Family Law

The Care Crisis Review, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and facilitated by the Family Rights Group, has published its report. The report considers how to address the crisis in children’s social care and the family justice sector, and explores the factors which have contributed to it.

The number of children in care has reached its highest level since the Children Act 1989 was enacted and care order applications reached record levels in 2017. The Review was a response to the President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir James Munby’s call to action in 2016:

‘We are facing a crisis and, truth be told, we have no very clear strategy for meeting the crisis. What is to be done?’ 

Participants in the Review included the Local Government Association, Ofsted, Cafcass and Cafcass Cymru, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, the All Wales Heads of Children’s Services, third sector organisations and alliances, the Offices of the English and Welsh Children’s Commissioners, members of the judiciary, lawyers, social care practitioners, young people and families. It comprised an inclusive listening exercise with over 2,000 people across England and Wales, complemented by a rapid academic review of evidence about the contributing factors to the crisis. 

The Review found: 

• There is a sense of crisis felt by many young people, families and those working within the system.
• Professionals are frustrated at working in a sector that is overstretched and overwhelmed and in which, too often, children and families do not get the direct help they need early enough to prevent difficulties escalating. 
• There was a palpable sense of unease about how lack of resources, poverty and deprivation are making it harder for families and the system to cope. 
• Contributors expressed a strong sense of concern that a culture of blame, shame and fear has permeated the system, affecting those working in it as well as the children and families reliant upon it. It was suggested that this had led to an environment that is increasingly mistrusting and risk averse and prompts individuals to seek refuge in procedural responses. 

Despite these concerns, the Review found that the child welfare legislative framework is basically sound and there are some local authorities that are bucking the national trend. It also found common agreement about the way forward. 

The Review sets out 20 options for change, including: 

• Immediate steps that could be taken to move away from an undue focus on processes and performance indicators, to one where practitioners are able to stay focused on securing the right outcomes for each child. 
• Approaches, including family group conferences, in which families are supported to make safe plans for their child. 
• Suggestions of ways in which statutory guidance, such as Working Together to Safeguard Children, can be changed in order to promote relationship-based practice.
• Opportunities for revitalising local and national family justice forums and other mechanisms, so that all can become places where challenges within the system are discussed and solutions developed.
• Proposals for the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education, in consultation with the devolved administrations, to examine the impact of benefit rules and policies, and the projected effect of planned benefit reforms, on the numbers of children entering or remaining in care. 
• A call for the Ministry of Justice to undertake an impact assessment of the present lack of accessible, early, free, independent advice and information for parents and wider family members on the number of children subject to care proceedings or entering or remaining in the care system, and the net cost to the public purse. 
• That the National Family Justice Board revises the approach to measuring timescales, including the 26 week timescale for care proceedings. 
• That there are improvements in exploring and assessing potential carers from within the family, when a child cannot live at home, and better support is provided to such carers and children so they do not face severe financial hardship. 
• That Ofsted and Social Care Wales in their inspections and research should take into account the duties on local authorities to support families and to promote children’s upbringing within their family. 

The Review also supports the ADCS and LGA’s call for Government to make up the £2bn shortfall in children’s social care service. It also highlights the need for an additional ring fenced fund which can act as a catalyst for local authorities and their partner agencies to achieve changes needed in their local context to address the crisis.

Nigel Richardson, Chair of the Review said:

‘Dealing with the crisis is complex – inevitably so, because children and families live increasingly complex lives. But making the difference cannot be just about constant re-structures, or ever changing systems – the fundamental basis of our child welfare approach is encouragingly sound. The way forward has to be about working with complexity to offer hope. Offering an inclusive approach to family decision making so that families are helped to better understand the concerns about a child’s welfare and then helped to coordinate and propose a safe response to those concerns from within their own, usually extensive, family and friends network. It’s about moving away from an over reliance on the language of assessment and intervention and more towards understanding and helping. It’s about being less adversarial, risk averse and harsh and much more collaborative and kind.’ 

Read the report in full here.

The report is published in the same week that the Childrens Commissioner for England published a report by the Institure for Fiscal Studies which declared that current spending on children's social care is 'unsustainable'.