The new rules, which will come into force tomorrow (24 April), will see amendments made to 10 regulations regarding children’s social care including care proceedings, foster care and adoption arrangements. Regulations surrounding residential care including children’s homes, residential special schools and secure children’s homes will also be affected.
The amendments were laid before parliament today (23 April) and will bypass the 21-day rule usually used to pass laws.
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Mythbuster guide: helpful advice or confusing and unnecessary?
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Minister backs plans to relax council duties to vulnerable children
Adoption
Rules around care review panels are set to be relaxed, meaning it may take longer for complaints about care plans set out by local authorities to be re-examined and resolved.
The new legislation will also see rules around DBS and medical checks for potential adoptive parents relaxed along with the need for adoption panels.
The time limit during which potential adopters must complete the first and second stages of adoption has also been scrapped in order to “provide maximum flexibility to agencies working with families and continue to progress in the adoption process”.
Foster care
The legislation also amends regulations relating to foster carers.
The use of fostering panels to assess potential foster carers and review ongoing placements will become optional “in order to help speed up the process in light of increasing demand and where places are required more urgently”.
New rules will also be introduced around emergency placements, allowing people not connected to a child to become temporary foster carers if someone at the child’s existing placement is at high risk from Covid-19 due to age or ill-health.
“This will help to provide additional flexibility to build capacity should there be a temporary increase in the need for foster care placements,” government documents state.
Short breaks for children living with parents to stay with foster carers have been increased from 17 days to 75 days.
Residential care
The legislation makes significant changes to standards set out for safeguarding and promoting health and wellbeing for children in residential care.
Regulations around the provision of care and education for children living in residential care have been relaxed, with staff advised to meet regulations “as far as reasonably practicable during the outbreak”.
Timeframes relating to children’s complaints have also been eased along with regulations around visits.
Residential settings may also invoke rules around the deprivation of a child’s liberty, forcing them to self-isolate if they show symptoms of coronavirus or are suspected of having the illness.
Children’s minister Vicky Ford said the legislation bypassed the 21-day rule because “waiting 21 days will put extraordinary pressure on local authorities, providers and services to try to meet statutory obligations while continuing to provide care for vulnerable children and young people during the outbreak”.
However, government documents reveal sector leaders including the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Local Government Association and Ofsted were consulted over the changes before they were laid before parliament. Children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield was also informed of the plans, government documents state.
The changes will remain in place until 25 September, Ford said, however, they will be subject to “continuous review”. Clauses within the government memorandum state that decisions made under the amendments will remain valid after the temporary changes end.
However, concerns have been raised over government plans to use the emergency legislation as a starting point to relax statutory duties to vulnerable children permanently.
Speaking at an education select committee meeting yesterday, David Simmonds, MP for Ruislip, asked Ford if the government would be “learning from the suspension of statutory duties [...] with a view to dispensing with those statutory duties”.
The minister told the committee, “that’s exactly the point”, before saying the legislative changes were designed to “free-up” professionals to focus on priority areas.
The comment has led campaigners to draw comparisons with previously failed attempts to relax statutory duties to vulnerable young people through the so-called exemption clause in 2017 and later as part of a “myth busting guide” published by the Department for Education in 2018. The guide was eventually withdrawn following a judicial review.
