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Ofsted has sharpened its focus on stability for children in care in its judgments of social care providers, particularly children’s homes and independent fostering agencies.

The changes to its social care common inspection framework (SCCIF) are a response to concerns that some providers are rejecting referrals for children with complex needs due to concerns about the impact on their Ofsted ratings.

As a result, those children are being placed far from family or friends, experiencing multiple moves or ending up in unsuitable or unregistered accommodation.

Ratings concerns ‘driving rejection of children with complex needs’

Research for the regulator published last year found that 60% of local authorities believed these concerns were often or always a reason that homes rejected referrals for children with complex needs.

By contrast, 60% of children’s home providers said concerns about the impact of a child with complex needs on their rating were never or rarely a reason for rejecting a referral.

At the time of the research’s publication, Ofsted said there was almost no difference between SCCIF grades for homes that care for children with complex needs and those for all homes, with about four in five judged good or outstanding.

This reflected the fact that the SCCIF “was designed to focus on children’s progress and experiences, as opposed to their outcomes”, meaning inspectors should take account of children’s starting points.

However, in a blog post published last month, Ofsted’s national director for social care, Yvette Stanley, said that the perception persisted among some homes that taking on a child with more complex needs would hurt their rating.

Greater focus on stability in inspection framework

Ofsted said the changes, enacted last week, would put a sharper focus on:

• how providers promote and sustain stability for children, including those with high needs;
• how providers balance the needs of a child requiring placement with those already living in the setting;
• the timeliness of a provider’s work to prepare children for their next move;
• how accurately placement decisions reflect a provider’s statement of purpose.

“We want providers to be risk-aware, not risk-averse,” said Stanley.

“I hope these changes send a clear message that we will recognise providers who step up to support our children with complex needs, and who stick with them though the most difficult times.”

By Tim Spencer-Lane

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill was introduced in Parliament on 17 December 2024.

Part 1 of the bill contains reforms to children’s social care. Part 2 makes provision relating to education in England. Most of the social care reforms were foreshadowed in the policy paper, ‘Keeping children safe, helping families thrive’, which was published in November 2024.

This article summarises the main provisions that will impact on social workers.

Family group decision making

The bill would add a new section to the Children Act 1989 to impose a duty on local authorities who are considering making a court application for a care or supervision order, to offer a family group decision making (FGDM) meeting to the child’s parents or any person with parental responsibility for the child.

The purpose of the FGDM meeting is to enable a child’s family network to meet to discuss the welfare needs of the child and to make a proposal in response to concerns about the child’s welfare.

The duty does not apply if the local authority determines that it would not be in the child’s best interests.

Child protection and safeguarding

Safeguarding partners

The bill seeks to amend the Children Act 2004 to make it a requirement for the three safeguarding partners (the local authority, NHS integrated care board and police) in each local area to include education and childcare “relevant agencies” as mandatory participants in their multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. Currently, safeguarding partners only need to make arrangements to work with a “relevant agency” if they consider it appropriate to do so.

Multi-agency child protection teams

The bill would insert new sections into the Children Act 2004 to require safeguarding partners to establish and run at least one multi-agency child protection team in their area. The main purpose of these new teams is to support the local authority in delivering its child protection duties under section 47 of the Children Act 1989.

ICBs will be required to nominate a health professional with experience in relation to children’s health, while the police will be required to nominate an officer to be part of each multi-agency child protection team. The local authority is required to nominate someone with experience in education in relation to children and a social worker with experience in relation to children, and may appoint other appropriate individuals after consultation with safeguarding partners.

Information sharing

The bill would also amend the Children Act 2004 to impose a duty on specified persons and bodies to disclose information that may be relevant to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of a child, to other relevant persons in certain circumstances. The duty applies where the person considers that the disclosure may facilitate the exercise by the recipient of any of its functions that relate to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of children, unless disclosure would be detrimental to the child.

The duty to share information will apply to persons listed in section 11(1) of the Children Act 2004, including local authorities, ICBs, NHS trusts/foundation trusts, police forces, probation services and youth offending teams, along with education and childcare “relevant agencies”.

Consistent child identifier

The bill also makes provision, under the Children Act 2004, for a consistent child identifier (also known as a single unique identifier or SUI). Designated persons must include the consistent identifier when processing information about a child for safeguarding and promotion of welfare purposes.

Support for children in care or kinship care, and those leaving care

Kinship local offer

The bill would amend the Children Act 1989 to require local authorities to publish information about their general approach to supporting children in kinship care and kinship carers in their area, as well as financial support which may be available to them in their area (the “kinship local offer”).

Local authorities must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that children in kinship care and kinship carers receive the information in the kinship local offer.

Supporting educational achievement

Under amendments to the Children Act 1989, local authorities would be required to take appropriate measures to support the educational outcomes of children in need and children in kinship care.

The steps that can be taken under this duty include enabling children to overcome barriers to their educational achievement and improving educational attendance. The duty is a strategic duty, which does not extend to the educational outcomes of individual children.

The local authority must appoint at least one person to discharge the duty (in practice this is usually the virtual school head).

Supporting care leavers

The bill would also introduce a new provision in the Children Act 1989 to require each local authority to consider whether each former relevant child (up to age 25) requires “staying close support” and where their welfare requires it, to offer that support.

“Staying close support” is support to assist the former relevant child: (1) to find and keep suitable accommodation and (2) to access services relating to health and wellbeing, relationships, education and training, employment and participating in society. Support means the provision of advice, information and representation.

There are also amendments to the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to require each local authority to also publish the arrangements it has in place to support and assist care leavers in their transition to adulthood and independent living.

Accommodation of children

Regional co-operation

The bill seeks to amend the Children Act 1989 to give the secretary of state powers to direct two or more local authorities to make regional co-operation arrangements to carry out their functions in relation to the accommodation of looked after children.

The arrangements could be: (1) to carry out their strategic accommodation functions jointly, (2) for those functions to be carried out by one of the local authorities on behalf of the others or (3) for a corporate body, of a kind that may be specified in the secretary of state’s direction, to support them in carrying out those functions.

Deprivation of liberty

The bill also includes a number of changes to section 25 of the Children Act 1989. It would change the references from “restricting” liberty to “depriving” children of their liberty, to better reflect the nature and purpose of this section.

The bill would also provide for the authorisation of the deprivation of liberty of children in alternative placement types beyond just a secure children’s home. It brings within the scope of section 25 accommodation provided for the purpose of care and treatment of children that is capable of being used to deprive a child of their liberty (“relevant accommodation”).

The secretary of state would have powers to set out in regulations: (1) the maximum period for which a child may be kept in relevant accommodation both with and without the authority of a court, (2) the cohort of children who may be placed in relevant accommodation, and (3) a description of the alternative accommodation.

Currently, many children are being deprived of their liberty outside of a statutory framework, via the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court.

The government’s intention is to “provide an alternative statutory route to authorise the deprivation of liberty of a child in a more flexible form of accommodation, bringing more deprivation of liberty cases under a statutory framework via section 25, including its criteria for access, mandatory review points and parity with [secure children’s homes] in terms of access to legal aid”.

Regulating provider groups

The bill would give new powers to Ofsted in relation to parent undertakings (ie where more than one setting is owned or controlled by the same private or voluntary provider group).

The bill seeks to place a duty on parent undertakings to develop and implement an improvement plan where Ofsted have identified quality issues in multiple settings and reasonably suspects there are grounds for cancellation of registration in relation to those settings.

Should parent undertakings not comply with these requirements, Ofsted will have the power to issue an unlimited monetary penalty.

Tackling unregistered children’s homes

The bill also includes new powers for Ofsted to impose monetary penalties for breaches of the Care Standards Act 2000, including for operating unregistered children’s homes. This is designed to give Ofsted a quicker alternative to prosecution in these cases.

Financial oversight regime

The bill would also introduce a financial oversight regime for relevant children’s social care providers who meet conditions that will be set out in regulations. These are likely to relate to the size of the provider and whether it would be difficult to replace were it to fail.

The bill would give the secretary of state the power to require providers made subject to the regime to submit a “recovery and resolution plan”, setting out risks to their financial sustainability and actions they propose to take in response to these.

The secretary of state would also have the power to arrange an independent business review of a provider where there is significant financial risk to its sustainability. The secretary of state would also be under a duty to warn local authorities if there was a real possibility of relevant services failing, with potential adverse effects for the councils or any children looked after by them.

Limiting profits

The bill also provides for regulations to be made enabling the secretary of state to cap any profit made by a non-local authority registered children’s social care provider. The secretary of state may only make such regulations if satisfied that it is necessary to do so.

The government has said that it only intends to use the provision if other policies do not sufficiently reduce profiteering in the children’s social care placements market.

Agency workers

The bill seeks to provide a power for the secretary of state to make regulations applying to all English local authorities on the use of “agency workers” in children’s social care. The regulations may require that the agency workers meet certain requirements and make provision about how they should be managed and the terms on which they are supplied to local authorities.

When in force, this regime would replace the rules, introduced in 2024 under statutory guidance, regarding local authorities’ use of agency social workers in children’s services.

Ill-treatment or wilful neglect

This bill also intends to close a gap in existing legislation by extending the offences of ill-treatment or wilful neglect by a care worker or care provider to someone in their care, under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, to children aged 16 or 17 in regulated establishments in England.

Currently, the 2015 act protects against ill-treatment or wilful neglect by care workers providing health care for an adult or child or social care for an adult, while the Children and Young Persons Act protects those under 16 from cruelty by those who have responsibility for them.

Children not in school

The bill proposes a number of reforms aimed at protecting children who are being educated at home. Most of these involve amendments to the Education Act 1996 and include:

• Compulsory registers of children not in school in each local authority area in England, and a duty on local authorities to support the children on their registers (should a parent request this).
• Changes to the school attendance order (SAO) legal framework, for example, by introducing statutory timeframes for issuing and processing SAOs and making it an offence for parents to withdraw a child subject to an SAO from school without following the proper procedure.
• A requirement for a parent to obtain local authority consent to home educate if a child is: (1) subject to an enquiry under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, (2) on a child protection plan, or (3) at a special school or academy.
• A power for the local authority, in cases where a child is subject to a section 47 Children Act 1989 enquiry or on a child protection plan and is already being home educated, to review whether it is in the best interests of the child to be in school and require that the child be registered at a school.
• A duty for local authorities to consider the home environment and other learning environments when determining whether or not such children should be required to attend school.

What happens next?

The bill will be subject to debate in Parliament and will no doubt be amended during its passage. It is likely to become law sometime in spring 2025.

Some provisions will come into force the day the act is passed (such as the powers to make regulations and orders), others will come into force two months later (such as the duty to publish information for kinship carers and children in kinship arrangements, and the extension of the ill-treatment or wilful neglect offences.

Some provisions will be implemented over a longer period of time. For example, the new multi-agency child protection teams will not be implemented until 2027.

Tim Spencer-Lane is a lawyer specialising in social care, mental capacity and mental health and is legal editor of Community Care Inform.

Most social workers would consider working for an inadequate-rated service though for some it would depend on the role, a Community Care poll has found.

Of 590 respondents to a recent Community Care poll, 39% said they would take up a role in an ‘inadequate’ service to be part of improving provision for people.

A further 37% would no rule it out, but said it would depend on the role, while about a quarter (24%) rejected the idea, fearing there would be too much pressure.

Despite the generally positive outlook, practitioners’ interest has waned over the years. 

‘It’s rewarding when you’re part of this journey’

In an episode of the Social Work Community podcast, practitioners working for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council’s children’s services, rated inadequate by Ofsted in early 2022, called being part of its journey a “rewarding experience”.

“I think it’s always rewarding when you’re part of this journey, when you go from inadequate and you can see the changes that are put in place,” said Monique. “It feels really, really positive.”

For Ruairi, who lives in the area covered by BCP, it was about creating a service that could better support his community. 

“Servicing the area and the families where I’m living is sort of a value of mine I suppose.”

Jamie, who landed his first job in social work with the council, said it was “exciting to build something from within and be part of change”.

“I think one of the things that is really important in a process like that is that you can’t be insular,” he advised.

“If we’re finding ourselves in that difficult situation where we’re deemed inadequate, then we have to open our ears and our minds to [what] we can do.”

Would you take a role in an ‘inadequate ‘service?

There has been an almost sevenfold increase in the number of children placed in unregistered homes in England over the past three years, Ofsted data has shown.

The number placed in confirmed unregistered children’s homes rose from 147 in 2020-21 to 982 in 2023-24. Over that time, the number of such homes identified by Ofsted increased from 144 to 931.

[Source: Ofsted (2024) Unregistered children’s homes]

Unregistered homes ‘typically of poor quality’

It is illegal to provide care and accommodation to a child without registering as a children’s home, and any provider that does not register is committing an offence, which generally triggers a warning letter from the regulator.

The increased use of registered placements comes despite Ofsted finding that they were typically of “poor quality”. This was evidenced by the fact that just 6% of unregistered settings applied to register with Ofsted after receiving a warning letter, with a mere 8% of these applications being approved.

Deprivation of liberty orders

One factor behind the rise in the number of unregistered placements is councils’ increasing use of deprivation of liberty orders – obtained from the High Court – for children with very complex needs or at high risk.

Many of these young people are placed in unregistered placements because of the lack of alternatives, including the severe shortage of secure children’s homes.

However, while Ofsted recorded a rise in the number of children on deprivation of liberty orders placed in unregistered settings, they accounted for just 12% of cases in 2023-24 and 15% in each of 2022-23 and 2021-22.

‘An indictment of the state of social care’

As a result, the increase in the use of unregistered homes is likely to reflect the lack of available placements for looked-after children more generally. This is the result of factors including the falling number of mainstream fostering households, the mismatch between the location of children’s homes and need, and the historically high numbers of children in care.

Children in care charity Become described the rise in the use of unregistered homes as “a real indictment of the current state of children’s social care”.

Chief executive Katharine Sacks-Jones said it meant that “hundreds of children who’ve experienced trauma are not being provided with the specialist, quality care they need, and instead are living in illegal and often completely unsuitable accommodation with limited support”.

Proposals to help Ofsted crack down on unregistered homes

The news comes with the government having announced plans for Ofsted to take swifter enforcement action against providers of unregistered placements.

Under these, the regulator, which has welcomed the proposals, would be given powers to fine providers, as an alternative to criminal prosecutions.

Sacks-Jones added: “The government’s recent proposals to address the issue of unregistered homes is welcome, but this latest data shows how urgently and robustly the government must act.

“We must see stronger scrutiny and enforcement so that all children are able to live in safe homes and receive the high-quality care and support they need to thrive.”

ADCS voices concerns over government plan

However, the proposals sparked concerns from Association of Directors of Children’s Services president Andy Smith, in his speech to last week’s National Children and Adult Services Conference.

“In an ideal world, we would want all placements to be in good quality registered settings, yet the reality is that the current framework of regulation does not allow us to effectively meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable children who have highly complex needs,” Smith said.

“Before we start to turn the dial in the wrong direction and issue civil proceedings against providers, we need to make sure that we have the right services in the right place to meet need.”

The government has pledged to “crack down on care providers making excessive profit” from care placements, in children’s social care reforms unveiled today.

Labour’s proposed reforms to tackle “profiteering” are similar to those put forward by its Conservative predecessor, including through the regional commissioning of care placements and increasing the transparency of providers’ pricing.

But the government also warned that, should these not work as anticipated, it would cap providers’ profit levels from children’s social care placements.

The reforms, set out in a policy paper today, also include empowering Ofsted to investigate companies running multiple children’s homes and more speedily take enforcement action against unregistered services.

The Department for Education (DfE) will also tighten recently introduced rules limiting councils’ use of agency social workers by placing these into legislation and extending them to cover other children’s social care staff.

New safeguarding requirements on councils

In addition, it will require councils to set up multi-agency child safeguarding teams, and to also offer family group decision making meetings when cases reach the pre-proceedings stage, to give family networks the chance to find alternatives to children going into care.

In response to the huge rise in children being deprived of their liberty under the powers of the High Court due to a lack of suitable placements, it will create a statutory framework for these cases.

The DfE added that its reforms, generally, would also seek to rebalance the system towards early intervention in order to keep families together, in the context of the care population standing at near-record levels.  

This continues the emphasis of the agenda set out by the Conservatives in their Stable Homes, Built on Love strategy published last year, which was itself based on the recommendations of the 2021-22 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

The policy paper said the legislation the DfE was proposing would be brought forward when parliamentary time allows. This is likely to be through the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which was promised in the King’s Speech.

‘We will crack down on providers making excessive profit’

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the care system was “bankrupting councils, letting families down, and above all, leaving too many children feeling forgotten, powerless and invisible”.

“We will crack down on care providers making excessive profit, tackle unregistered and unsafe provision and ensure earlier intervention to keep families together and help children to thrive,” she added.

A key focus of the reforms is the rising cost of care for looked-after children, which the government said had “ballooned” from £3.1bn in 2009-10 to £7bn in 2022-23.

Photo: pla2na/Adobe Stock

This has been driven by a shortage of suitable placements located in the right areas, which some providers have been accused of exploiting to increase fees and extract undue levels of profit from children’s care.

In its 2022 report on the placements market, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that, among the largest 15 providers, profit margins averaged 22.6% in residential care and 19.4% in fostering.

It said this was higher than would be expected in a well-functioning market, though it rejected the case for banning or capping profits on the grounds that this would reduce incentives for providers to invest in services and further shrink supply.

Backing for regional care co-operatives

Concerns about profit have led the Labour government in Wales to issue legislation to restrict the making of profit from children’s care, with a long-term aim of eliminating it altogether.

Its counterpart in Westminster will largely follow the blueprint to tackle profit set out by the Conservatives in Stable Homes, including by creating regional care co-operatives (RCCs) to commission placements on behalf of member authorities.

Photo: momius/Adobe Stock

RCCs are currently being developed in two areas, Greater Manchester and the South East, where they will go live next year.

In its policy paper, Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive, the DfE said RCCs would “harness the collective buying power of individual local authorities”, improving value for money from commissioning, while also developing provision to fill gaps.

It said it would legislate to enable groups of councils to set up RCCs, with ministers also taking powers to direct them to do so or intervene if a co-operative was not performing at a required standard.

Boosting pricing transparency

In another echo of Stable Homes, the government said it would seek to fill gaps in councils’ data around care costs, to “enable them to negotiate effectively with providers to secure the best placement for children at the lowest possible cost”.

“We will engage with the sector to bring about greater cost and price transparency which will aid local authorities in challenging profiteering providers, as well as enabling greater central government oversight of the placements market,” it said.

However, to guard against these measures not engineering a reduction in profiteering, the government said it would legislate to obtain powers to cap profit levels from children’s care placements, which would be enacted if required.

The idea sparked concerns from provider representative body the Children’s Homes Association, which said it risked “serious unintended consequences”.

“The CHA supports efforts to eliminate profiteering, but this law will incentivise more providers to adopt offshore interest and debt-driven business models,” it warned.

Greater oversight of hardest to-replace providers

Another Stable Homes policy being taken forward by the Labour government is setting up a financial oversight regime for the hardest to replace providers, to avoid children’s care being disrupted by businesses failing.

These providers, up to parent company level, would have to supply the DfE with financial information to enable it to assess the viability of their whole organisations.

Credit: lovelyday12 / Adobe Stock

They would also have to develop contingency plans to ensure that they did not exit the market in a disorderly way, while the DfE would have enforcement powers to ensure compliance with the regime.

Regulating children’s home groups

The DfE also pledged to give Ofsted the power to investigate multiple children’s homes run by the same company. The regulator has longed called for this to enable it to scrutinise companies’ decision making in relation to issues such as admissions, ending placements, budgeting and staffing levels.

The DfE said that, despite some companies ran over 100 children’s homes, Ofsted could not hold them to account for organisational failings that affected children’s care.

Under its plans, the regulator would be able to request, and monitor the implementation of, provider-wider improvement plans and be given powers, such as fining or preventing further registrations by the group, to enforce compliance.

Ofsted welcomed the proposal, with national director for social care, Yvette Stanley, saying: The proposed powers will strengthen our ability to hold providers to account at group level. This will mean that we can secure widespread improvements for children if there are patterns of failure.”

Tackling unregistered provision

The DfE said it would also give Ofsted powers to tackle a “worrying” rise in the use of unregistered provision, particularly of children’s homes and supported accommodation.

In 2023-24, Ofsted opened cases on 1,109 potentially unregistered settings and found that 887 (87%) should have been registered (compared to 370 in 2022-23).

Under the plans, the regulator would be given powers to fine providers of unregistered provision, as an alternative to criminal prosecutions, enabling it to act more quickly against organisations.

This was also welcomed by Ofsted, with Stanley adding: “It is only right that we are given additional powers and resources to better tackle persistent offenders and put a stop to unscrupulous and profiteering providers, once and for all.”

Housing support for care leavers

The reform package also includes legislating to require all councils to provide any care leaver (up to the age of 25) whose welfare requires it with support to access and maintain accommodation, along with practical and emotional support from someone they trust.

Photo: AdobeStock/Monkey Business

This would be based on the current Staying Close programme, which the DfE is funding 47 councils to deliver in 2024-25, at a cost of £22m, and would be designed to tackle the lack of support experienced by care leavers on moving into independent living.

The plan to extend Staying Close nationwide was also proposed by the care review and set out in Stable Homes, Built on Love.

The DfE said the duty on councils would not come into force until three years after the legislation is passed, to give them sufficient time to develop the service.

Charity Become, which supports young care experienced people, said it was “a very welcome and important first step” but must not become “another postcode lottery”.

Multi-agency safeguarding teams

Outside of the care system, the government has pledged to introduce a requirement on councils to set up multi-agency child safeguarding teams, involving professionals from social care, police, health and education, and other services, where required.

They would be responsible for investigating child protection concerns and managing cases, and would be staffed by specialists from the various constituent agencies.

This adopts a recommendation from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s 2022 report into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson.

That review found a “systemic flaw in the quality of multi-agency working”, with “an overreliance on single agency processes with superficial joint working and joint decision making”.

The panel’s proposed model of multi-agency safeguarding teams, along with the care review’s proposal for child protection cases to be held by specialist social workers, are being tested in the 10 families first for children pathfinder sites.

The DfE said the details of how the proposed teams would work would be based on the evaluation of the pathfinder, and councils and their partners would have time to prepare.

Annie Hudson, chair, Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel

In response to the plan, panel chair Annie Hudson said: “We believe that this will provide a crucial new lever for tackling some deep-seated perennial problems in safeguarding children.”

Other child protection measures

Other child protection measures include placing a duty on parents to seek local authority consent to home educate their child where the child is subject to a child protection enquiry or on a child protection plan.

The DfE also plans to introduce a unique identifier for every child, to promote better information sharing between professionals. This will be piloted before the relevant legislation is implemented.

Alongside this, it will introduce a duty that would provide “absolute clarity on the legal basis to share information for the purposes of safeguarding children”.

This is designed to tackle findings that practitioners lack confidence to share information without families’ consent when there is not clear evidence of harm, despite there being other lawful bases to do so.

Rollout of family group decision-making

Councils will also have to offer families in pre-proceedings a family group decision making (FGDM) meeting, enabling them to be involved in decisions about their children’s future, where this is in the child’s best interests.

This is based on the findings of a randomised controlled trial (RCT), commissioned by what works body Foundations, into the use of family group conferences – a particular form of FGDM – at pre-proceedings, which reported last year.

This found that children whose families were referred for a family group conference (FGC) were less likely to have had care proceedings issued (59%) compared to those not referred (72%) and were less likely to be in care one year later (36%) compared to those not referred (45%).

Photo: zinkevych/Fotolia

The DfE acknowledged that “there may be barriers for local authorities in implementing FGDM at scale, including financial constraints and challenges around the recruitment or training of staff”. But it said it hoped its ambition could be realised through investment and the sharing of best practice.

Families should be offered ‘tried and tested’ FGCs – charity

Foundations’ chief executive, Jo Casebourne, welcomed the move, adding: “This type of family-led approach helps to avoid costly, late-stage interventions, and ensures that children and families get effective support at the right time.”

The Family Rights Group (FRG), which runs an accreditation programme for family group conferences services, was also supportive, but said it was vital that families were offered FGCs.

“For this radical ambition to be achieved, the offer to families must be of a family-led, robustly evaluated approach that has been tried and tested in the UK and abroad, namely family group conferences,” said FRG chief executive Cathy Ashley.

“They operate to clear standards and reduce the likelihood of a child entering or remaining in care. For children who cannot remain at home, they enable prospective carers to be identified from within the family.”

Virtual school head role extended

The government also pledged to legislate to require councils to appoint an officer responsible for promoting the educational achievement of children on child in need plans, on child protection plans and in kinship arrangements.

This role is currently carried out on a non-statutory basis by virtual school heads, who have a statutory role to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children and provide educational advice and information in relation to former children in care.

The DfE said its proposal would “bring consistency to the deployment of the role” and “ensure that children with a social worker and those in kinship care are in school, safe and are learning”.

Payment by results scrapped for Supporting Families

In her statement to Parliament announcing the policy paper, Phillipson said the government would consolidate more than £400m of children’s social care funding within the local government finance settlement in 2025-26, to simply resourcing arrangements for councils.

As a first step, it has suspended the payment by results mechanism of the Supporting Families programme, under which families with multiple needs are provided with multi-agency support, co-ordinated by a lead practitioner, to resolve issues.

Under payment by results, most councils receive some money for the programme up front with the rest delivered based on the outcomes achieved for families.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services welcomed the decision to scrap the approach.

ADCS president for 2024-25, Andy Smith (photo supplied by the ADCS)

“[It] is a hugely positive step in the right direction towards ensuring that the limited funds in the system are used in the best interest of children and families, rather than on the mechanisms of tracking and reporting on this vital work,” said ADCS president Andy Smith.

This episode of the Social Work Community podcast was produced in collaboration with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

In early 2022, BCP Council’s children’s services were rated inadequate by Ofsted following an inspection in late 2021.

Since then, there have been five monitoring visits, which found improvements in many areas.

In this episode of the Social Work Community Podcast, BCP Council social workers tell careers editor Sharmeen Ziauddin that morale is up and increased permanency of staff is making a real difference, not only to them, but to children and young people too.

There are five guests on this podcast. Firstly, Steph, an assistant team manager in a children and families first team, explains what made her switch from agency to a permanent position at BCP Council. Ruairi, a team manager, talks about what has made him stay with BCP Council for a number of years.

Monique shares what brought her back to BCP Council after a stint in London, while Cyra explains why practitioners are leaving locum work to take up permanent roles within BCP Council.

And Jamie, who joined the authority’s children’s services on the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) programme after a career change, shares why doing social work within BCP Council has exceeded his expectations.

Listen now:
Listen to “Would you work for an inadequate-rated children’s services?” on Spreaker.
Read the transcription here.

About the podcast

The Social Work Community Podcast explores the issues that matter to social work practitioners in their working lives. You will hear direct from social workers in your community about their successes and their challenges.

Our first season was nominated in this year’s British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Social Work Journalism Awards.

So sign up to the Social Work Community to be among the first to catch each episode and to connect with fellow practitioners in a safe space.

Otherwise, check out the Social Work Community Podcast on the following :

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Inspectors are to probe how agencies respond to child victims of domestic abuse.

The latest round of joint targeted area inspections (JTAIs) will, in particular, look at how councils, relevant health bodies, the police and probation protect and promote the welfare of unborn children and those aged 0-7.

Inspectors will evaluate the multi-agency arrangements for responding to child victims at the point of their identification, assessment, planning and decision-making in response to referrals, protect, supporting and caring for child victims or those at risk and preventing children from becoming victims.

Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMI) Probation will begin the programme of inspections this month.

What inspectors found previously on domestic abuse

The inspectorates carried out a JTAI programme on the response to children living with domestic abuse in 2016. This found that:

• Too little was being done to prevent domestic abuse and repair the damage that it does.
• Work with families was often in reaction to individual crises rather than preventive.
• Agencies did not always focus enough on the perpetrator of the abuse.
• There was not a clear and consistent understanding about what information professionals can share within agencies and across agencies.

Since then, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 has made clear that children are victims of domestic abuse in their own right if they have seen, heard or experienced abuse perpetrated against a parent or relative.

‘Emphasis on physical violence as abuse indicator’

However, a 2022 analysis of serious cases by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel found that practitioners often categorised the impact on children as “emotional harm” or “neglect” instead.

The same report identified an “overly simplistic and optimistic” approach to domestic abuse and its impact on children, with an overemphasis on physical violence as the primary indicator of abuse and as a means of assessing the risk posed by the abuser.

Non-physical incidents were seen as “low-level” and so were not responded to appropriately and often conflated with “parental conflict”.

More recently, a BBC report revealed that more than a third of social work courses lacked specific training on coercive and controlling behaviour, prompting university social work leaders to say that it was not in their remit to train students in specialist areas of practice.

‘Over-reliance on individual casework’

In response to that debate, academics Brid Featherstone and Kate Morris shared findings from research into domestic abuse and child protection.

They found “despite sterling attempts by amazing practitioners and managers, they were often trapped within approaches that relied on individual casework and risk management,” which “translated into the outsourcing of safety and protection responsibilities to those most vulnerable and least able to respond (often impoverished mothers)”.

The JTAI will draw on evidence including practice observations, an audit of six children’s cases in each area, sampling of a wider group of children’s experiences, analysis of performance data, interviews with practitioners, managers and leaders and the views of children and families.

What agencies will be judged on

Evaluation criteria include:

• Practitioners and support staff see the impact of domestic abuse through the eyes of the child, respond to children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right, are well trained, confident, and knowledgeable and demonstrate professional curiosity, enabling them to identify how to help and protect children and to take action to do so.
• Children’s welfare is promoted and protected through effective and timely responses to adult victims of domestic abuse. Practitioners recognise that abuse does not necessarily end when the relationship ends, and may in fact escalate, and they take steps to reduce the risks.
• Assessments of children and ongoing plans include contributions from all agencies. They are timely and dynamic, and consider strengths within the family as well as risks.
• Risk of harm to children is reduced through the identification and assessment of adults who pose a risk of domestic abuse. These adults are held to account through appropriate and targeted interventions by all practitioners.
• Children and their families are listened to. Multi-agency practice focuses on children’s needs and experiences and is influenced by their wishes and feelings. Practitioners identify and respond to the needs of children who may be unable to share their views, including unborn children.
• Leaders ensure that practitioners’ training, learning and supervision enable them to identify and respond effectively to children who are victims of domestic abuse. This includes single- and multi-agency training that ensures children receive an effective multi-agency response.

‘Time to revisit this important issue’

Ofsted’s national director for social care, Yvette Stanley, said that, since the last JTAI on domestic abuse, “positive steps have been taken to recognise and tackle the impact domestic abuse can have on children”.

She added: “The time is right to revisit this important area and look at what is happening now to prevent abuse and to promote and protect children’s welfare.

The government has no plans to scrap single-word judgments of local authority adults’ services, despite the decision to ditch the approach for children’s social care.

The Local Government Association today urged ministers to end overall ratings of council adult social care performance by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The LGA made the call in the light of last week’s decision to ditch single-word ratings for all services inspected by Ofsted, including in children’s social care.

Ending single-word ratings for children’s services

Though there is no date set for the reform, in future, council children’s services and regulated services, such as children’s homes and independent fostering agencies, will not be rated as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate following full inspections.

Instead, they will be assessed using a report card-style tool, which will likely involve evaluating performance across a range of areas.

The decision was made in response to the Big Listen, Ofsted’s biggest ever consultation, carried out in the light of a coroner’s verdict that its  2022 inspection of Caversham Primary School, Reading, contributed to headteacher Ruth Perry’s decision to take her own life.

Social care providers more supportive than not of ratings system

The consultation, responded to by over 20,000 people, including 4,325 children, revealed strong opposition to single-word judgments. Ofsted said these were “heavily criticised for oversimplifying the complexities of providers and not providing a full picture of their performance”.

However, separate research with 3,496 providers and 3,831 professionals from across the sectors Ofsted regulates found those in social care were more supportive than not of single-word judgments.

While the CQC has rated regulated adult social care services on a similar basis to Ofsted since 2014, it only started assessing councils last year, following the reintroduction of performance checks of local authority adults’ services.

Return of adults’ services assessments

In the face of opposition from council leaders, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) determined that authorities would receive a single-word judgment.

Of the first nine authorities to be rated, six were judged to be good and three requires improvement, with the judgment being accompanied by a narrative report and a score, based on the council’s performance against nine statements.

The LGA said councils valued the CQC’s narrative reports but added that single-word judgments of adults’ services did not do justice to the complexity of social care, particularly in the context of funding constraints.

Single words ‘cannot capture complexity of adult social care’

“Local government fully supports transparency and accountability,” said David Fothergill, chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing board.

“But while assessment and regulation are both important and helpful in driving improvements to services, single word or phrase judgements cannot ever adequately capture the complexity of adult social care and the work councils do to meet their legal obligations.

“The government must ensure that the assurance process is, and remains, productive and supportive for councils. Sufficient time must be given to learn the lessons from councils’ experiences as more go through the assessment process.”

CQC deemed ‘not fit for purpose’

The LGA’s call comes with the CQC under intense scrutiny, after health and social care secretary Wes Streeting declared the regulator “not fit for purpose” in the wake of a damning report.

In the interim report of her government-commissioned review, Dr Penny Dash found that inspection levels were still well below pre-Covid levels, a lack of expertise among inspectors, inconsistency in assessments and problems with the CQC’s IT system.

In response to the LGA’s call to end single-word judgments, a CQC spokesperson said: “Our assessments were developed alongside the sector to help drive improvement by highlighting good practice and areas for further development.

“Local authorities have told us of the value of sharing findings to help make immediate improvements, by identifying their strengths and where gaps may exist. The narrative assessments and conversations they spark are central to this.

‘No plans’ to end single-word judgments

“The precise methodology for our local authority assessments, including if assessments result in a rating, is subject to ministerial approval. Any changes to this methodology would be a matter for the Department of Health and Social Care.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “We are thoroughly reviewing the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and as part of that work we have asked the CQC to improve the transparency of their ratings. We are not currently considering a change to the single-word ratings system.”

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The government will legislate to tackle “profiteering” from children’s care placements in England, a minister has vowed.

Children’s minister Janet Daby said that the forthcoming Children’s Wellbeing Bill would strengthen regulation of the sector to “return children’s social care to delivering high quality outcomes for looked after children at a sustainable cost to the taxpayer”.

Her pledge came as Ofsted, in a bid to influence the legislation, called for new powers to regulate providers of children’s care placements, including in relation to profit-making.

‘Profiteering from vulnerable children unacceptable’

Daby, a former fostering social worker, was responding to a written question from fellow Labour MP Helen Hayes about what the government would do to tackle “excessive profits in the residential children’s social care sector”.

In her response, the Department for Education (DfE) minister said that “profiteering from vulnerable children in care [was] unacceptable” before saying that the Children’s Wellbeing Bill would tackle the issue.

Her comments follow longstanding concerns about profit levels among providers, particularly the largest, enabled by their leverage over councils needing to place children, often at short notice, amid an insufficiency of placements.

Profit levels of largest providers

In its 2022 report on the placements market, the Competition and Markets Authority found that, among the largest 15 providers, profit margins averaged 22.6% in residential care and 19.4% in fostering.

Since 2020, English council spending on children’s homes has risen sharply, with the cost of these placements increasing by 13% in 2021-22 and 15% in 2022-23, according to a recent report commissioned by the major children’s charities (source: Pro Bono Economics, 2024).

The number of registered places in mainstream children’s homes has grown by 28% over the past four years, compared with a 7% decline in the number of approved mainstream fostering households from 2019-23.

Promised children’s social care regulation

The Children’s Wellbeing Bill was announced in the 2024 King’s Speech, meaning it will be debated during the 2024-25 parliamentary session and should become law next year.

Initial information on the bill did not include any pledges to tighten the regulation of children’s social care services – a pledge in Labour’s manifesto – but Daby has now confirmed that the legislation will enable the government to deliver on its election commitment.

It is not clear as yet what the bill will contain on regulation and how far it will draw upon work commenced under the previous government to address service costs, profit levels and placement sufficiency through the so-called market interventions advisory group (source: Children and Young People Now).

However, last week, Ofsted set out a wish-list of measures for ministers to include in legislation, to bolster its regulatory powers over children’s social care services.

Ofsted’s call for new powers

This included being able regulate profit-making by large groups that provide multiple social care and education services, “to make sure their decisions are made in children’s best interests and not solely for profit”.

Ofsted also called for powers to:

• Regulate groups providing children’s homes or other social care services, including being able to restrict growth where there are systemic issues across multiple settings, requiring group leaders to tackle quality issues revealed by inspections and being able to enforce actions at a group-wide level.
• Fine unregistered settings, to deter providers from operating them. Its current powers are limited to prosecution, which Ofsted said was “costly and time-consuming”.
• Refuse registration applications based on need, for example, in areas, such as in the North West, that are oversaturated with children’s homes.

Other measures proposed by the regulator included setting quality standards for all places where children live away from home, including residential special schools, to ensure consistency across all settings, and enabling registered managers to be able to move from one setting to another without having to re-register, reducing burdens on providers.

Regulator ‘optimistic’ about reform

The proposals were made in response to the Big Listen, Ofsted’s biggest ever consultation, which also resulted in its plan to scrap single-word judgments for inspections of local authority children’s services and of children’s social care providers.

Its national director for social care, Yvette Stanley, said the regulator could not “pre-empt future ministerial decisions” but it was “working very closely with DfE officials” and was optimistic about the prospects for reform.

Daby indicated that the DfE was looking at at least one aspect of Ofsted’s proposals, on the location of children’s homes.

In answer to a parliamentary question, from Labour MP Mohammad Yasin, on the issue, Daby said: “The department is developing options in regard to planning of children’s homes,
including considering the location of new homes and registration requirements.”

Ofsted’s proposals were welcomed by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), which has long sought action to tackle profit levels among children’s home providers.

Children’s directors seek ‘bold action’ on ‘huge profits’

ADCS vice president Rachael Wardell said it supported the regulator being able “to look at the contribution groups of providers make to children’s outcomes and experiences, and their use of scarce public funds”.

“In recent years there has been a trend towards business mergers and acquisitions giving rise to some very large providers and an expansion of private equity investment in children’s homes, which is increasingly being seen in the childcare sector too,” she added.

“We await the government’s response to these asks and hope to see bold action from ministers to prevent huge profits being generated and extracted from the system on the backs of vulnerable children and young people, in particular.”

Daby’s commitment to ‘cracking down on excessive profits’ 

For the government, Daby added: “We know that all too often care placements for vulnerable children come at a massive financial cost to councils and a human cost to young people who aren’t getting the support they need.

“We are committed to cracking down on providers making excessive profits, and our Children’s Wellbeing Bill will strengthen regulation to make sure every child has a safe, loving home.”

Meanwhile, the DfE has selected two areas – Greater Manchester and the South East – to test the commissioning of care placements by region-wide bodies, rather than individual local authorities.

Regional care co-operatives – proposed by the previous Conservative government are designed to give councils – collectively – greater clout over providers to shape services across their regions and ensure sufficient high-quality placements for children in care.

Ofsted is to scrap single-word judgments for its inspections of local authority children’s services and regulated social care providers, despite research finding sector support for the approach.

The regulator announced the change a day after the government ended the use of overall effectiveness ratings for state schools with immediate effect.

These will be replaced next year by a ‘report card’, providing a more detailed account of performance, with similar reforms also due to be introduced for early years and further education providers at the same time.

No date set for removal of single-word judgments

Ofsted said that local authorities and social care providers would follow suit and be assessed using a similar tool to a report card, rather than receive an outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate rating for overall effectiveness following a full inspection.

However, it said no date had been set as yet for introducing the reform in social care.

“We’re all travelling in the same direction but we might need to go at a different pace,” said Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for social care.

Response to Big Listen consultation

The decisions are part of Ofsted’s response to the Big Listen, its biggest ever consultation, carried out after a coroner found that its inspection of Caversham Primary School, Reading, in November 2022, contributed to headteacher Ruth Perry’s decision to take her own life.

The consultation, responded to by over 20,000 people, including 4,325 children, revealed strong opposition to single-word judgments.

Ofsted said these were “heavily criticised for oversimplifying the complexities of providers and not providing a full picture of their performance”. Respondents also said that they “can be damaging and lead to extra stress for staff”.

ADCS backing for policy shift

Instead, respondents wanted to see “a more detailed and nuanced reporting method”, highlighting providers’ strengths and weaknesses.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) backed the removal of single-word judgments.

“ADCS has long raised concerns about the use of single-word judgments as they can only ever tell a partial story and may be unjustly negative,” said vice-president Rachael Wardell. “Using one word, or a short phrase, to describe a school, a children’s social care department or an entire system in the case of SEND, does not make sense.”

Sector supportive of single-word judgments

However, separate research with 3,496 providers and 3,831 professionals from across the sectors Ofsted regulates found those in social care were more supportive than not of single-word judgments.

Among social care providers, 47% were supportive with 34% opposed, while among sector professionals, 46% backed the approach and 29% did not. By contrast, just 28% of all providers and 26% of all professionals supported single-word verdicts.

More broadly, social care respondents to the research, carried out by IFF Research, were more positive about Ofsted than their counterparts in other sectors.

For example, almost three-quarters (72%) of social care providers said that Ofsted achieved its ambition of being trusted, compared with 46% of all providers. Also, 85% of social care providers were satisfied with their last inspection, compared with 73% of all providers.

Providers ‘sometimes feel persecuted by inspectors’

However, social care respondents to the wider Big Listen consultation voiced criticisms of Ofsted’s approach.

Some said that providers sometimes felt targeted and persecuted by inspections, rather than supported, with some inspectors open and respectful but others dismissive and agenda-driven.

And the majority of social care respondents (70%) said that an unintended consequence of Ofsted’s inspection and regulation processes was that children’s homes sometimes did not accept children with the greatest needs.

Children urge Ofsted to ask them about relationships with social workers

As part of the Big Listen, Ofsted commissioned charities Coram Voice, Career Matters and Catch22 to carry out focus groups with children in care and care leavers about their views on inspection.

They emphasised the importance of inspectors building trust with them and making sure they could speak confidentially, away from adults.

They also stressed the value of Ofsted staff asking them about their relationships with foster carers and professionals, particularly social workers.

“They want inspectors to understand how this affects them and the negative impact this relationship can have on their care and wellbeing,” Ofsted said.

Children who responded to the Big Listen survey said said the most important things Ofsted should look at when inspecting social care services was how safe children were – which was mentioned by 69% of respondents – and how happy they were (64%).

Measuring what children value

Stanley said that the report card-style assessment in social care would be based on feedback from children and young people about what they valued.

“We need to go on a journey, in social care, that will be with the professionals, children and young people, who were really clear about what they value.

“They wanted to know that we were focusing on them being safe, being happy, leaning into their experience of school etc. We will do that work to make sure that the sub-judgments measure what they value.”

Further Ofsted reforms

As well as ditching single-word judgments, Ofsted said it want to make sure that its social care common inspection framework (SCCIF) inspections took account of how children’s homes created stability for and avoided unplanned endings to placements for those in its care.

It would also seek to focus its inspections of local authority children’s services (ILACS) more on how councils support family networks and aim to keep children with their families, wherever possible and safe to do so, and deliver early-intervention services.