Tact proposes creation of national care service
Fiona Simpson
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Fostering charity Tact is calling on the Care Review to recommend the creation of a national care service.
A new report Towards A National Care Family, by Tact chief executive Andy Elvin sets out proposals for one national service covering fostering, adoption, kinship, residential, foster, and secure care.
The proposed service would also take over responsibility for children who return to their birth parents from care and the secure youth justice estate.
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The National Care Family (NCF) would remove “parental and operational responsibility” for children in care and care leavers from local authorities and offer lifelong support to care-experienced adults, Elvin states.
“This in no way decries the commitment and determination amongst local authorities staff to improve outcomes for children, but is simply a recognition that the current structures mitigate against this being achieved to the level it needs to be, country wide.
“The proposed NCF would employ many of the staff currently within local authorities, as they have the skills, experience and commitment to make the NCF a success,” he says.
The NCF and councils would be “close, strong partners working together in the best interests of children,” the report adds.
It also addresses the issue of “profiteering” by private care providers which is being examined by the Care Review and Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Elvin suggests the creation of a “Care Bank” which he describes as a “separate entity whose role it is to fund the costs of care for children”.
“The money saved by the Care Bank approach, and the prevention of money flowing out to private profiteers will enable funds to be reinvested in the children,” he adds.
According to the report, children and young people who grow up in care are up to four times more likely to suffer from poor health 30 years later than those who grew up with their parents.
Care-experienced people are estimated to represent between 24 per cent and 27 per cent of the adult prison population, despite being less than five per cent of the overall population, it states, adding: “It is time that we took drastic action to change the narrative and tackle the negative outcomes for too many care-experienced people.”
Elvin said: “All children in care, or in families created through social services’ intervention, require a service that is dedicated to them and their families.
“Local authorities will never be able to prioritise this group lifelong. If we merely try to re-purpose the current systems/structures, we will simply get more of what we already have. The solution has to be a wholly different place, not a reformulation of what we currently have.”
Despite the Care Review only covering England, Tact has said it would "advocate for a similar system in Wales and Scotland" if the proposals were considered.
Last month, the Scottish Government proposed that a new National Care Service to oversee adult social care in Scotland should be extended to include children's services.
Responding to the proposals, Carolyne Willow, director of children’s rights charity Article 39 said the plan “consolidates some earlier government plans and soundings from those close to government, such as the possibility of foster families having a single social worker instead of children and foster carers having their own social workers, a national database of children in care and full delegated responsibility for foster carers”.
“It’s interesting that the July minutes from the care review’s Evidence Group, recently put into the public domain, show discussion of foster carers being granted parental responsibility. This would inevitably have huge implications for birth parents, and could be a significant departure from the Children Act 1989’s partnership principle.
“I’m going to give all of this really careful thought, alongside developments in Scotland. The test for me of any proposal is always what might this give to children and young people, and the extent to which it could fulfil their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that of course includes their fundamental right to family life,” she added.