Photo: Altanaka / Abobe Stock

Photo: Altanaka/Abobe Stock

Contents

Background to the children’s social care reforms

The government launched an Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in March 2021 (often referred to as “the care review”), following its manifesto commitment to review the children’s social care system. The review was led by Josh MacAlister and published its report in May 2022.

Two other significant reports were published in spring 2022. One was Child Protection in England – the report and recommendations from the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s review into the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson. The other was the Competition and Markets Authority review of the children’s placements market, which was launched due to increasing concerns about the high prices and lack of appropriate placements for looked-after children.

The Department for Education’s response to these three reports is the Stable Homes Built on Love strategy – initially published for consultation on 2 February 2023. Alongside, the government also published consultations on a national framework for children’s social care, and on the social work workforce. It described the plans as “a major reset” and “the first step towards achieving once in a generation reform” of children’s social care. It committed to £200m in funding for children’s social care reform over two years (the care review had called for £2.6bn over four years.)

The documents published by the DfE were:

1. Stable Homes, Built on Love
   

   A strategy document outlining the government’s plans focused on:

   • restructuring ‘family help’ (by removing the distinction between targeted early help and child-in-need, and better supporting disabled children and diverse communities);
   • a “decisive” multi-agency child-protection system – testing out a new expert child protection lead practitioner role;
   • involving wider family more through increased support for and emphasis on kinship care;
   • providing more ‘stable, loving homes’ close to where children in care are from through more financial support for fostering, testing regional commissioning of placements, reviewing standards, legislation and guidance;
   • improving retention and career development for social workers, reducing reliance on agency staff;
   • ensuring the system makes better use of data, with a new outcomes framework (see point 2).

   The government published its response to the consultation on Stable Homes, Built on Love in September 2023, which is available here. (The original strategy put out for consultation in February 2023 is available here).

2. Children’s social care national framework

   A 66 page document “bringing together, in one place, the purpose of children’s social care, principles for practice, and the outcomes that should be achieved”. This was put together by a National Practice Group of “experts in practice, evidence, lived experience and multi-agency working”. The updated version (following the consultation, published December 2023) is now statutory guidance for LAs on delivering their social care functions. The framework includes plans to generate a new ‘dashboard’ of indicators for children’s social care performance at LA level (not yet in place but information here). The government stressed that the “the national framework clarifies existing duties; no new duties are added.” (The updated version is here; the original document put out for consultation in February 2023 is available here.)

3. The social work workforce

   This document focused on recruitment and retention and the use of agency workers. It proposed a set of national rules on agency work, including price caps on what local authorities may pay for an agency worker; post-qualified experience needed for an agency assignment; use of project teams; references, notice periods, and movement between agency and substantive roles; collection and sharing of pay and agency data and adherence of procurement routes with the national rules. The DfE response to this consultation was published on 25 October 2023. (The original document put out for consultation in February 2023 is available here).

The DfE’s social care strategy: key points

The major elements of the strategy the DfE set out in the three documents are listed below, updated with the the current position where relevant.

• Family help: £45m to be allocated for up to 12 “families first for children” (FFC) pathfinder areas to trial introducing multidisciplinary family help services. These will provide “non-judgmental, joined-up” support for families affected by issues such as domestic abuse or poor mental health and bring together existing targeted early help and child-in-need services. The requirement for qualified social workers to lead child-in-need cases is removed; other practitioners can take this role. Three pathfinder areas have started trialling the reforms so far.
  See below for more detail about what is emerging from the FFC pathfinders trialling family help and the next steps.
• Child protection: Child protection lead practitioners, who will have received “advanced specialist training”, will be appointed to lead child protection cases in the FFC pathfinder areas. They will co-work such cases with family help teams. The pathfinders will also set up multi-agency teams of social workers, police officers and health professionals to carry out child protection work. The DfE also said it would consult on new multi-agency child protection standards. The final version of these is now found in pages 82-84 of Working Together 2023.
• Involving family networks: The pathfinders will test “family support network packages”, using family group decision-making, such as family group conferences, at an early stage to support parents to minimise risks to children and help avoid children going into care . Seven additional areas will test providing FSNPs as a standalone policy (see below). More information will be published here.
  

  Photo: Postock Studio/Fotolia

• National standards and outcomes: The DfE put forward a children’s social care national framework setting expected outcomes for children and families that should be achieved by all local authorities. This was consulted on and a final version published in December 2023. A one page summary of the framework in on page 13 of the document. The four outcomes are:
  • for children and families to stay together and get the support they need;
  • for children to be supported by their family network;
  • for children to be safe in and out of home; and
  • for children in care and care leavers to have stable, loving homes.

  These are to be underpinned by three “enablers”:

  • that multi-agency working is prioritised and effective;
  • that leaders drive conditions for effective practice; and
  • that the workforce is equipped and effective.

  Ofsted inspections will be aligned to the national framework. It will also be reflected in a new children’s social care dashboard intended to “provide insight and learning by improving the timeliness, accessibility and comparability of children’s social care data”. The dashboard is expected to launch in 2024 – read more about it here.

• Updating Working Together: The government said it would update Working Together to Safeguard Children to support the reforms. A new version of the statutory guidance (replacing the 2018 version) was published in December 2023. The DfE emphasised that with the new guidance, it wanted local authorities and safeguarding partners to embed new child protection standards for practitioners and for “all partners to deploy a multi-disciplinary workforce to provide direct support that meets the needs of children and families”. This government document summarises the key changes between Working Together 2018 and Working Together 2023. See more about the changes to Working Together and how they affect social work practice below.
  
  Alongside the new Working Together and the Children’s Social Care National Framework, the government published Improving practice for children, young people and families, a guide advising local authorities on how to embed the two pieces of statutory guidance, and the practical and financial support available to help them adapt to the new guidance.
• Social work training and development: An early career framework (ECF) to be established, replacing the ASYE. Practitioners to be supported to develop, and be assessed against, the “skills and knowledge needed to support and protect vulnerable children”, and, in years three to five, to develop into “expert practitioners”. This ECF is being tested by a group of early adopter councils with a view to full implementation in 2026. See below for more detail about the ECF testing and rollout. (Relatedly, the DfE confirmed that the National Assessment and Accreditation System, which was scrapped in 2022, will not be revived.)

Photo: fotolia/Monkey Business

• Kinship care: The DfE said it would publish a kinship care strategy. This was launched in December 2023 and is available here. This includes £20m of funding for ‘championing kinship care’ in 2024-25, via additional training and support for kinship carers. The government will also explore the care review’s recommendations of a financial allowance and the extension of legal aid for those who become special guardians or responsible for children through child arrangements orders.
• Foster care: £27m will be spent on a carer recruitment and retention programme focused on shortage areas, such as sibling groups, teenagers, unaccompanied children, parent and child placements and children who have suffered complex trauma (the care review had called for the recruitment of 9,000 carers over three years). Details of the programme have not yet been announced. Foster carers will receive an above-inflation rise in minimum allowances to deal with rising costs.
• Relationships for children in care and care leavers: £30m will be spent on family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes for looked-after children and care leavers, to help them find and maintain relationships, as the care review recommended. Applications for this funding were open from 21 July to 25 August 2023. Training to practitioners in successful local authorities is being provided by Family Rights Group.
• Support for care leavers: The suggested grant made available to children leaving care will increase from £2,000 to £3,000, while the bursary for those undertaking apprenticeships will rise from £1,000 to £3,000, broadly in line with recommendations from the care review.
• Disabled children: The DfE asked the Law Commission to review the law on social care for disabled children, which it said was a “patchwork of outdated legislation which leads both to variation in the services provided and to confusing, often safeguarding-focused routes to accessing support”. The review is currently in a ‘pre-consultation phase’, with a consultation expected in spring 2024. You can see the latest updates here.

Photo: Dragonstock/Fotolia

• Commissioning care placements: The DfE backed the care review’s proposal to transfer responsibility for the commissioning of care placements from individual councils to regional groupings of authorities (regional care co-operatives – RCCs), which will initially be tested in two areas before being rolled out. It also accepted the Competition and Market Authority’s proposal to commission a national body to provide help for authorities/RCCs in forecasting demand and procurement. It said these measures would address the insufficiency of placements for children in care, improve outcomes and tackle the excess profit-making identified by the CMA among the largest providers. The RCC areas and details of the national body have not yet been announced.
• Financial oversight of providers: The government will also introduce a financial oversight regime for the largest children’s home providers and independent fostering agencies (IFAs), similar to that for adult social care, to reduce the risks of providers exiting the market suddenly. Details of the scheme have not yet been announced.
• Data strategy: The care review recommended more was done to gain insight from and analyse the data gathered in children’s social care, and address issues with case management systems and technology that affected information sharing. The government published its strategy to use “data and digital services to their full potential” in December 2023. This was followed, in April 2024, with guidance for councils on developing and using data analytics tools in children’s social care. This provides advice on assessing the benefits and risks of using these tools, ethical considerations, reducing exposure to risk, developing tools and responding to common challenges.
• Improving information sharing: Stable Homes also included plans to improve multi-agency information sharing, the quality of which was heavily criticised by both the care review and the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel. On the back of this, it consulted on and then published, in April 2024, updated guidance on information sharing in relation to safeguarding children. While the previous version of the guidance stated that practitioners should, where possible, share information with consent, the latest iteration states that consent is not usually the most appropriate lawful basis in a safeguarding context. Instead, they should rely on other legal bases for sharing information. In the case of councils, these are usually ‘public task’ –  sharing information is in line with the lawful exercise of a public function – and ‘legal obligation’ – it is necessary to share information to comply with the law.
• Social work recruitment: The DfE will “explore ways to support the recruitment of up to 500 additional child and family social worker apprentices” to help tackle staff shortages. In October 2023, it announced it had provided £11.7m to 79 of the 153 local authorities to recruit 461 apprentices.
• Agency social work: The department proposed bringing in national rules to reduce the cost and use of agency social workers in children’s services. This initially included capping the rates local authorities pay so that agency staff receive the equivalent of permanent workers doing the same role, once benefits have been taken into account. However, that element was dropped in October 2023. Proposed statutory guidance on the use of agency workers was put out for consultation in February 2024. The rules are due to start being implemented in summer 2024, with full implementation by autumn 2024.
• Social work workloads: Stable Homes also proposed action to tackle “unnecessary workload pressures” on local authority children’s social workers. The DfE subsequently set up a National Workload Action Group (NWAG) to lead this work, supported by a consortium comprising Research in Practice, Essex County Council and King’s College London. Since then, the NWAG has been developing proposals to tackle workloads to submit to the DfE, while a group of local authorities has been selected to test resources developed by the group.

Key aspects of the reforms for social workers

Photo: WhyFrameShot / Adobe Stock

Below we share more detail about the changes most likely to affect social workers and managers in their day-to-day practice and careers. This will be updated as pilots of the reforms progress and more information is announced.

The new Working Together

Some of the most significant changes in Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 are:

• Child-in-need case holding: The revised Working Together allows local authorities to allocate section 17 cases to staff including family support workers and non-council workers. Under the new statutory guidance, staff, including those outside of the local authority, can take on the role, now termed ‘lead practitioner’, under the oversight of a social work qualified manager or practice supervisor. However, it is expected that social workers will continue to be lead practitioners for many child-in-need cases. Child protection enquiries and casework will remain ring-fenced for social workers.
• Disabled children: While the previous version of Working Together simply set out councils’ legal duties around providing support to disabled children and their carers, the 2023 redraft sets out the value of providing this support. It says practitioners’ assessments should be strengths-based and inform decisions on the help needed for the child to achieve the best possible outcomes, enable the family to continue caring for them where right for the child and ensure practical support to enable them to thrive.
• Designated social care officer role (DSCO): The revised guidance also encourages councils to appoint designated social care officers (DCSOs) – senior social work leads for special educational needs and disability provision (SEND). The role is designed to oversee social care’s contribution to SEND provision, such as education, health and care assessments, plans and reviews, as well as strategic planning of services for disabled children, such as short breaks.
• National multi-agency practice standards for child protection: standards are included for the first time, for practitioners who work with children and their families in any capacity, with a section specifically targeted at those directly involved in section 47 enquiries, child protection conferences and child protection plans

From Child in need cases opened up to non-social work staff despite risk concerns (Community Care 14 January 2024)

‘Families first for children’ (FFC) pathfinders trialling key aspects of the reforms

The government is testing out key planks of Stable Homes, Built on Love with ‘pathfinder’ authorities. Three councils – Dorset, Lincolnshire and Wolverhampton – started trialling the reforms in 2023. In April 2024, seven more were announced: Lewisham, Luton, Redbridge, Walsall, Warrington, Warwickshire and Wirral.

The pathfinder authorities are testing out the following reforms:

1. Setting up multi-disciplinary family help teams, through the merger of existing targeted early help and child in need services, to provide more effective and non-stigmatising support to families.
2. Appointing experienced and skilled social workers as lead child protection practitioners (LCPPs). They will hold all child protection cases, working in tandem with family help practitioners already involved with the family and supported by practitioners from other agencies – notably health and police – who are also particularly skilled in safeguarding.
3. Making greater use of family networks when families need help, through increased use of family group decision making and the provision of support packages to remove financial and practical barriers to networks providing this support.
4. Strengthening multi-agency safeguarding leadership, including through ensuring members of strategic partnerships are sufficiently senior to make decisions on behalf of their agency, and increasing the role of education.

In December 2023, leaders from Dorset, Lincolnshire and Wolverhampton councils told the National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC) that the lead practitioner role posed some challenges. (See ‘Specialist child protection role poses workforce challenge for test-bed authorities‘, Community Care, 1 December 2023.)

Family network pilots

As mentioned above, among other reforms, the FFC pathfinders are trialling the ‘family network support package’ (FNSP) policy. Separately, the DfE is piloting family network support in an additional seven local authorities to test the impact of this policy in isolation. Brighton and Hove, Sunderland, Gateshead, and Telford and Wrekin councils started piloting FNSPs in July 2023. Staffordshire, Hartlepool and Hammersmith and Fulham will start in spring 2024.

Early career framework

Separately, other councils and children’s trusts are testing the plans for a five year programme to support the development of NQSWs.

The early career framework (ECF) is intended to replace the 12-month assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) with a longer-term programme of support. It aims to improve retention, as well supporting social workers to develop knowledge and skills.

This would be split into an initial two-year induction period for new staff, followed by a further three years of career development when they would be enabled to specialise.

Eight local authorities were selected in 2023 to test the early career framework:

1. Achieving for Children (for its services in the London boroughs of Kingston and Richmond)
2. Birmingham Children’s Trust
3. East Sussex County Council
4. Gloucestershire County Council
5. Plymouth Council
6. Stockport Council
7. Together for Children (in Sunderland)
8. London Borough of Tower Hamlets

The information about the programme published in May 2023 is available here.

More councils are being encouraged to apply to join a second cohort (applications closed on 4 April 2024.) They need to have an Ofsted ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ rating, have supported on average at least 20 social workers per year on an ASYE scheme for the last three years and “have sufficient capacity, flexibility and willingness to fully engage with the engagement and testing activities required as an early adopter​”.

The DfE says the chosen organisations will help the department better understand the needs of early career children’s social workers, inform the makeup of the ECF and design an accompanying development programme for practitioners. Organisations will get £50,000 for taking part.

Read more about the early career framework in these Community Care articles:

• ‘Councils urged to test social work early career framework’ (7 March 2024)
• Employers chosen to design and test social work early career framework (21 September 2023)