There are legitimate questions about the pace of change and on whether the funding to seed the changes is sufficient – critics say children in care today cannot wait until 2026 for the reforms to be rolled out, while £200m over two years is just a tenth of the funding called for by the Care Review (see Analysis).
These are serious challenges the government should address when it responds to the three consultations on the proposals in the summer. A harder issue to solve is having the workforce to deliver them.
On that, the latest Department for Education children's social worker data makes for worrying reading. Last year saw the highest levels of vacant posts, use of agency workers and staff absence due to sickness since 2017 when the data was first collected. In addition, the overall number of social workers fell for the first time, causing a rise in average caseloads.
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