Council child safeguarding teams to involve schools

The government has announced reforms to children’s social care support system to "break the cycle" of late intervention and help keep families together.

Part of the measures include empowering social workers, and all those that work with children, to take action against children’s placements providers that deliver subpar standards.

One of the changes is the requirement for every council to have ‘multi-agency’ child safeguarding teams, involving children’s schools and teachers, stopping children from falling through the cracks.

To protect quality and safety in children’s homes, Ofsted will also be given new powers to issue civil fines to providers, working more quickly to deter unscrupulous behaviour than with existing criminal powers.

More widely, the government is beginning the process of rebalancing the whole children’s social care system in favour of early intervention, giving every family the legal right to be involved in decisions made about children entering the care system.

There will also be a new duty on parents where if their child is subject to a child protection enquiry, or on a child protection plan, they will need local authority consent to home educate that child.

Further plans for funding for children’s social care including investment in preventative services, are set to be laid out in the coming weeks in the upcoming Local Government Finance Settlement.

Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector said: "These new powers will allow Ofsted to do more to make sure all children’s homes are safe and nurturing places, and to combat illegal and poor-quality homes quickly and effectively. We welcome these reforms and stand ready to deliver the Government’s new asks as soon as possible."