I was reflecting recently on the huge challenge we continue to face in finding loving homes that can fully meet the needs of children living in the care system.  We are now over two years on from the publication in May 2022 of Josh MacAlister’s Independent Care Review and more than 18 months on from the government response, Stable Homes, built on love published in February 2023.  So where are those stable homes built on love and are we rebalancing the system towards family help as MacAlister recommended?

The profile and understanding of the problem, both in the sector and wider, has undoubtedly grown as a result of the Care Review, subsequent reporting and national policy discussions.  However, the reality across the country is that we continue to see an upward trajectory of families reaching crisis point due to a lack of investment in universal and early help services underpinned by the worsening crisis of child poverty.  There is some amazing work going on across the sector to mitigate these impacts but the blueprint for a better future set out in the Care Review and genuine system change appears as far away now as it did in 2022.  This lack of progress is as predictable as it is disappointing, so how do we change that?

There is some hope in the well trailed Children’s Wellbeing Bill that we will see national intervention to enable meaningful change.  It is critical that any changes to legislation and national guidance must sit alongside substantial investment both to enable the change, £2.6bn as recommended by MacAlister, and to address the core shortfall in council funding created by 14 years of austerity overlaid with increased need for services and support. 

Despite the dire warnings from the new government about the challenge of the national economic position, this is not an investment that can be deferred or watered down.  Enabling our children who most need support from the state to achieve their potential is essential both for the impact it has on the individual as well as the long-term economic benefit to the state.  To quote Oscar Wilde, “a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” and too many decisions on funding in recent years appear to have overlooked the value base of the work we do. 

So, if I take a leap of faith and assume the Department for Education has successfully made the case to Treasury for the investment needed (I am an optimist!) what else do we need to address?   The most obvious place to start is the dysfunctional market model of providing homes for children in our care.  The issues around profiteering by large private sector providers of both residential and foster care are well documented and the government must use the Children’s Wellbeing Bill to intervene nationally to address this failure of public policy.  

However, there are also issues that get less airtime which create real barriers to rebalancing the system so we can genuinely provide the loving homes our children need.  A key issue for me is the unintended consequences of our regulatory framework.  Care standards for residential care are woefully out of date.  We also have a model that focuses far too much on property and compliance rather than outcomes for children and joining that up with the oversight of care planning arrangements through other strands of Ofsted’s work.  There is a reason why the majority of children’s homes are in areas with low property prices and that really shouldn’t be a factor in how we plan for children’s care, but it’s an inevitable consequence of our system.

We also have a level playing field for both LAs and private providers wishing to expand their provision.  Is it right that a new company established by someone with no experience in the sector and investment focused on generating a profit follows the same process as an LA with expertise and a long track record of delivery in children’s services?  Indeed, there are often more barriers for LAs than private providers, which limits our ability to rebalance the ‘market’.  We need a serious discussion about ‘place planning’ and the levers needed to do that strategically.

This has led us to a place where we have a small but growing number of children whose needs can’t be met by our failed market model.  There is rightly a lot of debate about the use of unregistered provision and increasing numbers of children living in the community under Deprivation of Liberty Orders (DoLs) but I often think that is missing the point.  Of course we shouldn’t have unregistered provision, but no DCS in the country makes a positive choice to place a child in that type of arrangement, we do so because there is simply no other option. 

It is a symptom of our failed system that is impacting our most vulnerable children and we need to address the underlying reasons why the number of children in this type of care continues to grow.  We can only resolve this by having a registered sector than can meet the needs of all children and addressing the barriers to achieve that, we can’t legislate or regulate our way out of the problem as the 2021 legislation has shown.  Until we start to have a grown-up discussion nationally about these issues, our system will continue to fail those children who need us most.

Despite sometimes despairing about the narrative that seeks simple solutions to really complex questions, I do believe that the national policy direction is the right one.  I also continue to be inspired by the amazing work that colleagues in the sector do, on a daily basis, to improve the lives of our children despite the system barriers that continue to challenge us.  So, how quickly can we have those stable homes built on love?