Time to deliver Care Review reforms

On 23 May, 2022, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care was published, a government-commissioned report into how the children’s social care system could work better for everyone involved, but especially the children in it.

The review recommended a radical reset of the children’s social care system and urgent investment of £2.6 billion. Eight months later, the government responded with a report called Stable Homes, Built on Love, recommending a number of reforms, pilots and a spend of £200 million. The view from many is that the response from the government has been too little and too slow.

Two years since the review was published, 1,760 more children are in care, in a system that after decades of under-investment was already struggling to cope. We now have more than 84,000 children in care and simply not enough suitable places for them to live. That means instability and children being sent to live wherever there’s a bed available, often forced to live apart from brothers and sisters, and everything they know – their school, family and friends.