4bn of extra money to reform children’s social care over the next three years.
- Improving family help services.
- Prioritise family fostering over residential care.
This is an impressive list of improvements that is the culmination of two years work since the Labour government was elected. So why wasn’t it trumpeted loudly across the English nation? Instead, the media team potters out into shopping streets to focus the camera on people unaware of how government is proposing to make a difference.
Panel discussion of the Act
The Institute for Government is the go-to place for examining how government is performing in the UK. It is non-party affiliated and attracts experts and civil servants to its hybrid events.
On 12 May, it held an expert panel discussion on the new Children’s Act, with the Minister for Children and Families, Josh MacAlister; a lead spokesperson for local authority directors of children’s services, Rachel Wordall, and also Amber Dellar, IFG researcher at IFG who led a report on fixing the children’s social care market.
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When I tuned into the discussion, Rachel was explaining a recent report that exposed what is wrong with the placement system for vulnerable children. There are not enough placements in the right areas, which means vulnerable children are ripped away from their familiar networks of school, neighbourhood and extended family.
Because of high house prices, placement facilities are selected in the cheapest areas. Yet, since 2010, the core costs of residential placement has doubled. Spending needs to be influenced by wider family consultations (aka – listen to the grannies!). More cross agency care is needed, taking account of mental health and security concerns. There needs to be a more assertive child protection system to intervene earlier.
Then, MacAlister, the minister, outlined his take on the new policy, pointing out that it is based on 80+ recommendations. The starting point is:
Who loves this child?
Which is what needs to be established for each vulnerable child. Kinship fostering (Grannies, grandads, aunties volunteering) gets far better results than residential placements. An extra £2.4bn of government money is being put into a three year programme for this ‘family first’ system.
But this is to be a one-off reset of the system. There will be earlier intervention in troubled families, and more skilled inter-disciplinary decision-making. There will be greater attention to how the money is spent. It is true that there are few options for high needs children, like specialist residential NHS care for children under DoLs (deprivation of liberty orders). Containment may be the best short-term option, but what in the longer term? Referring to around 153 local authorities, MacAlister said there is more opportunity for pooling, as in shared care funds across the integrated care boards of the NHS.
Rachel interjected into the discussion about costs by pointing out that the extra cash amounts to only about 1% of total local authority spend. So, what if local authority funding gets squeezed further?
Fresh from the IFG report on the market for social care, there were some astounding facts:
- It can cost £8000 per week for a child in residential care.
- Over the last 10 years, 90% of such care in England is now privatised.
- Proportionately more children in England than in Scotland are in residential care.
Local authorities vary from 6-65% of children’s placements being to privately owned for-profit facilities. These are increasingly owned by global companies which use the profits to pay off interest on investment loans and to shareholders.
Rising housing costs
It was asked: should there be capping of such profits? The experts suggested various ways of restructuring the market. The underlying problem, of course, is the rising cost of any type of housing in many areas of England. Private providers do not necessarily build or buy facilities where they are most needed.
Even though these days facilities are not like the big institutional buildings of yore, but are rather family homes for up to four, more of a size that fits into a local neighbourhood, it is difficult to commit the capital to the required property. Planning decisions may go against the location.
Looking long term
Minister MacAlister is setting up an office for more oversight of the financial decisions for children’s care. Rachel, ex-children’s services director, thinks commissioning needs more long-term commitment: requisition spaces/rooms for five years ahead, even if not yet required for specific children. Reliable commissioning would mean easier borrowing terms, for instance for non-profit associations, which would edge out the profit-hungry companies in the longer term. Regional care co-ops could buy into facilities on a block basis.
Local authority finance is in crisis. The total money from national government has been reduced since the 2008 financial crisis brought on austerity. The Reform councillors came into local government (here in Kent) promising to reduce costs, but in fact have now increased the council rates for next year. The biggest items in the kcc local government budget are adult social care and childrens’ services
Less cuts, more planning
So, rather than making cuts, the best way forward is to utilize the money allocated differently, which is exactly what the national Labour government are now proposing to do. Not only will the new ways of working save money, they say: it will also be better for the vulnerable children.
Aim for 10,000 fostering placements, especially for kinship carers. KCC is already advertising for these. As Minister MacAlister proclaimed, the basic question to ask is Who loves this child? He is an ex-teacher, so he probably knows what he is talking about. Educators can play a role in identifying a child’s best prospects.
