Education Committee report on children's social care: CCN responds

Today the Education Committee has released a new report, How to fix children's social care and restore care leavers' chances. The County Councils Network gave evidence to support this research.

Below, the network responds to the report.

Cllr Tim Oliver, Chair of the County Councils Network, said:

“The County Councils Network (CCN) welcomes this timely report, which highlights many of the major challenges which our authorities are facing up and down the country – particularly the sufficiency of care placements and their dramatically accelerating costs caused by market dysfunction.

“Whilst the findings of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care have led to the right direction of reform to focus more on prevention, the committee is correct to highlight the need for more progress, and quicker. Whilst this government has committed to reform, the money allocated to support change has fallen woefully short of the £2.6bn recommended by the independent review.

“Without this scale of investment local authorities will not be able to make the step changes the committee identifies as key to improving the experience and outcomes of our most vulnerable children – notably a shift towards earlier intervention and prevention to reduce the numbers in the care system overall.

“As such the CCN fully supports the committee’s call for the government to provide a ‘comprehensive response’ to the independent review, including detail of which recommendations have already been taken forward, and a timeline and funding estimates for those which have not yet been implemented so far.”

‍