Local Authority Children’s Services

Jack Rankin Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) for securing this important debate, and for his powerful and thoughtful contribution, particularly in relation to the tragic case of Sara Sharif.

We have heard thoughtful contributions from right across the House this morning. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke passionately about her city, about sharing best practice and about the importance of the first 1,001 days of a child’s life, which are critical. The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) talked about the variation in children’s services around the country and how it is a postcode lottery, and in particular about the difference between London and the south-west. It is heartening to hear that services in his Devon constituency are improving.

There were calls for joined-up thinking from right across the House, led by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). The hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) supported the hon. Member for Woking by raising concerns on behalf of her constituents regarding the quality of care from Surrey county council. I was particularly moved by the personal commitment to looked-after children by the hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby), who brought his experience to bear.

Themes we have heard from right across the House include support for kinship carers, the need for long-term funding, the lack of places, and the fact that we need processes in order to learn the vital lessons of the past. I associate His Majesty’s loyal Opposition with those themes and, in particular, with Members’ tributes to frontline staff. There may be systemic issues, but we know that frontline staff do their best under difficult constraints. They are overworked and underpaid, and deserve all of our support.

I think the nature of need in the country is shocking. Local authorities in England are supporting around 400,000 children in need. That is roughly one in 30 children. As of the end of March last year, around 49,000 children were subject to child protection plans, and more than 80,000 were in local authority care. Those figures should give us pause; one in 30 children is the equivalent of a child in every classroom. But this debate is not about numbers; it is about children—the most vulnerable, at-risk children in our communities. It is not about statistics, but about lives—and, in the case of Sara Sharif, a life lost.

Sara was living in Woking when she was murdered by her father and stepmother. The hon. Member for Woking has rightly been a passionate advocate for change, particularly since the publication of the local child safeguarding practice review. I commend him for that work. Nine of the 15 recommendations in the review were wholly or partially local, and I echo the call for Surrey county council to implement them swiftly but thoroughly. It is our responsibility in this place to ensure that where national recommendations are made, children’s services are properly equipped to meet their statutory duties. I welcome the work that has begun, but there is more to do.

Nationally, the scale of pressures on children’s services is clear. According to the Local Government Association, the number of children in care is 18% higher than a decade ago. Councils now carry out more than 600 child protection investigations every single day. But despite increased budgeted spending, councils have been overspending on children’s social care by an average of 14% each year, and planned budgets for 2025-26 show a further 10% rise in costs. At the heart of this lies a fundamental problem: a shortage of high-quality placements for looked-after children. Demand continues to outstrip supply, driving up costs and putting intense pressure on social care, SEND services and care leaver support.

Under the previous Conservative Government, the proportion of local authority children’s services rated good or outstanding rose from 24% in 2015 to 60% in 2024, according to the Institute for Government. That progress matters, but it is equally true that around a third of local authorities still require improvement or are judged inadequate. This is about children’s safety. Having listened to hon. Members from across the political spectrum, I hope I speak for many in saying that we all want the Government to succeed in this area. Getting children’s services right underpins so many outcomes and, most importantly, helps prevent tragedies like Sara’s from ever happening again.

The hon. Member for Woking may know that part of my constituency is in the Surrey county council area. The council has committed to implementing all the local recommendations in full. I share some of his concerns about the culture in that team and the need for joined-up services, so that children do not fall between the cracks. Encouragingly, Ofsted’s most recent inspection, in 2025, highlighted some improvements at the front door of services. Inspectors noted that referrals to the children’s single point of access received “timely and proportionate” responses, and that there was effective partnership working with the police, particularly in cases of domestic abuse and missing children. Multi-agency strategy meetings were found to be “timely and well attended” leading to considered decisions. Those are vital steps forward and I welcome them.

I have met the new lead member, Councillor Jonathan Hulley, to discuss this matter. I have a great deal of personal confidence in him, and he recognises the scale of change required in this area. I was heartened to see that a motion calling for an independent expert review of the improvements made at Surrey county council following Sara’s death was passed unanimously by the council last month, with cross-party support. That independent scrutiny is essential to providing confidence that reforms are effective, lasting and properly focused. I will be watching closely for its outcomes, as I know the hon. Member for Woking will be, and I hope that we can all embrace the cross-party approach of our county colleagues across Surrey and within the council to drive sustained improvement.

As well as Surrey, in my constituency I also deal with children’s services delivered by the royal borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and by Slough borough council—I do not know whether I am unique in having three different children’s services. Ofsted rated the royal borough’s services as good in October 2024. By contrast, Slough has been inadequate since early 2023, although subsequent focus visits, including in July 2024, found that children in need and those on child protection plans were receiving timely and appropriate services.

These neighbouring authorities illustrate a simple but uncomfortable truth: children’s services remain a postcode lottery. Where services are well led, outcomes can and do improve under the existing framework; where they struggle, the causes are often leadership, capability and delivery on the ground, not the absence of legislative powers. That is why we should be careful and cautious about assuming that more legislation on its own will necessarily lead to better outcomes for children.

I wish to talk briefly about the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which continues its passage in the other place. I welcome the Government’s acceptance of several amendments responding to the recommendations from the Sara Sharif review, particularly proposals to pilot meetings with parents before deregistration from school, and the option of a visit within 15 days of a child starting home education. However, there remain serious concerns. As drafted, the Bill would not fully address the specific safeguarding loopholes identified in Sara’s case. Baroness Barran is doing excellent work in the Lords to close those gaps, and I hope that the Government will think again on some of those issues. I welcome the Government’s introduction of unique child identification, as we previously called for. More broadly, the principle of a register of children not in school, as raised by the hon. Member for Woking, has long enjoyed cross-party support. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that.

Education matters and school attendance should be the norm, but parental choice also matters. Elective home education is a legitimate option for many families. As it stands, the Bill does not strike the right balance. I have received numerous representations from constituents concerned that the proposals would place excessive and unnecessary burdens on responsible home-educating families. The requirement to detail exact hours of education, on pain of breaking the law, is particularly intrusive and fails to reflect the reality of flexible home-based learning. Safeguarding measures must be proportionate and focused on identifying genuine risk, not on creating layers of bureaucracy that stigmatise families who are doing the right thing.

I urge the Government to go further in tightening the conditions under which a local authority may withhold consent for elective home education. Government amendment 120 to the Bill, which would apply where a child has been on a child protection plan within the past five years, does not go far enough. Local authorities should also consider whether a child has ever been subject to care proceedings, even where those proceedings did not result in a care order, as tragically was the case with Sara.

If the Bill is to honour its stated purpose, it must focus relentlessly on protecting children at genuine risk, not on sweeping up responsible families into an overly prescriptive system. Getting this right matters; as we have heard today, children’s lives depend on it.