Lord Laming

The department knows that many local authorities have an existing family group decision making (FGDM) service in place, including many who use the family group conference model. In some local authorities, independent coordinators are recruited to facilitate or ‘chair’ FGDM meetings and, in other areas, social workers are trained to deliver the service.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the department is seeking to place a duty on local authorities to offer an FGDM meeting to all parents and those with parental responsibility whose children are on the edge of care, unless this is not in the best interests of the child. This will ensure that families have the opportunity to participate in planning and decision-making at this critical point.

As part of this, the department will be developing guidance about best practice in delivering FGDM. This will include guidance on how to ensure that facilitators of the FGDM process have the appropriate skills and training. We are conscious of the additional resources that local authorities will require to fulfil this measure, which may include recruiting or training extra staff. That is why this government has committed to an uplift of £13 million for the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant for 2025/26, which will be used to support the rollout of FGDM across the country for all families on the edge of care. This money can be used to expand a local authority’s existing service, including training additional facilitators for FGDM.

This government is determined to break down barriers to opportunity for all our young people. We will act to prevent the damage caused to the lives of young people who are not in education, employment or training. The government recognises the complex, long-standing nature of the challenge, and will make a raft of changes to tackle it.

Young people are required to continue in education or training until they turn 18. We are preventing young people from losing touch with education or employment before the age of 18 through a guaranteed place in education and training for all 16 and 17-year-olds, expanded work experience and careers advice, action to tackle school attendance and improved access to mental health services for young people in England. Over £7.5 billion in 16 to 19 programme funding will be invested during the 2024/25 academic year, to pay for education for any 16, 17 or 18-year-olds in post-16 education.

£240 million has been announced to drive forward measures in the Get Britain Working White Paper. This includes a youth guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training, educational opportunities or help to find work. Working with Mayoral Authorities, and building on existing provision and entitlements, we will test new ways of supporting young people into employment or training. To do this, we will mobilise eight place-based youth guarantee trailblazers with £45 million of funding in 2025/26.

The comprehensive package also includes: a new national jobs and careers service to help more people into work, foundation apprenticeships to give people a new route into skilled work, Get Britain Working Plans for the economically inactive, and the launch of Skills England to open new opportunities for young people.

The department is committed to reforming the children’s social care system so that all children can grow up in stable and loving homes. To support this, the department has recently announced that it is investing an additional £44 million in kinship and foster care.

The King’s Speech on 17 July committed to a Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which will ensure our education and children’s social care systems transform lives for millions of children and young people in England. The department will use the Bill to deliver the government’s commitment on children’s social care.

The department wants to ensure that children leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.

The department does not currently have any plans to provide match funding to incentivise children in care to participate in the Stepladder Plus programme.

This government has been clear that absence from school is a key barrier to overcome, because if pupils are not attending school they cannot benefit from good teaching and learning.

Thanks to the efforts of the sector, there are more learners in school almost every day this year compared to last. However, with 1.6 million children still persistently absent, missing 10% of lessons or more, poor attendance remains a major challenge.

That is why the department will work with the sector to bring breakfast clubs to all primary schools, so that every child is in on time and ready to learn. The department will also introduce new annual Ofsted reviews of safeguarding, attendance, and off-rolling. The department will also tackle mental health issues among young people by providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school.

This is in addition to activity to support schools and local authorities to tackle the school absence challenge. This includes:

• Setting clear expectations for schools, trusts and local authorities to provide a ‘support first’ approach: the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance requires schools, trusts and local authorities to work together to tackle absence and became statutory in August 2024. For those facing complex barriers to attendance, schools are asked to have sensitive conversations with children and families and work with them to put support in place for their individual needs. This guidance is attached and can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance.

• Supporting schools and local authorities to use data to target interventions: schools and local authorities can access an attendance data tool to identify and intervene where pupils are at risk of persistent absence. Sharing of attendance data has also become mandatory for all schools.

• Attendance mentors operating in five local authorities with high absence levels.

• 31 attendance hubs across the country, sharing best practice across the sector.

Wider measures such as the pupil premium, the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision improvement plan, and the holiday activities and food programme also benefit attendance.

This government is committed to whole system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve.

The department recognises that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention to support families to stay together and thrive, and this will be at the heart of its whole system reform of children’s social care.

This department also recognises the valuable and important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. The government’s manifesto set out a commitment to working with local government to support children in care, including through kinship arrangements.

Through the £45 million Families First for Children pathfinder and Family Network Pilot, the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole family support in ten pathfinder local authorities. In these local authorities, multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity to prevent escalation.

These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks by involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home.

This government is committed to whole system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve.

The department recognises that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention to support families to stay together and thrive, and this will be at the heart of its whole system reform of children’s social care.

This department also recognises the valuable and important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. The government’s manifesto set out a commitment to working with local government to support children in care, including through kinship arrangements.

Through the £45 million Families First for Children pathfinder and Family Network Pilot, the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole family support in ten pathfinder local authorities. In these local authorities, multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity to prevent escalation.

These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks by involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home.

The department is committed to working with local government to support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption. The department is also strengthening regulation of the children’s social care sector, so that every child has the best start in life no matter where they grow up.

This government is committed to helping children thrive and wants the best for every child and family. That means providing the right early support for families facing challenges, keeping children close to their communities and family networks and stepping in to keep children safe from harm where this is necessary. For example, the Families First for Children Pathfinder is working with ten local areas to test delivery of children's social care reforms spanning family network engagement and support, safeguarding partners, targeted early help (‘family help’) and child protection. The department will build on the foundations laid by local authorities over recent years to create for a care system that works for everyone.

The needs of the child are paramount when deciding the right care placement. The Children’s Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to make sure that there is sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children in their care and ensure placements safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Further, the guidance is clear that the child’s allocated social worker, supported by local authority management and resources, should do everything possible to minimise disruption to the child’s education and, where a child is in key stage 4, a move should only be made in exceptional circumstances. Responsibility for looked-after children sits with the local authority. The guidance and regulations of the Children Act 1989 can be found attached.

Every local authority must appoint a Virtual School Head (VSH), who has a statutory duty to promote the educational attainment of all children in their care. All maintained schools and academies must appoint a designated teacher to act as a source of advice and expertise about the needs of the looked-after children on the school’s roll. Looked-after children also have top priority in school admissions and attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,570 per child, up to age 16. This is managed by the VSH, who works with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in the child’s personal education plan.

Whilst the number of placements experienced by looked after children in a one year period has remained broadly stable over the past 5 years, the government recognises there are issues with finding stable placements. That is why the government has announced over £400 million in capital funding to help local authorities create more beds in their local areas which will aim to further reduce the number of children experiencing multiple placements.

The government is committed to ensuring that looked-after children are supported to succeed in education and achieve positive outcomes. Every local authority must appoint a virtual school head (VSH), who has a statutory duty to promote the educational attainment of all children in their care. All maintained schools and academies must appoint a designated teacher to act as a source of advice and expertise about the needs of the looked-after children on the school’s roll. Looked-after children also have top priority in school admissions and attract pupil premium plus funding of £2,570 per child, up to age 16. This is managed by the VSH, who works with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in the child’s Personal Education Plan.

In February 2023, the department announced the national rollout of £24 million of pupil premium plus style funding to looked-after children and care leavers at post-16 for the next two years, from 2023/24. This funding, which builds on an initial £8 million pilot that launched in October 2021, gives VHSs the financial levers to positively impact the educational outcomes of looked-after children and care leavers in post-16 education.

The needs of the child are paramount when deciding the right care placement. The Children’s Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to make sure that there is sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children in their care and ensure placements safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Further, the guidance is clear that the child’s allocated social worker, supported by local authority management and resources, should do everything possible to minimise disruption to the child’s education and, where a child is in key stage 4, a move should only be made in exceptional circumstances. Responsibility for looked-after children sits with the local authority. The guidance and regulations of the Children Act 1989 can be found attached.

Every local authority must appoint a Virtual School Head (VSH), who has a statutory duty to promote the educational attainment of all children in their care. All maintained schools and academies must appoint a designated teacher to act as a source of advice and expertise about the needs of the looked-after children on the school’s roll. Looked-after children also have top priority in school admissions and attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,570 per child, up to age 16. This is managed by the VSH, who works with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in the child’s personal education plan.

Whilst the number of placements experienced by looked after children in a one year period has remained broadly stable over the past 5 years, the government recognises there are issues with finding stable placements. That is why the government has announced over £400 million in capital funding to help local authorities create more beds in their local areas which will aim to further reduce the number of children experiencing multiple placements.

The number of looked-after children in the care of their local authority has increased by 2% to 83,840 at 31 March 2023 from 82,080 last year. The number of children in children’s homes has increased by 16% since 2019.

The department knows that the care system does not currently work for every child and that there are not enough of the right homes in the right places for children in care, resulting in some children living far from where they call home. Moving a child away is not a decision to be taken lightly and there are legislative safeguards around this. Directors of Children’s Services are required to sign off each decision and Ofsted can challenge where they believe poor decisions are being made. This is to encourage local authorities to place children locally wherever possible.

As the Competition and Markets Authority found in their 2022 market study, the largest private providers are making materially higher profits and charging materially higher prices than would be expected if the market was functioning effectively. The department recognises these issues, particularly around large providers with complex ownership structures, and agrees that sometimes placement costs can be too high.

In February 2023, the department published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which sets out a broad, system-wide transformation. This can be accessed attached. As part of this strategy, the department is:

• Investing £36 million to support over 60% of all local authorities in England to recruit and retain more foster carers.
• Investing over £142 million up to 2025 to implement new mandatory national standards and Ofsted registration and inspection requirements for providers who accommodate 16 and 17 year old looked-after children and care leavers, in addition to banning the placement of under-16s in supported accommodation.
• Working with the sector to co-design and develop regional care co-operative pathfinders, which will plan, commission, and deliver children’s social care placements.
• Investing £259 million capital funding for secure and open children’s homes.
• Introducing a new market oversight regime that will increase financial transparency across the sector, for example, of ownership, debt structures and profit making.

Finally, the department is supporting kinship families through the first ever national kinship care strategy, which is backed by the following funding: £20 million in 2024/25; over £36 million in a fostering recruitment and retention programme this Spending Review; and £160 million over the next three years to deliver the department’s adoption strategy, entitled ‘Achieving excellence everywhere’.

The number of looked-after children in the care of their local authority has increased by 2% to 83,840 at 31 March 2023 from 82,080 last year. The number of children in children’s homes has increased by 16% since 2019.

The department knows that the care system does not currently work for every child and that there are not enough of the right homes in the right places for children in care, resulting in some children living far from where they call home. Moving a child away is not a decision to be taken lightly and there are legislative safeguards around this. Directors of Children’s Services are required to sign off each decision and Ofsted can challenge where they believe poor decisions are being made. This is to encourage local authorities to place children locally wherever possible.

As the Competition and Markets Authority found in their 2022 market study, the largest private providers are making materially higher profits and charging materially higher prices than would be expected if the market was functioning effectively. The department recognises these issues, particularly around large providers with complex ownership structures, and agrees that sometimes placement costs can be too high.

In February 2023, the department published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which sets out a broad, system-wide transformation. This can be accessed attached. As part of this strategy, the department is:

• Investing £36 million to support over 60% of all local authorities in England to recruit and retain more foster carers.
• Investing over £142 million up to 2025 to implement new mandatory national standards and Ofsted registration and inspection requirements for providers who accommodate 16 and 17 year old looked-after children and care leavers, in addition to banning the placement of under-16s in supported accommodation.
• Working with the sector to co-design and develop regional care co-operative pathfinders, which will plan, commission, and deliver children’s social care placements.
• Investing £259 million capital funding for secure and open children’s homes.
• Introducing a new market oversight regime that will increase financial transparency across the sector, for example, of ownership, debt structures and profit making.

Finally, the department is supporting kinship families through the first ever national kinship care strategy, which is backed by the following funding: £20 million in 2024/25; over £36 million in a fostering recruitment and retention programme this Spending Review; and £160 million over the next three years to deliver the department’s adoption strategy, entitled ‘Achieving excellence everywhere’.

The number of looked-after children in the care of their local authority has increased by 2% to 83,840 at 31 March 2023 from 82,080 last year. The number of children in children’s homes has increased by 16% since 2019.

The department knows that the care system does not currently work for every child and that there are not enough of the right homes in the right places for children in care, resulting in some children living far from where they call home. Moving a child away is not a decision to be taken lightly and there are legislative safeguards around this. Directors of Children’s Services are required to sign off each decision and Ofsted can challenge where they believe poor decisions are being made. This is to encourage local authorities to place children locally wherever possible.

As the Competition and Markets Authority found in their 2022 market study, the largest private providers are making materially higher profits and charging materially higher prices than would be expected if the market was functioning effectively. The department recognises these issues, particularly around large providers with complex ownership structures, and agrees that sometimes placement costs can be too high.

In February 2023, the department published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which sets out a broad, system-wide transformation. This can be accessed attached. As part of this strategy, the department is:

• Investing £36 million to support over 60% of all local authorities in England to recruit and retain more foster carers.
• Investing over £142 million up to 2025 to implement new mandatory national standards and Ofsted registration and inspection requirements for providers who accommodate 16 and 17 year old looked-after children and care leavers, in addition to banning the placement of under-16s in supported accommodation.
• Working with the sector to co-design and develop regional care co-operative pathfinders, which will plan, commission, and deliver children’s social care placements.
• Investing £259 million capital funding for secure and open children’s homes.
• Introducing a new market oversight regime that will increase financial transparency across the sector, for example, of ownership, debt structures and profit making.

Finally, the department is supporting kinship families through the first ever national kinship care strategy, which is backed by the following funding: £20 million in 2024/25; over £36 million in a fostering recruitment and retention programme this Spending Review; and £160 million over the next three years to deliver the department’s adoption strategy, entitled ‘Achieving excellence everywhere’.

The number of looked-after children in the care of their local authority has increased by 2% to 83,840 at 31 March 2023 from 82,080 last year. The number of children in children’s homes has increased by 16% since 2019.

The department knows that the care system does not currently work for every child and that there are not enough of the right homes in the right places for children in care, resulting in some children living far from where they call home. Moving a child away is not a decision to be taken lightly and there are legislative safeguards around this. Directors of Children’s Services are required to sign off each decision and Ofsted can challenge where they believe poor decisions are being made. This is to encourage local authorities to place children locally wherever possible.

As the Competition and Markets Authority found in their 2022 market study, the largest private providers are making materially higher profits and charging materially higher prices than would be expected if the market was functioning effectively. The department recognises these issues, particularly around large providers with complex ownership structures, and agrees that sometimes placement costs can be too high.

In February 2023, the department published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which sets out a broad, system-wide transformation. This can be accessed attached. As part of this strategy, the department is:

• Investing £36 million to support over 60% of all local authorities in England to recruit and retain more foster carers.
• Investing over £142 million up to 2025 to implement new mandatory national standards and Ofsted registration and inspection requirements for providers who accommodate 16 and 17 year old looked-after children and care leavers, in addition to banning the placement of under-16s in supported accommodation.
• Working with the sector to co-design and develop regional care co-operative pathfinders, which will plan, commission, and deliver children’s social care placements.
• Investing £259 million capital funding for secure and open children’s homes.
• Introducing a new market oversight regime that will increase financial transparency across the sector, for example, of ownership, debt structures and profit making.

Finally, the department is supporting kinship families through the first ever national kinship care strategy, which is backed by the following funding: £20 million in 2024/25; over £36 million in a fostering recruitment and retention programme this Spending Review; and £160 million over the next three years to deliver the department’s adoption strategy, entitled ‘Achieving excellence everywhere’.

Improving attendance is one of the department’s priorities. The report provides vital insight into the relationship between attendance and attainment. The recommendations echo the department’s ‘support first' approach to attendance and its goal to make attendance everyone's business. In response, the department continues to implement its comprehensive plan to address the issue.

The department has published guidance encouraging all schools and local authorities to adopt the practices of the most effective schools. All schools are now expected to publish an attendance policy and appoint an attendance champion. Local authorities are expected to meet termly with schools to agree individual plans for at risk children. 86% of schools subscribe to the department’s attendance data tool to spot at risk pupils. The department’s attendance hubs now support 800 schools benefiting over 400,000 pupils.

These measures are in addition to the implementation of the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reforms which will ensure that children with SEND receive high quality, early support in attending school wherever they live in England.

The department’s approach is starting to turn the tide, with recent data showing there were 380,000 fewer pupils who were persistently absent from or not attending school in the 2022/23 academic year compared to 2021/22, but absence levels remain too high.

This government is committed to ensuring that all care leavers are supported to succeed in education and achieve positive outcomes. The ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ strategy sets out the department’s plans to reform the children’s social care system, including improving the education, employment and training outcomes of children in care and care leavers. This includes, from 2027, a year-on-year narrowing of the gap in care leaver higher education participation rates compared to the general population.

We will introduce a gold standard accreditation scheme for further and higher education institutions supporting care leavers, working with an expert advisory group to develop the accreditation in partnership with the sector, and will consult on plans to expand the Virtual School Head role to include children in care and care leavers up to age 25. Local authorities must also provide a £2,000 bursary for care leavers who go to university.

All children of compulsory school age, regardless of their circumstances, are entitled to a full-time education which is suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs that they may have. The department consulted and implemented changes to the statutory School Admissions Code in 2021 to improve the in-year school admissions process and fair access protocols. Fair access protocols are the safety net to secure school places in-year for vulnerable and unplaced children, where the in-year admissions process fails. In those changes, the department identified a list of categories of children who are eligible for placement in fair access, which included children who are homeless. The school admissions code can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-admissions-code--2.

The ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance expects schools, local authorities and partners to work with pupils and parents to remove any barriers to school attendance by building strong and trusting relationships, and working together to put the right support in place. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance. In all cases, schools should be sensitive and should avoid stigmatising pupils and parents. They should talk to pupils and parents to understand what they think would help improve their attendance. This allows individual approaches that meet an individual pupil’s specific needs.

All schools should be calm, orderly, safe, and supportive environments where pupils can thrive and reach their potential in safety and dignity. Teachers know their pupils best and are in the best position to identify their needs and to plan which approaches will meet them most effectively.

The department published its plans to reform children’s social care on 2 February 2023 in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1147317/Children_s_social_care_stable_homes_consultation_February_2023.pdf.

‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ sets out how the department will help families to overcome challenges at an early stage, keep children safe and make sure those in care have stability, long-term loving relationships and opportunities for a good life. Over the next two years, the department will address urgent issues facing children and families now and lay the foundations for a whole system reform.

A central aim of the reform programme is to keep more children safely with their families, where this is possible. The department will invest more than £45 million over the next two years through its ‘Families First for Children Pathfinder’, which will test the implementation of reforms across Family Help, Child Protection, and Family Network Support Packages. This will inform wider roll out.

Whilst the government recognises the importance of reducing the number of placements for children in the care system, placements can be the right option for some children. The strategy also sets out how the department is prioritising work with local authorities to ensure children have access to the right placements at the right time.

The government has a comprehensive attendance strategy to ensure that absence is minimised. The department has recently published guidance setting out how we expect schools, trusts and local authorities to work together to improve attendance, which is available in the attached document.

The guidance is clear that schools should develop and maintain a whole school culture that promotes the benefits of high attendance, have a clear school attendance policy, and have effective day to day processes in place to follow-up absence.

The guidance sets out that schools are expected to use attendance data to identify patterns of poor attendance (at individual and cohort level) as soon as possible so that all parties can work together to resolve them before they become entrenched. To help schools to do this, the department has recently launched new functionality which allows mainstream schools that are sharing daily attendance data to compare attendance with other schools within their own local authority. This can be seen under the ‘compare your attendance tab’ via GOV.UK’s ‘View your education data’ site at: https://viewyourdata.education.gov.uk/. The tool will help schools to identify strengths and priorities and signpost to additional guidance and support.

The department has employed expert attendance advisers who are playing an important role working closely with local authorities and a number of multi-academy trusts with higher levels of persistent absence to review their current practice and support them to develop plans to improve. The department has also recently launched a £2.32 million attendance mentor pilot to deliver intensive one-to-one support to a group of persistently and severely absent pupils. The pilot will run for three years supporting a total of 1,665 pupils. The findings from this pilot should enable schools, trusts, and local authorities to address persistent and severe absence more effectively.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has also established an Alliance of national leaders from education, children’s social care and other relevant services to work together to raise school attendance and reduce persistent absence. Schools and local authorities can also use a range of measures to provide support for and/or sanctions against parents when their child’s irregular attendance in school becomes a problem. These measures are used to reinforce parents’ responsibilities and to support them in improving their child’s attendance at school.

As set out in the department’s Adoption Strategy: Achieving Excellence Everywhere, we are committed to improving the matching of approved adopters with children waiting to be found new homes. The strategy can be found attached.

£5 million has been committed for 2022 to 2025 to support Regional Adoption Agency Leaders to focus specifically on reducing the number of children who wait over 18 months for homes from the time of a court placement order being given. Some progress has already been made. This number has fallen from 390 in March 2020 to 240 in September 2022, but the department wants to see further and faster progress.

In addition, government funded recruitment campaigns are helping to provide a greater sufficiency of adopters, as well as targeted campaigns with a focus on recruiting adopters who are more likely to give a loving home to the children who wait the longest to be adopted.

Being in school and ready to learn is crucial to pupils’ attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances.

The department's focus is on supporting children and young people to recover from the disruption of COVID-19 through a multi-year programme and has made available almost £5 billion for education recovery. This includes nearly £2 billion of direct funding to schools so they can deliver evidence-based interventions based on pupil needs.

We have also published new guidance, ‘Working together to improve school attendance’, which makes clear the importance of addressing the barriers to attendance through strong multi-agency working at school, multi-academy trust and local authority level.

The department consulted on making this guidance statutory and received broad support. We intend to make this guidance statutory when parliamentary time allows.

The department has brought together an Action Alliance of lead professionals from key frontline services that support families. Members from education, health, justice, the third sector and parent organisations have collectively committed to use their roles and organisations to undertake activities to improve attendance.

In England, the responsibility for ensuring a looked-after child or young person is in the appropriate placement rests with local authorities as they are best placed to understand the specific needs of individual children in their care. Local authorities have a duty to ensure sufficient appropriate provision for all of the children they look after.

The department recognises, however, that some local authorities sometimes find it difficult accessing the most appropriate accommodation, particularly for children with the most complex needs, and that children are sometimes placed in locations away from home, when they may be better served by a placement in their local area, were one available.

The lack of available and suitable placements for the most vulnerable children is something this government takes seriously. With that in mind, the government is taking significant steps to support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duties. Between now and 2025, £259 million will be made available to develop and expand the provision of both secure and open homes, to reduce out of area placements, to provide for children with complex needs, and to promote innovative practice to maintain placement stability or prevent children from entering the care system.

Recognising the urgency of action in placement sufficiency, and following the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, the department will also work with local authorities on recruiting more foster carers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a market study in March 2021 exploring the lack of availability and increasing costs in children’s social care provision, including children’s homes, and fostering. It examines concerns around high prices paid by local authorities and inadequate supply of appropriate placements for children. The interim report was published on 22 October 2021 and noted that some relevant parties had expressed concerns around the level of profits made by large private sector providers of children’s homes. It considers the profit levels to be a symptom of the underlying problem of insufficient supply of appropriate places and the difficulties local authorities have in engaging effectively in this market.

The full report, including any recommendations, will be published by the 11 March 2022.

In addition to the CMA market study, the independent children’s social care review is taking a fundamental look at the needs, experiences, and outcomes of those supported by children’s social care, and what is needed to make a real difference. The review is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform systems and services, with the aim of better supporting, protecting, and improving the outcomes of vulnerable children and young people.

​The government will respond to both sets of recommendations after the respective reviews have concluded.

The interim report from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is welcome but we are not waiting for the final report before acting. Every child in care deserves to live in accommodation that meets their needs and keeps them safe. Councils are responsible for providing suitable, safe accommodation for vulnerable children in their care. As part of the Spending Review, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced investment of £259 million to help them meet this duty, by increasing the number of places in open and secure children’s homes. This builds on work that has already started to maintain capacity and expand provision in existing secure children’s homes, alongside new capital funding to help councils create new homes. We have also consulted on national minimum standards for any unregulated provision accommodating 16 or 17 year olds

The government is also undertaking a widescale review of children’s social care, taking a fundamental look at the needs, experiences, and outcomes of the children it supports, and what is needed to make a real difference. The review will be bold, broad, and independently led, taking a fundamental look across children’s social care, with the aim of better supporting, protecting and improving the outcomes of vulnerable children and young people. The review will be evidenced based and bring together a broad range of expertise.

The department is engaging with the CMA and the independent review of social care, and will respond to both sets of recommendations when available.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a market study in March 2021 examining the lack of availability and increasing costs in children’s social care provision, including children’s homes and fostering. The CMA will examine concerns around high prices paid by local authorities and inadequate supply of appropriate placements for children. Its interim report was published on 22 October and its full report, including any recommendations, will be published by 11 March 2022.

The department welcomes the findings from the CMA’s interim report but will wait for the final report and recommendations before setting out our response.

The government is clear that children in care and care leavers deserve places to live that meet their needs and keep them safe, and local authorities have statutory duties to ensure this. It is unacceptable for any child to be placed in a setting that does not do this, for any amount of time.

The government has consulted on reforms to the use of unregulated independent and semi-independent provision. This includes banning the placement of children under the age of 16 being placed in these settings. Children of this age need care and should be placed in a children’s home or foster care. We are clear that independent and semi-independent provision can be the right option for older children, if it is high quality and meets their needs. We are, however, concerned that provision is not always as good as it should be, which is why we have consulted on new national standards regarding provision for 16 and 17 year olds.

If an unregistered children’s home – a setting that should be registered with Ofsted as a children’s home but is not – is operating, it is doing so illegally, and Ofsted has powers to prosecute these providers. We have consulted on giving Ofsted additional powers to take earlier enforcement action against illegal unregistered providers.

We will be responding to this consultation, and setting out our plans for next steps in due course.

Local authorities have statutory duties to ensure that care placements are made with consideration of the needs and risks of individual children. This extends to the use of unregulated provision. Local authorities must carry out checks on this provision to ensure that it meets the needs of children and keeps them safe. We are also aware that, due to capacity issues, some local authorities have found it difficult to locate suitable placements for children with the most complex needs. As my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced on 25 November 2020, the government will provide £24 million in 2021-22 to start a new programme to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure children’s homes. This will provide high-quality, safe homes for some of our most vulnerable children and will mean children can live closer to their families and support networks, in settings that meet their needs.

The multi-agency statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018) makes explicit the legal requirements and expectations on individuals, agencies and organisations to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It sets out that, as well as threats from within their families, children may be vulnerable to abuse or exploitation from outside their families. Assessments of children in such cases, who are referred to local authority children’s social care, should consider whether wider environmental factors are present in a child’s life, and are a threat to their safety. This should be considered when determining what support and accommodation should be provided. The guidance specifically highlights the risks to children of child sexual exploitation, and from exploitation by criminal gangs such as county lines.

the government is providing councils with an additional £1 billion for adult and children's social care in every year of this parliament. This is on top of the continuation of the £410 million social care grant next year. Funding for children’s social care is not ringfenced, allowing councils to spend based on local need and priorities, including on family support and preventative services.

This government has also made a commitment to continuing and improving the Troubled Families Programme. £165 million has already been made available for the Programme to be extended in 2020-21. This will ensure that more families get access to the vital early support they need to overcome complex problems such as anti-social behaviour, mental health issues and domestic abuse.

Where a child cannot live at home, it is one of the state’s most important responsibilities to ensure that the child is kept safe and able to flourish. All looked-after children should have a secure, stable and loving family environment to support them through childhood and beyond and to give them a sense of security, continuity, identity and belonging. The Children and Social Work Act (2017) sets out ‘corporate parenting principles’ to which local authorities should have regard as they take on the role of parent to looked-after children and care leavers.

The assumption that children in public care should ever be treated as a financial asset is a false premise. Local authorities have a legal duty to make decisions on care placements based on where their individual needs can be met. While children should be placed close to home where this is possible and appropriate, it can often be the right option for a placement further away from home. This might be, for example, when a child requires specialist care that is not always available locally or is at risk of exploitation.

Where children are placed out of area, this must be agreed to by the local authority’s Director of Children’s Services, and the placing authority must inform the host local authority. We are providing funding through our £200 million Innovation Programme to increase local authorities’ capacity so fewer children are placed far away from home.

We are committed to ensuring that looked-after children are supported to succeed in education and statutory guidance is clear in recognising the importance of stability in education. When arranging a suitable care placement, a child’s social worker, supported by local authority management and resources, should do everything possible to minimise disruption to the child’s education. Where a child is in key stage 4, children should only be moved in exceptional circumstances.

Ofsted inspect how well local authorities are meeting their duties for looked-after children under the Children Act (1989). Under their current inspection framework, they focus on the effectiveness of local authority services and arrangements in order to help and protect children.

The inspection framework also addresses the experiences and progress of children in care wherever they live, including those children who return home, as well as arrangements for permanence for looked-after children and the experiences and progress of care leavers. In addition, they evaluate the effectiveness of leaders and managers and the impact they have on the lives of children and young people, and the quality of professional practice.

Where a child cannot live at home, it is one of the state’s most important responsibilities to ensure that the child is kept safe and able to flourish. All looked-after children should have a secure, stable and loving family environment to support them through childhood and beyond and to give them a sense of security, continuity, identity and belonging. The Children and Social Work Act (2017) sets out ‘corporate parenting principles’ to which local authorities should have regard as they take on the role of parent to looked-after children and care leavers.

The assumption that children in public care should ever be treated as a financial asset is a false premise. Local authorities have a legal duty to make decisions on care placements based on where their individual needs can be met. While children should be placed close to home where this is possible and appropriate, it can often be the right option for a placement further away from home. This might be, for example, when a child requires specialist care that is not always available locally or is at risk of exploitation.

Where children are placed out of area, this must be agreed to by the local authority’s Director of Children’s Services, and the placing authority must inform the host local authority. We are providing funding through our £200 million Innovation Programme to increase local authorities’ capacity so fewer children are placed far away from home.

We are committed to ensuring that looked-after children are supported to succeed in education and statutory guidance is clear in recognising the importance of stability in education. When arranging a suitable care placement, a child’s social worker, supported by local authority management and resources, should do everything possible to minimise disruption to the child’s education. Where a child is in key stage 4, children should only be moved in exceptional circumstances.

Ofsted inspect how well local authorities are meeting their duties for looked-after children under the Children Act (1989). Under their current inspection framework, they focus on the effectiveness of local authority services and arrangements in order to help and protect children.

The inspection framework also addresses the experiences and progress of children in care wherever they live, including those children who return home, as well as arrangements for permanence for looked-after children and the experiences and progress of care leavers. In addition, they evaluate the effectiveness of leaders and managers and the impact they have on the lives of children and young people, and the quality of professional practice.

Where a child cannot live at home, it is one of the state’s most important responsibilities to ensure that the child is kept safe and able to flourish. All looked-after children should have a secure, stable and loving family environment to support them through childhood and beyond and to give them a sense of security, continuity, identity and belonging. The Children and Social Work Act (2017) sets out ‘corporate parenting principles’ to which local authorities should have regard as they take on the role of parent to looked-after children and care leavers.

The assumption that children in public care should ever be treated as a financial asset is a false premise. Local authorities have a legal duty to make decisions on care placements based on where their individual needs can be met. While children should be placed close to home where this is possible and appropriate, it can often be the right option for a placement further away from home. This might be, for example, when a child requires specialist care that is not always available locally or is at risk of exploitation.

Where children are placed out of area, this must be agreed to by the local authority’s Director of Children’s Services, and the placing authority must inform the host local authority. We are providing funding through our £200 million Innovation Programme to increase local authorities’ capacity so fewer children are placed far away from home.

We are committed to ensuring that looked-after children are supported to succeed in education and statutory guidance is clear in recognising the importance of stability in education. When arranging a suitable care placement, a child’s social worker, supported by local authority management and resources, should do everything possible to minimise disruption to the child’s education. Where a child is in key stage 4, children should only be moved in exceptional circumstances.

Ofsted inspect how well local authorities are meeting their duties for looked-after children under the Children Act (1989). Under their current inspection framework, they focus on the effectiveness of local authority services and arrangements in order to help and protect children.

The inspection framework also addresses the experiences and progress of children in care wherever they live, including those children who return home, as well as arrangements for permanence for looked-after children and the experiences and progress of care leavers. In addition, they evaluate the effectiveness of leaders and managers and the impact they have on the lives of children and young people, and the quality of professional practice.

Where a child cannot live at home, it is one of the state’s most important responsibilities to ensure that the child is kept safe and able to flourish. All looked-after children should have a secure, stable and loving family environment to support them through childhood and beyond and to give them a sense of security, continuity, identity and belonging. The Children and Social Work Act (2017) sets out ‘corporate parenting principles’ to which local authorities should have regard as they take on the role of parent to looked-after children and care leavers.

The assumption that children in public care should ever be treated as a financial asset is a false premise. Local authorities have a legal duty to make decisions on care placements based on where their individual needs can be met. While children should be placed close to home where this is possible and appropriate, it can often be the right option for a placement further away from home. This might be, for example, when a child requires specialist care that is not always available locally or is at risk of exploitation.

Where children are placed out of area, this must be agreed to by the local authority’s Director of Children’s Services, and the placing authority must inform the host local authority. We are providing funding through our £200 million Innovation Programme to increase local authorities’ capacity so fewer children are placed far away from home.

We are committed to ensuring that looked-after children are supported to succeed in education and statutory guidance is clear in recognising the importance of stability in education. When arranging a suitable care placement, a child’s social worker, supported by local authority management and resources, should do everything possible to minimise disruption to the child’s education. Where a child is in key stage 4, children should only be moved in exceptional circumstances.

Ofsted inspect how well local authorities are meeting their duties for looked-after children under the Children Act (1989). Under their current inspection framework, they focus on the effectiveness of local authority services and arrangements in order to help and protect children.

The inspection framework also addresses the experiences and progress of children in care wherever they live, including those children who return home, as well as arrangements for permanence for looked-after children and the experiences and progress of care leavers. In addition, they evaluate the effectiveness of leaders and managers and the impact they have on the lives of children and young people, and the quality of professional practice.

Where a child cannot live at home, it is one of the state’s most important responsibilities to ensure that the child is kept safe and able to flourish. All looked-after children should have a secure, stable and loving family environment to support them through childhood and beyond and to give them a sense of security, continuity, identity and belonging. The Children and Social Work Act (2017) sets out ‘corporate parenting principles’ to which local authorities should have regard as they take on the role of parent to looked-after children and care leavers.

The assumption that children in public care should ever be treated as a financial asset is a false premise. Local authorities have a legal duty to make decisions on care placements based on where their individual needs can be met. While children should be placed close to home where this is possible and appropriate, it can often be the right option for a placement further away from home. This might be, for example, when a child requires specialist care that is not always available locally or is at risk of exploitation.

Where children are placed out of area, this must be agreed to by the local authority’s Director of Children’s Services, and the placing authority must inform the host local authority. We are providing funding through our £200 million Innovation Programme to increase local authorities’ capacity so fewer children are placed far away from home.

We are committed to ensuring that looked-after children are supported to succeed in education and statutory guidance is clear in recognising the importance of stability in education. When arranging a suitable care placement, a child’s social worker, supported by local authority management and resources, should do everything possible to minimise disruption to the child’s education. Where a child is in key stage 4, children should only be moved in exceptional circumstances.

Ofsted inspect how well local authorities are meeting their duties for looked-after children under the Children Act (1989). Under their current inspection framework, they focus on the effectiveness of local authority services and arrangements in order to help and protect children.

The inspection framework also addresses the experiences and progress of children in care wherever they live, including those children who return home, as well as arrangements for permanence for looked-after children and the experiences and progress of care leavers. In addition, they evaluate the effectiveness of leaders and managers and the impact they have on the lives of children and young people, and the quality of professional practice.

As of 31 March 2018, there were 16,200 looked after children in England in foster placements under private provision. Further information can be found in table A5 in the statistical release ‘Children looked after in England including adoption’ at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018.

Table 1, attached, taken from the National Tables of the National Statistics release ‘Permanent and fixed-period exclusions in England 2016 to 2017,’ includes information on permanent and fixed period exclusions by age. Table 2, attached, shows the numbers of permanent and fixed period exclusions, broken down by age, for the academic years 2011/12 to 2016/17.

Good behaviour in schools is essential to ensure that all pupils can benefit from the opportunities provided by education. We trust headteachers to set and enforce good standards of behaviour in schools. No headteacher takes excluding a child lightly, and any exclusion is based on evidence of that child’s behaviour.

The youngest children with permanent exclusions from state-funded primary, state-funded secondary and special schools in England were aged 4 in 2016/17.

As part of their approach, all schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy which outlines measures to encourage good behaviour and prevent all forms of bullying amongst pupils. The policy should set out the behaviour expected of pupils; the sanctions that will be imposed for misbehaviour; and rewards for good behaviour. This should be communicated to all pupils, school staff and parents. There are no rules about the age at which pupils can be excluded. The department supports a headteacher’s use of exclusion where it is warranted, regardless of the age of the pupil.

Data used to derive published exclusion statistics are collected via the school census and covers those settings in scope of the statutory guidance on exclusions. Data does not cover independent schools, sixth form colleges or further education colleges, all of which have separate exclusion procedures.

The department supports head teachers in using exclusion where it is warranted.

In March 2018, the government launched an externally led review of exclusions practice, led by Edward Timpson CBE. The review is exploring how head teachers use exclusion, and why pupils with particular characteristics are more likely to be excluded from school. It is also considering the differences in exclusion rates across primary and secondary schools in England.

The review will report in early 2019. The full terms of reference for the review can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-exclusions-review-terms-of-reference.

It is the duty of the schools to arrange for the provision of suitable full time education from the sixth day of a fixed period exclusion. Local authorities are responsible for arranging suitable full time education for permanently excluded pupils, which must begin no later than the sixth day of the exclusion.

Alternative Provision (AP) is the system in place to educate pupils of compulsory school age who would not otherwise receive a suitable education. The government is taking forward a programme of reform to AP. This includes a £4 million Alternative Provision Innovation Fund with 9 projects underway to improve outcomes for children in AP.

Edward Timpson CBE is leading a review of exclusions, which will consider how schools use exclusion and in particular why some groups of children are more likely to be excluded from school. The review will report in due course. The full terms of reference for the review can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-exclusions-review-terms-of-reference.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure there is sufficient accommodation for looked-after children in their area. Although there is no requirement for local authorities to provide accommodation in their own area, they may place children in provision offered by the private and voluntary sectors, and placement location is one of the factors that they must take into account when identifying a suitable placement for a child.

The department is supporting a number of projects to increase capacity locally. Through our £200 million Children’s Social Care Innovation programme, we are funding projects that will increase the number of residential care placements available in London, where demand for placements outstrips supply.

We are providing seed funding to three local authorities to set up new secure provision, where out of area placements are particularly common. In 2019, we will also be providing seed funding to fostering partnerships to increase their local sufficiency of foster parents.

Local authorities have a duty to promote contact not only between looked-after children and their parents, but also with relatives, friends, and others connected to the child, provided that this contact is in the child’s best interests.

Children in care must have access to high quality education provision, wherever they are placed. The responsible local authority must do everything possible to arrange a care placement that allows the child to continue in their existing educational provision, even if they can no longer live in the immediate area. However, it is sometimes necessary to place a child away from their local area and school, for example to disrupt sexual exploitation or gang violence.

Work is already under way to improve commissioning of placements. This includes providing funding through part of our £200 million Children’s Social Care Innovation programme to projects in London to increase councils’ capacity, so that fewer children are placed far away from home.

The latest figures show that the number of children who were placed outside the boundary of the local authority responsible for their safety and wellbeing at the 31 March 2018 was 30,670, or 41% of all looked-after children. These figures were published in table A5 of the statistical release ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2017 to 2018’ at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018.

The department does not collect information on the distance in miles between the placement of a child and the boundary edge of the local authority. The department does collect, however, two separate pieces of information in relation to placement location; the distance the child is placed away from their home postcode and whether the placement is located inside or outside their responsible local authority. The number of looked-after children placed outside their local authority boundary and more than 50 miles from their home was 5,380 (or 7% of all looked-after children) at 31 March 2018. There were 2,080 children (or 3% of all looked-after children) placed more than 100 miles from their home and outside their local authority boundary. These figures exclude children where the distance of the placement is unknown.

We want to reduce out of area placements, but they will always be part of the care landscape. Sometimes local authorities have to identify a placement outside of the child’s local area to disrupt gang violence, trafficking or sexual exploitation or where specialist provision is needed.

In recent years government has also increasingly asked local authorities to consider boarding as an option for looked-after children if it may be suitable for them and in some instances this may mean children are placed outside of their local authority area.

The latest figures show that the number of children who were placed outside the boundary of the local authority responsible for their safety and wellbeing at the 31 March 2018 was 30,670, or 41% of all looked-after children. These figures were published in table A5 of the statistical release ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2017 to 2018’ at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018.

The department does not collect information on the distance in miles between the placement of a child and the boundary edge of the local authority. The department does collect, however, two separate pieces of information in relation to placement location; the distance the child is placed away from their home postcode and whether the placement is located inside or outside their responsible local authority. The number of looked-after children placed outside their local authority boundary and more than 50 miles from their home was 5,380 (or 7% of all looked-after children) at 31 March 2018. There were 2,080 children (or 3% of all looked-after children) placed more than 100 miles from their home and outside their local authority boundary. These figures exclude children where the distance of the placement is unknown.

We want to reduce out of area placements, but they will always be part of the care landscape. Sometimes local authorities have to identify a placement outside of the child’s local area to disrupt gang violence, trafficking or sexual exploitation or where specialist provision is needed.

In recent years government has also increasingly asked local authorities to consider boarding as an option for looked-after children if it may be suitable for them and in some instances this may mean children are placed outside of their local authority area.

The government is clear that the needs of the child are paramount when making decisions about the right care placement. Local councils have a statutory duty to consider the right placement for each child and take into account a number of factors, one of which is placement area. Sometimes circumstances make it the right decision for a local council to identify a placement outside of the child’s local area, for example when a child is at risk from child sexual exploitation, trafficking or gang violence or when they need very specialist care.

Out of area placements require approval from the Director of Children’s Services, and Ofsted will challenge local councils where they believe poor out of area placements are being made.

The National Fostering Stocktake is underway. It is a comprehensive review of fostering in England. It will help us better understand the current provision and challenges in the system. It is looking at a wide range of issues including commissioning of placements and the recruitment, retention and matching of foster carers. The reviewers will report to ministers with recommendations at the end of the year.