The Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy, which was published in response to the Care Review’s recommendations and findings, proposed a package of measures to reform the system.
However, campaigners have hit out at the strategy for missing a key recommendation from the review’s final report, which proposed that the government should make care experience a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act, following consultation with care-experienced people and the devolved administrations.
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The proposal received widespread support from the sector, and since the recommendation was made more than 10 councils have passed motions pledging to treat care experience as a protected characteristic, meaning that the impact on care-experienced people will be considered during equality evaluations of prospective policies.
In its response to the recommendation, the government's strategy states: “There are significant concerns in the sector that self-declaration of care experience could increase stigma. We will not be taking forward this recommendation at this time and will prioritise our proposals to extend corporate parenting responsibilities.”
Campaigners have criticised this decision, with Josh MacAlister, chair of the Care Review, saying in his blog: “The review concluded that the disadvantage faced by the care-experienced community should be the civil rights issue of our time.
“The government has committed to making a wider group of public services ‘corporate parents’ for those leaving care in the future, but they have decided not to make care experience a protected characteristic in equalities legislation. This would be a landmark change for those who grew up in care and would profoundly change the way services and society behaves towards this remarkable but extremely disadvantaged community.”
BREAKING: This should be the civil rights issue of our time @JoshMacAlister
— Terry Galloway (@TerryGalloway) February 1, 2023
On Protected Characteristics and the barriers faced by people who grew up in care review chair speaks out at Cumberland
GOV: IGNORES key recommendation and refuses to consult the Care Experienced. pic.twitter.com/FyjdaFEfoi
Campaigner Terry Galloway, who is leading the campaign for councils to recognise care experience as a protected characteristic, added: “Making care experience a protected characteristic does not increase stigma, it actually creates the legal framework and mechanism that organisations can use to learn about us. When they carry out their Equality Impact Assessments, organisations will see what care experienced people go through and they will relate and compare that to their own families."
He criticised the government’s decision not to carry out its own consultation with care-experienced people on the issue, saying: “I’m appalled that the government are ignoring the care-experienced voice, the review spent so much time talking with this community, the review says it wants to reset children’s social care. If the government was serious it would listen to what we have to say and not manufacture a response that clearly misses the thing that underpins systemic change.”
TACT fostering charity called the move a “major omission”.
Chief executive Andy Elvin said: “Where is the commitment to being there lifelong for adults who grew up in public care? The absence of better support for people leaving care and a firm commitment to making ‘care experience’ a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act is a significant missed opportunity. If the state cannot show that commitment to its own children, then it is failing as a parent.
“Once the state decides to remove a child from their birth family and become their legal parent then it has made a commitment for life, not until they are 18, 21, 25 or any other arbitrary age that it decides parental responsibility expires from.”
A foster carer from the charity added: “People leaving care need more commitment from the state, they are removed from their birth family through no fault of their own, there needs to be better support and a firm commitment to making care experience a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.”
The publication of the strategy comes alongside the launch of three government consultations on children’s social care - one around the government strategy as a whole, one seeking views on plans to restrict the use of agency social workers by local authorities and a third on the introduction of a new data dashboard for children's social care.
The strategy, Stable Homes, Built on Love, lays out a package of measures for reforming the children’s social care system, including pledges to strengthen corporate parenting responsibilities towards children in care, and to reduce care leaver homelessness by increasing leaving care allowance and offering priority to care leavers in need of social housing.
