In 2019, the government committed to reviewing the children's social care system to make sure young people get the support they need. The independent review of children's social care was announced in January 2021; the final report was published in May 2022. This article breaks down the key points for schools to be aware of.

The key aims of the report for schools to be aware of are as follows:

Establish a ‘National Children’s Social Care Framework’
Make schools a statutory safeguarding partner
Identify more teachers as possible foster carers
Create a legal duty for schools to promote the wellbeing of care experienced pupils
Make care experience a protected characteristic
Base ‘Family Help’ teams in schools
Reform Ofsted inspection in social care
Double the number of care leavers attending university by 2026
Let Ofsted assess virtual school heads’ (VSH) performance
Enable more pupils in care to receive places at boarding schools
Provide senior mental health lead training to all schools
Replace Young Offender Institutions with ‘Secure Schools’
Provide further funding for LAs in 2022/2023
Consult on proposed changes responding to independent recommendations

Read on to learn more about each key aim.

Establish a ‘National Children’s Social Care Framework’

The report says a “dramatic system reset” is needed to benefit children in care and their families. Without this, it warns outcomes will remain “stubbornly poor” for them and the number of children in care could reach around 100,000 within 10 years.

A central recommendation is that of a ‘National Children’s Social Care Framework’, which the report argues is required to set the direction and purpose for the system, supported by meaningful indicators that bring transparency and learning. It recommends that the government appoint a ‘National Practice Group’, to build practice guides that would set out the best-known ways of achieving the objectives set by the national framework. The framework would set objectives for the key features of how help should be delivered and provide guidance for relevant organisations and figures.

Make schools a statutory safeguarding partner

In line with the plans for a national social care framework, the report calls for schools to be made a statutory safeguarding partner with joint responsibility for the strategic and operational delivery of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. At present, there are three partners: the LA, clinical commissioning groups, and the police. Schools are currently named as a ‘relevant agency’ instead, with the rationale for this being that there was no single voice that could represent all schools within an area.

The report says that multi-agency arrangements should be clarified to make clear their strategic role, supported by improved accountability, learning and transparency. It adds that “in too many places” the contribution and voice of education settings is absent from partnership arrangements, while the relationship between social care and education was “consistently fraught” with pupils needing a social worker up to four times more likely to be excluded.

It suggests that the DfE should work with school leaders to identify how best to have schools made a statutory partner, and proposes one method for achieving this would be that schools within an area nominate a representative to work alongside the other three partners. The representative would be someone who possesses sufficient seniority, such as the CEO of a MAT, and who is be able to make decisions on behalf of the schools in their area.

Identify more teachers as possible foster carers

The report calls for the DfE to launch a national foster carer recruitment programme to recruit an additional 9,000 foster carers. As part of this, it says known and trusted adults should be identified who may be willing to step forward and become a pupil’s foster carer – this includes teachers, community workers and the parents of school friends. At present, “it is far too rare” that such figures are considered as a fostering option and the culture of care which often considers it inappropriate to ask a teacher to consider becoming a child’s foster carer “needs to change”.

It says that if just 1 percent of teachers stepped forward as foster carers, there would be 4,610 new homes available for pupils in care “with someone who already cared about them and who could offer stability in their education, friendship groups and community”.

Create a legal duty for schools to promote the wellbeing of care experienced pupils

The report draws attention to the Scottish Government’s change to the law in 2015 to name 24 bodies and organisations as corporate parents, alongside LAs. These organisations, such as the police and schools, have a legal duty to promote the wellbeing of “care experienced people”. It says this has resulted in “tangible and meaningful changes which could be replicated in England”.

A similar law in England “would more accurately reflect the role that schools” and other public organisations play in the lives of children in care and those with experience in care, with training required to be provided for schools to support the new responsibility.

Make care experience a protected characteristic

The report calls for the UK to become the first country in the world to make care experience a protected characteristic. Care experienced people can regularly face discrimination, stigma and prejudice. Public perception typically focusses on the idea that children in care are ‘damaged’, prompting discrimination and assumptions which can hinder their ability to succeed in education. The report includes an anecdote of a teacher telling a pupil “you’re smart – for a kid in care”.

Based on testimony from care experienced people, the report argues that the discrimination they receive is similar in nature to other groups that possess a legally protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, and that making care experience a protected characteristic would result in policies and programmes promoting better outcomes.

Base ‘Family Help’ teams in schools

As part of its objective of “a revolution in Family Help” via a fundamental shift in the children’s social care response, reducing the number of handovers between services, the report recommends introducing one category of ‘Family Help’ to replace “targeted early help” and “child in need” work.

Multidisciplinary Family Help teams would deliver the new service, made up of professionals, e.g. family support workers and mental health practitioners, working alongside social workers to provide support and reduce the number of families referred to other services. These teams would be based in familiar and trusted community settings such as schools. To achieve this, a temporary injection of around £2 billion is required over the next five years, targeting half a million children.

The report cites a recent DfE pilot that placed social workers in schools, which demonstrated the benefits of bringing social care closer to communities, building better relationships with children, families and with partners, seeing a reduction in child protection enquiries undertaken and child in need plans in some areas.

Reform Ofsted inspection in social care

It is important to increase transparency about how Ofsted makes its judgements and to be clearer in its frameworks what is meant by quality, effectiveness and impact of services provided to pupils in care, the report argues, due to perceptions around the inspectorate. For instance, the report notes a reluctance by some providers to take in certain children in case it makes a poor inspection outcome more likely.

Accordingly, Ofsted should increase the transparency on its judgement-making in social care and ensure that inspection has a rigorous underpinning.

Double the number of care leavers attending university by 2026

A number of challenges were identified facing pupils in care in the education system, such as the average Attainment 8 score for LAC being 23.2 in 2020/2021 compared to 50.9 for non-LAC, and a significantly lower likelihood of progressing to university and completing their studies once there. The report subsequently chooses a target of doubling the number of care leavers, also known as previously LAC (PLAC), attending university by 2026 given the stark inequality in this area. In setting this goal, the report says it is making clear that “the whole education system” has a part to play in its achievement.

Let Ofsted assess the performance of virtual school heads (VSHs)

VSHs have the ability to improve educational attainment, but they lack accountability for this and can perform a wider and more active role in the attainment of pupils in care. The report says Progress 8 should be a key measure by which VSH performance is judged, with Ofsted’s framework and guidance for inspecting LA services for children used to assess this.

Additionally, VSHs can take a more active role by directing pupil premium funding towards interventions that are well evidenced, such as evaluated tutoring and mentoring programmes which can provide some of the most effective interventions to improve attainment.

Enable more pupils in care to receive places at boarding schools

In 2013, fewer than 1 percent of LAC were in secondary independent schools, compared to 6.4 percent of their peers. The report says VSHs are well-positioned to identify pupils who are likely to perform better in independent schools, as well as state and independent boarding and day schools.

The DfE has trialled a programme exploring whether more central coordination could support better identification, matching and placing of pupils into independent boarding and day schools, with positive results to date. While it will not be the best solution for all pupils, it is important that those it may be beneficial for are identified and supported to get access to such opportunities. The report also suggests the DfE should look to increase the supply of boarding school places in state schools.

Provide senior mental health lead training to all schools

The report says identifying and responding to mental health issues should be a central part of training programmes for professionals working with children. It calls for upskilling a much larger number of professionals in basic mental health techniques to complement greater investment in services to better support pupils with their mental and physical health. This includes a recommendation for senior mental health lead training to be provided to all schools in England; the government has previously committed to offering training to all state-funded schools by 2025.

Replace Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) with ‘Secure Schools’

YOIs are deemed to be “wholly unsuitable for children”, with secure homes often better able to provide a more caring, supportive environment that favours recovery, education, and returning to their family or community. YOIs, alongside Secure Training Centres, should be phased out within 10 years and replaced by local secure children’s homes or ‘Secure Schools’ run or commissioned by Regional Care Cooperatives (RCCs).

RCCs should also develop other options of secure care such as remand foster care, or specialist residential care which is capable of providing care, support and treatment for young people with complex behavioural and mental health needs. Linked to this, the report calls for the DfE to take full responsibility for youth justice policy, rather than sharing it with the Ministry of Justice.

Provide further funding for LAs in 2022/2023

In its initial press release, the DfE has included a commitment for LAs to receive funding in 2022/2023 to continue schemes that put social workers on-site in schools and provide DSLs with supervision from senior social workers.

The department has also released several consultations on its proposals to reform children’s social care, which respond to recommendations set out in this report and other independent reviews. These are covered in the section below.

Consult on proposed changes responding to independent recommendations

The DfE has also launched the following consultations related to children’s social care:

Children's social care strategy: Stable Homes, Built on Love – This consultation seeks views on proposals to reform children’s social care, in response to recommendations from this independent review and others. Have your say here.
Children’s Social Care National Framework and Dashboard – This consultation seeks views on the Children's Social Care National Framework and the Children's Social Care Dashboard. Submit your views here.
Child and Family Social Worker Workforce – This consultation seeks views on proposals to introduce national rules on the engagement of agency social work resource in LA children’s social care. Have your say here.

All three consultations close on 11 May 2023. The main proposals affecting schools across the consultations are:

Use VSHs and pupil premium plus (PP+) funding to create opportunities for LAC and PLAC to achieve their potential through education, employment and training.
Improve multi-agency leadership of services at the local level through reforms to safeguarding partners, to ensure that schools have a greater role in supporting and protecting vulnerable children. Clarifying and strengthening schools’ power in multi-agency arrangements will be addressed by:

- Consulting on how to strengthen the role of education settings as part of the Spring 2023 update to ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’.
- Using consultation feedback to help form proposals on whether and how to make education a fourth safeguarding partner; if taken forward, this proposal will be consulted on in Autumn 2023, and legislation will be brought forward when possible if agreed.

Strengthen standards and regulations for residential special schools and other settings for children in care, and increase Ofsted’s inspection powers, to limit the increased risk of abuse present in these settings.
Build on existing support in schools such as PP+ and post-16 PP+ funding, the Broadening Educational Pathways programme, and the expansion of the VSH role to include LAC and PLAC up to age 25.

What’s next?

Read the final report in full and a number of accompanying documents here.
View the DfE’s initial response to the report via its press release here.
Respond to the consultations on children’s social care via the links above.