Recent initiatives - Adoption Support Fund, Staying Put, Staying Close and the Care Leaver Covenant - have all been piecemeal, and often proceeded too slowly to drive real change. Although well intentioned, not all of these schemes have been fully funded, which only exacerbates council funding pressures.
There's been no real policy focus on fixing problems in the wider system. It's been placed firmly on the "too difficult" and "too expensive" pile. This has not gone unnoticed. In 2016, the public accounts committee concluded that "the Department for Education was worryingly complacent that nothing could be done to improve services more quickly", while the recent housing, communities and local government committee said there is simply insufficient money.
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