MPs Debate Independent Review of Children's Social Care

BASW's Public and Political Affairs Lead, Kerri Prince provides a summary of this week's parliamentary debate on the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. 

"Social workers are too often thrown into the deep end before learning to swim, or are drowning in paperwork when families need their skills.”

A parliamentary debate secured by Rachael Maskell MP and Tim Loughton MP on the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care took place in the House of Commons on 24th November. While the debate was brought forward through the Backbench Business Committee which means there is no binding vote on the issue, it gave MPs the opportunity to discuss the proposals in the review and hear from the Minister on what action the Government is going to take.

The debate opened with a speech from Rachael Maskell MP who spoke of “a familiar story: invisible children, overstretched services, social workers drowning in demands, warning signs – and then it is all too late. Children disappear between agencies, between the multitude of social workers who are never given the chance to excel as they are squeezed by demand. Parents are let down, children are let down. Parents endure the pain of separation from their children, just because life failed them—life went wrong. If only the system had time to break in and break the intergenerational cycles to provide the very best early interventions.” Rachael went on to remind the Minister that the total package proposed in the independent review would cost £2.6bn – yet the current cost of children’s social care is £10bn a year right now.

Edward Timpson MP spoke next talking about the routes into social work and new routes that have appeared. He also drew a comparison on other spending, saying “We spend £136 billion a year on the NHS and £51 billion a year on education—I do not quibble with that—so when looking for this £2.1 billion, we must remember that it is a one-off payment that will, over the next four years, give children in the system now and in future a much better opportunity to have a fulfilling life. Yes, look at the underspends in the Department for Education, but look right across Whitehall, too, because every Department will benefit from these changes. The money is there if the measures are prioritised, and I hope that that is exactly what happens.”

Wera Hobhouse MP began her speech talking about kinship care, and then on about working conditions of social workers, including saying that “Social workers are the backbone of our society, helping future generations to thrive. Unfortunately, the Government have treated them with utter contempt, asking more and more of them. No wonder we are seeing staff shortages. Who would want to work in an industry where people feel overlooked and undervalued? The Government must make the social care profession attractive to enter and stay in, so that we have enough care workers with enough time to help the children under their care. One of the most important things that the Government must do is make it the valued profession it deserves to be.”

Flick Drummond MP also spoke about social workers, and the need to keep more social workers in the profession – “The picture for early career social workers is similar to that for teachers: many leave within five years of beginning their career and others move from local authority posts into agency roles. Another persistent feature is that our most experienced and able social workers are taken out of practising with children and families and moved into management roles. We asked for a career path at the frontline in the 2007 report. I am not decrying the need for good management of social care—I would argue that it needs to be improved, if anything, given the record of failures in child protection—but it would benefit everyone if more senior workers were practising and passing on their skills and experience to others in a direct way. “

David Simmonds MP (Chair of the All-Parliamentary Party Group for Social Work) made the next contribution and highlighted the case for change: “There are some very striking statistics in the case for change. For example, over the last decade there has been a 7% rise in the number of referrals to children’s social care from the police, from schools, from the general public and from the health service, and from places like that, but over the same period the number of section 47 inquiries—child protection inquiries where there is evidence that a child is directly at risk—has risen by 129%; the number of child protection plans has risen by 32%; and the number of children brought into the care system, where the local authority has gone to court, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) described, to seek a court order to take them from their birth family and bring them into the care of the state as the only way to keep them safe, has risen by 24%. Something is certainly changing in how our local authorities and child protection services respond to the evidence they see of what is happening in a child’s life.”

Tim Loughton MP spoke next, congratulating Josh MacAlister on the review, but noted that “the tragedy is that it could have been written 10 years ago. There is frankly nothing new in this report; it is largely a revisiting of many truths and deficiencies that those of us who have had the privilege of being on the Front Bench dealing with children’s issues have known about and tried to tackle, with some success, over many years.”

Tim also spoke about rules that social workers had to follow: “Ten years later, we had reached a stage where social workers were so saddled with regulations and rules that they were constantly looking over their shoulder, constantly referring to page 642 in the rulebook to see what they should be doing, rather than using the professional judgment and instincts that we train them for. Being a social worker is not an easy profession: one has to be a combination of a detective, a psychoanalyst, a forensic scientist and whatever else, because people who abuse their children are usually quite smart at covering it up.”

Tim then spoke about IRO’s (Independent Reviewing Officers) and took opposition to the position in the review. He said: “I take issue with the MacAlister report’s recommendation to abolish independent reviewing officers. IROs are not perfect, but they do an important job. When I was at the Department, I spent a lot of time going out with IROs, particularly in Leeds, which doubled the number of IROs it employed 10 years ago. IROs are the confidantes of young people in the care system, who often have nowhere else to go. When they work well, they are the advocates, ambassadors, representatives and shoulders to cry on for young people—they make sure that children get a better deal and they are a trusted voice.”

Helen Hayes MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister paid tribute to social workers in her speech, “who are working every day to support families, to keep children safe, and to provide stability and security for looked-after children, but they are all too often working in incredibly difficult circumstances.” Helen also mentioned “the most recent survey of social workers by the British Association of Social Workers revealed that more than a third reported that their caseload had increased since the start of the covid-19 pandemic.”

The Children’s Minister, Claire Coutinho MP, responded to the debate on behalf of the Government, and re-asserted the Government’s aims but with little detail on next steps. She said that “I am sure this House will join me in paying tribute to every social worker and all those supporting children, such as workers in children’s homes and foster carers. They are there tirelessly, day in, day out, providing support to children and their families. We will bring forward proposals to support the workforce and foster carers to ensure they have the right skills and strong leadership.”

“I am proud to be responsible for a system that has been shown to help children to recover from traumatic experiences and often to succeed against the odds, but the children’s social care system cannot do it all. A young person’s success is driven by many different factors and actors. I want other parts of the local council system, the school system, the health service and many others within and outside Government to do all they can to give our children the best possible start in life. Children’s social care cannot do it alone and we cannot do anything at once, but this is a programme for a long-term, once in a generation reform. We will start by laying the foundations for a system that is built on love and the importance of family.”

You can read BASW England’s full response to the independent review here.

Read the full transcript of the parliamentary debate here.