CSC0096

Written evidence submitted by Become charity

Become is the national charity for care-experienced children and young people. We put young people at the heart of everything we do, supporting them to get the help they need now and empowering them to bring about change in their own lives, the care system and society.

Key messages

1. The care system is overwhelmed, with increasing number of children in care and a lack of appropriate homes able to adequately meet their needs.

2. Children in care continue to face high levels of instability, which can negatively impact on their wellbeing, education and relationships.

3. There needs to be significant reform, sustainable investment and stronger accountability to ensure that children in care are able to live in stable homes that meet their needs.

4. Young people leaving the care system face a care cliff, often forced to become independent before they are ready and without the support they need to make a positive start to adulthood.

5. The Government’s proposed reforms do not go fast or far enough to address the disparities and disadvantages facing care-experienced children and young people.

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Introduction

At Become, we are delighted that the Education Select Committee has decided to hold an inquiry into children’s social care.

We think it is essential that the views and voices of care-experienced young people are at the heart of the Committee’s inquiry.

Our response to the inquiry, set out below, has been informed by the views, insights and experiences of care-experienced children and young people that we work with. Separately, we have also developed and promoted a short survey for care-experienced children and young people, to enable them to easily share their views with the Committee. We will provide a summary of the survey responses from young people to the Committee as a separate submission.

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Our response

1. The care system is overwhelmed, with increasing number of children in care and a lack of appropriate homes able to adequately meet their needs.

1.1) The number of children in care in England has increased steadily over the last decade. In 2023, there were 83, 840 children in care[1]: a 23% increase from 2013[2]. There has also been a change in the composition of the care population, with an increase in the number of children entering care with complex or multiple needs.

1.2) There has been an increase in the number of older teenagers entering the care system in the past decade, with the numbers of children aged 16 or above entering care each year more than doubling between 2013 and 2023[3]. This can be in part explained by increases in extra familial harms, such as criminal or sexual exploitation[4]. There has also been a significant rise in the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the care system, with numbers rising by 42% between 2019 and 2023[5]. Ofsted has also reported an increase in the number of children requiring specialist provision to support complex needs, particularly mental health needs, being accommodated within the care system, in part due to a policy change in the health service to reduce the number of children in Tier 4 inpatient CAMHS beds[6].

1.3) Multiple factors have contributed to the rising numbers and increasing needs of children in care, including the rise in poverty rates. There is a strong link between entering care and structural poverty: children in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods are over ten times more likely to be in care or on a protection plan than those in the least deprived 10%[7]. There is also clear evidence that poverty is a factor in child abuse and neglect, the leading reasons for children entering the care system[8].

1.4) Another factor influencing rising numbers of children in care is the sustained shift in local authority spending away from early intervention and preventative services over the past decade, in response to budget restrictions. Between 2010-11 and 2021-22, combined spending on early intervention services fell by 46%, while total expenditure on late intervention has risen by almost half (47%)[9].

1.5) As demand for children’s social care has increased, a number of factors have negatively impacted on the supply of children’s social care. Firstly, the care system continues to face numerous workforce challenges. In 2021-22, one in five social worker posts were vacant[10], with high levels of churn amongst social workers and record numbers of agency social workers[11]. The total number of mainstream fostering households has decreased by 7% since 2019[12]; and Ofsted has raised concerns about high levels of staff turnover and inexperienced staff in the children's homes workforce[13].

1.6) In recent years, there has been a reduction in the amount of care placements provided in-house by local authorities, whilst the number of placements provided by the private sector has increased dramatically[14]: 85% of all children’s homes are now run by private providers[15]. This has led to a power imbalance between private providers and local authority commissioners: reducing local authorities’ control over the type of provision that is developed, where it is located, and the cost of placements[16]. For example, only 7% of all children’s home places are in London, compared to 24% in the North West[17]. This ultimately impacts on options for where children can be moved to, and has contributed to increasing numbers of children being moved far away from their communities and support networks.

1.7) The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and others have raised concerns about excessive profit making and high prices amongst the largest private providers[18]. We believe there are serious questions to ask about significant profits being made at a time when the care system is struggling to cope and local authority finances are under severe pressure. The CMA has also highlighted that the level of debt carried by some private providers creates a riskier business model. If they were to cease operating or withdraw from the ”market,“ they may be forced to close homes which would uproot children and cause further challenges in finding alternative accommodation[19]. 

1.8) The Government has legislated for the introduction of a new regulatory regime for supported accommodation settings for 16- and 17-year olds, which will come into effect from April 2024[20]. These settings - such as shared accommodation, supported lodgings, and even boats and caravans – will not provide some of the vital elements of care that children require, and we are extremely concerned about the suitability of some of these settings to safeguard children effectively[21]. There has been a significant increase in the number of children aged 16-17 living in supported accommodation settings without care in recent years[22]. We remain concerned that the new regulatory regime will further legitimise the use of these settings, leading to more and more children being moved into supported accommodation, due to sufficiency pressures rather than any assessment that it is in their best interests. We strongly recommend that all children in care must be guaranteed care where they live, to prevent the introduction of a two-tier care system[23].

2. Children in care continue to face high levels of instability, which can negatively impact on their wellbeing, education and relationships.

1)      Children in care need stability to heal and thrive. Yet for too many children, their experience of care is characterised by instability: experiencing numerous different homes, schools, being separated from siblings, moved far away from their support networks or communities, or facing a revolving door of social workers or other professionals. In 2023, 25,850 children in care experienced multiple placements (31% of all children in care)[24], with 10% of all children in care experiencing high levels of placement instability[25]. It is also estimated that 37% of children in care are separated from their siblings, rising to 78% of children moved to residential care settings[26].

2.1) In 2023, 17, 630 children in care in England lived more than 20 miles away from home[27]. This represents more than a fifth of all children in care and has increased by 62% within the last decade[28]. There can be legitimate reasons why children in care are moved away from their communities, such as to safeguard them from exploitation or harm, or to move closer to wider family connections, however, too often, this is simply due to a lack of appropriate options closer to home[29].

2.2) Care-experienced young people tell us that being moved far from their support networks, or experiencing other forms of instability, such as multiple placement or school moves, has a significant and long-term negative impact on their wellbeing, development and relationships:

• It can lead to children being separated or disconnected from the people, places and relationships that matter most to them;
• It can disrupt their education, or mental health support; or break connections to communities, groups, or interests that have previously had a positive impact on their wellbeing or acted as protective factors;
• It can create feelings of loneliness or isolation, and increase stigma - negatively impacting on their self-esteem or sense of identity, particularly when moved to areas that don’t reflect their religious or cultural heritage;
• It can make young people feel as though they have no agency over their lives, and that their lives, relationships, and connections can be uprooted at any time; and
• It can exacerbate adversity or trauma that children may have experienced before entering the care system[30].

Our research shows that children in care who are living more than 20 miles from home are at a greater risk of experiencing low wellbeing or emotional difficulties than children living closer to home[31]. Children in care who are moved out of area are also disproportionately likely to go missing from their care placements[32]; and are at an increased risk of sexual and criminal exploitation[33].

2.3) Children in care continue to face disproportionately poor outcomes. This is partly reflective of the adversity, trauma and complexity that many children experience before being taken into care but can be compounded by the instability they face in care, and the failure of public services and systems to adequately meet their needs.

2.4) Evidence shows that children in care have lower rates of school attendance, poorer attainment at school and higher temporary exclusion rates than their non-care-experienced peers[34]. They are also at a much greater risk of experiencing mental ill health, loneliness and low wellbeing: it is estimated that 45% of all children in care will experience a diagnosable mental health condition[35], and 72% of children in residential care; compared to 18% of all children aged 7 to 16 years old in England[36]. Children in care are also less likely to report having a good friend than for children in the general population[37].

3. There needs to be significant reform, sustainable investment and stronger accountability to ensure that children in care are able to live in stable homes that meet their needs.

3.0) We do not believe that the proposal to introduce Regional Care Co-operatives[38] will solve the sufficiency challenges within the care system. We remain concerned that introducing Regional Care Co-operatives would be a costly reorganisation that would not lead to a substantial increase in supply, without significant additional investment; risks children being moved to the cheapest areas of a region and would move decision-making further away from the professionals that know children best.

3.1) Urgent and joined-up action needs to be taken to address the issue of sufficiency within the care system. Both national and local Government should be required to develop and publish sufficiency strategies. National Government should lead on national funding, planning and policy levers to ensure there are enough of the right types of homes to meet children's needs across the country; as well as supporting local authorities to forecast need in their area, so they can better plan provision. There also needs to be increased and sustainable investment in children’s social care to deliver sufficiency, including:

• significant capital investment to increase not-for-profit residential care provision to help reset the power balance between providers and commissioners;
• sustainable investment to recruit and retain more foster carers, including those who are able to provide care to groups less likely to be in foster care, such as sibling groups, older teenagers, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and children with special educational needs or disabilities; and
• a targeted workforce development strategy that addresses significant gaps, such as children’s home managers.

3.2) Organisations, such as the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), have set out proposals for addressing sufficiency and commissioning challenges, such as the introduction of pricing bands and caps[39]; or a tiered system of collaborative commissioning, with local authorities collaborating to commission high cost, low incidence care placements, such as secure care, instead of all care placements[40]. We recommend that the Education Select Committee explore these proposals throughout your inquiry.

3.3) There is currently a lack of accountability or oversight about the extent to which sufficiency is being achieved at a local or national level. Local authorities are expected to document and publish their plans for meeting the sufficiency duty, within their commissioning strategies[41]. Yet, 44% of local authorities do not publish a sufficiency strategy[42] or demonstrate publicly how they plan to provide sufficient suitable accommodation to meet the needs of children under their care. Similarly, assessments of sufficiency are not adequately reflected within the framework for Ofsted inspections of local authority children’s services or in inspection reports[43].

3.4) To improve policy-making and accountability, there needs to be an assessment of the extent to which sufficiency is being achieved in each area, based on the number of children that are being moved to placements that do not fit their needs, or are moved far from home, due to a lack of appropriate placements in the right locations. Throughout their inquiry into children’s social care, we strongly recommend that the Education Select Committee consider the efficacy of existing accountability measures relating to sufficiency.

6. Young people leaving the care system face a care cliff, often forced to become independent before they are ready and without the support they need to make a positive start to adulthood.

4.0) There are 88, 070 care leavers in England aged 17-25[44]. Care leavers are much more likely to be living independently than their non-care experienced peers from a much younger age. For example, only 20% of care leavers aged 19-21 live with parents, relatives or former foster carers[45], whilst comparatively the average age that young people leave the parental home across England is 23[46]. Young care leavers that Become supports have described leaving care as a “cliff edge” or “like being on death row, counting down the days” until they turn 18, their placements are abruptly stopped, and they are expected to become ‘independent’ overnight.[47] We welcome the proposed legislative change to make the Staying Close scheme a legal entitlements[48]. We think that both the Staying Close and Staying Put schemes should be extended to age 25, rather than 23 as proposed, to align with existing entitlements for care leavers, rather than creating another arbitrary cliff-edge; and Staying Put should be made an opt-out entitlement as recommended by the Care Review.

4.1) Young people leaving care often don’t receive the support that they need to make a positive start to adulthood. Care leavers generally have more practical and financial responsibilities than their non-care-experienced peers, often without the same familial practical, financial and emotional support to fall back on.

4.2) Many care leavers start their adult life in poverty. Care leavers are currently only entitled to the lower, under-25, rate of universal credit of £73 per week. They are also more likely to need recourse to support - with 38% of care leavers aged 19-21 not in education, employment or training, compared to around 13% of all young people aged 19-21[49]. We have heard how this risk of poverty has been exacerbated by the recent cost of living crisis, with young people struggling to afford food and other essentials, and facing increased risk of debt[50]. We strongly recommend that the higher standard allowance within universal credit be extended to all eligible care leavers below the age of 25, to reflect the absence of a familial financial safety net[51].

4.3) Care-experienced young people are at a greater risk of facing or experiencing homelessness, or insecure housing, and this risk is increasing. In 2022-23, 3, 710 care leavers aged 18-20 faced homelessness – a 33% increase since 2018-19[52]. Urgent action is required to ensure the provision of safe, appropriate and affordable housing for young people leaving care. We were pleased to see Government commitments to legislate to end homelessness intentionality and the local area connection for care leavers. However, these proposals need to go further by legislating for care leavers to receive priority need under homelessness legislation to age 25, as well as increasing the provision of deposit and guarantor schemes.

4.4) Although there is a range of statutory and discretionary support currently available for care leavers from local authorities, this can be patchy, inadequate or vary from area to area. Young people have told us that they are not always adequately informed about their rights and entitlements, or that they can experience barriers in these rights being upheld. Almost two-thirds of care leavers aged 22-25 (64%) are not in contact with their local authority[53].

4.5) We welcomed many of the Government’s proposals to improve support for care leavers, including uplifts to the Leaving Care Grant and apprenticeship bursary, and the proposal to develop an opt-out offer of independent advocacy for all care-experienced children and young people to the age of 25. We think that, if implemented effectively, proposals to strengthen and extend corporate parenting responsibilities to a broad range of public organisations could make a significant difference to the opportunities, experiences and outcomes of care-experienced young people[54]. However, we were disappointed that the Government’s reform strategy did not include any proposals to increase access to appropriate and timely mental health support for care-experienced young people; or to introduce consistent professional training and development, or standardised qualifications for personal advisers.

7. The Government’s proposed reforms do not go fast or far enough to address the disparities and disadvantages facing care-experienced children and young people.

5.0) The Government’s reform strategy sets out a vision to put love and stability at the heart of the care system. However, many of the proposed reforms will take years to implement; we are concerned that change won’t happen quickly enough for children currently in or leaving the care system.

5.1) There is also a significant lack of investment underpinning the Government’s reform strategy. The Government has committed to investing £200 million over two years to implement its strategy[55]: well short of the investment needed to reset an overwhelmed care system, or transform the outcomes for care-experienced young people. For context, the Local Government Association has estimated that the care system faces a £4 billion funding gap over the next two years[56]; whilst the Care Review recommended that £2.6 billion investment was needed over five years to reduce the number of children entering the care system[57].

5.2) The adverse outcomes that care-experienced children and young people face have a substantial financial cost, as well as a significant human cost. It is estimated that failing to properly support children in care costs the economy £9 billion each year, resulting from the effects of reduced wellbeing, losses in productivity, and the cost of public services associated with adverse outcomes, such as the NHS and criminal justice costs[58]. Increased investment in the care system would not only improve the lives and life chances of care-experienced children and young people, but also lead to long-term savings by reducing the cost of adverse outcomes.

5.3) Finally, it is crucial that care-experienced children and young people are actively and meaningfully involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of all reforms to the care system. It is essential that the Government clearly set out mechanisms for how this will be achieved.

January 2024

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