Mark Riddell has been working to improve the lives of looked-after children and care leavers since he left care himself, aged 16, in 1984. After initially working for a number of care leaver organisations, Riddell trained as a social worker and in 2012 became manager of leaving care services at Trafford Council. Within three years, the council's leaving care service was rated "outstanding" by Ofsted - at that time, the first service to achieve the highest rating under the single inspection framework.
The achievement brought him to the attention of the Department for Education, and in September 2017 he was appointed national implementation adviser for care leavers. The two-year fixed-term DfE role involves him working with councils and government departments to ensure reforms to care leaver support included in the Children and Social Work Act are introduced successfully from April 2018 (see box).
How did the national adviser role come about?
Trafford took part in the New Belongings project run from 2013-15, which extended the council's offer of support to care leavers up to the age of 25. We identified three key things that needed to change: getting corporate parenting right and underpinning it in legislation; strengthening young people's rights and entitlements; and extending a council's duty to support care leavers in education up to 25. We did all that and produced some fantastic outcomes for care leavers, told the [then] children's minister [Edward Timpson] about it and the changes were incorporated into the act. With the policy and legislation in place, I told him he needed a national adviser for care leavers.
Did you have yourself in mind for that post when you suggested it?
I think the minister did say to me, "if the post came up would you consider coming out of local government?" I'm passionate about local authorities but said if it felt right I would go for it. When it came along I looked at the job description and thought it an exciting role.
Ofsted rated 80 councils "inadequate" or "requires improvement" for leaving care services from 2013-17. How do you rate service standards?
It is not a great local picture - most of the offers [to care leavers] are not good.
Some leaving care services only engage when a child approaches 18. I'm saying to authorities that this is now a 16-25 offer, so you need to introduce a pathway plan and personal adviser around their 16th birthday. That is a challenge, but doable. Some authorities have personal advisers who are not degree-level qualified social workers. I think the better model is using qualified social workers as personal advisers as they might work with a young person for the next nine years. Young people tell us they want a stable, sustained, professional relationship.
What are the key ingredients to a good leaving care service?
A lot of managers ask me how did we get to outstanding in Trafford - was it more resources, money, better partnership working, passion and dedication? It was all of those.
We did get funding for an additional personal adviser to deal with some of the extra people coming in aged 21-25, but we hadn't had much recent investment in the leaving care service. Most authorities are in a similar position.
For Trafford, it was more about getting relationships with key partners - housing, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), mentors, clinical commissioning groups, local businesses - in place. I call them the corporate aunts and uncles.
What changes should councils prioritise?
Some councils still pay for care leavers' benefits when they have been sanctioned by the DWP for up to three months. Instead, try to be creative with the local offer. Go to your corporate aunts and uncles - talk to bus companies about getting young people a free bus pass; ask supermarkets for donations of dry food. Use the savings to invest back into the service.
In Trafford, we realised we were taking care leavers to court for small council tax arrears that when transferred to debt collectors spiralled. That didn't make much sense. We spoke to the Department for Communities and Local Government about a national exemption but it didn't fit with the localism agenda. So we, along with eight or nine other councils, gave care leavers full council tax exemption. Now nearly 50 have granted an exemption and most others tell me they are thinking of doing the same.
The act extends the corporate parenting responsibility for care leavers across the whole local authority and to other public agencies. What difference will this make?
Even most good councils are only thinking about corporate parenting, rather than the role of corporate aunts and uncles. With the new offer and duty being extended to 25, councils cannot do it alone. If they try to do it on their own they will have massive problems.
Councils need to pull in key partners that interact with care leavers all the time to get the children's services offer right.
What national changes do you hope to make?
Individual councils changing practice is good, but this has to be done as a whole-scale approach. I want ministers from the eight departments that have contact with children in public care to come together to look at what each can contribute to a national offer from government. It should be chaired by the Education Secretary and look to tackle problems such as the shared accommodation rate cut off at 21. I want that to be extended to 25.
I'd also like to talk to the Ministry of Justice about creating a "marker" for identifying care leavers as they come into the prison system. Rather than treating young people like the rest of the prison population, we might be able to offer them more help - not reduced sentences but more prison counselling to address trauma or attachment difficulties. That's the kind of stuff we're looking to do.
Will extending local authorities' responsibilities to care leavers from 21 to 25 increase their costs significantly?
The sector is anxious about it because it's a new, unpredictable burden. When we did it in Trafford we had about 60 who had left us at 21. We assessed that cohort and out of that concluded about 15 were likely to return for a service. But we knew the population well and we already had a good offer for 16- to 21-year-olds. About 12 of those young people needed support - some needed advice and guidance on financial or housing issues, but others were homeless which was a more intensive piece of work.
How can councils assess the number of young people likely to get in touch?
My advice is don't wait until 1 April to identify the likely returners. Look at your cohort over the last three years for the ones you are most worried about. Contact them first to ask if they are okay. If they have moved away talk to police and probation to try to find them. If they return on 2 April or you get an email from prison saying they will be arriving tomorrow, that's going to be a huge piece of work for the leaving care team.
If you know a care leaver is due to leave prison in September, think about what resources you will need to put in place with your key partners. Ensuring social housing and benefits arrangements are in place before they are released could save the authority £2,000.
Some councils think that there could be in excess of 400 young people coming back for services but I'm not sure that's right. If your education and employment rate [of care leavers] is 50 per cent you can assume they are in stable housing and have family they are probably in contact with.
What can councils do to promote the offer and contact young people?
In Trafford, we sent out a card to 60 care leavers, and offered a £20 Tesco voucher when they contacted us. Of the 60 recorded deliveries we sent, 12 came back. The personal advisers knocked on those doors and discovered that they had moved. The ones that signed for it you know have got the letter - if you haven't heard from them in a couple of weeks they are unlikely to come back in the first couple of weeks [of the offer going live].
I would promote the offer by breaking it down into three things: the corporate offer across council services; what young people can expect at certain ages, for example, if they go to university they know they will get 52 weeks of accommodation; and what support they will receive if they enter custody or have mental health difficulties.
How many extra staff will be needed to meet demand?
The corporate parenting duties and offer are good news stories - we all wanted it - but I don't want the sector to be hugely burdened by it. I think authorities are thinking "we expect 50 care leavers to come back so we'll need two personal advisers with caseloads of 25". It doesn't work like that. Some problems take the personal adviser only 20 minutes to deal with, but custody cases may take one or two days over a couple of weeks.
New burdens money is to be provided to councils over a four-year period; it starts lower and goes up, and should be in place by 1 April. Councils should quantify how much extra resource they use so they can go to the DfE and say it's actually having a bigger impact than initially thought.
REFORMS TO LEAVING CARE PROVISION
The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduces a number of duties for councils from 1 April. These include:
- Outlining care leaver entitlements through a "local offer" up to 25
- Extending personal advisers' role to support care leavers up to 25
- Ensuring looked-after children pathway plans extend beyond leaving care
- Applying good corporate parent responsibilities across all departments
- Consulting with other public bodies about the support they can provide
MARK RIDDELL CV
- September 2017: National implementation adviser for care leavers, DfE
- 2012-2017: Manager leaving care services, Trafford Council
- 2009-2012: CIN Service Manager, Bury Council
- 2005-2009: Corporate Parenting Service Manager, Liverpool Council
- 2002-2004: Strategy and Performance Service Manager, Stockport Council
- 1997-2002: Qualified Social Worker, Rochdale Social Services
- 1995-1997: Children Rights Manager, Liverpool in Care Support
- 1990-1995: Residential care worker, Catholic Children's Rescue Society
- 1984: Leaves care aged 16
FURTHER READING
Applying corporate parenting principles to looked-after children and care leavers
The role of local authorities and the application of the corporate parenting principles.
Local offer guidance
Guidance for local authorities on the local offer for care leavers.
Extending Personal Adviser support to age 25
Guidance for local authorities about extending Personal Adviser (PA) support to age 25.
