Letters to the Editor: ‘Better regulation’ a must for residential care

We can achieve this though better commissioning, child-centred practice and regulation that works.” (‘New ADCS president calls for long-term plan for children’, cypnow.co.uk, 22 April)

More than a few years ago, Charlotte and I made conference presentations together. I spoke to “The making and breaking of relationships” and showed how the actions of care professionals acted to create rising 3+/5+ placements per year. Structurally and systemically, the potential for attachment and relationships were broken.

My encouragement was that if she and local authorities did not like what was on offer, they could and should open their own homes. I would hope to see Salford have been opening homes in the intervening years. I would hope to see North West authorities having opened homes. In the last Ofsted figures published, the numbers of local authorities opening homes was less than 10 per cent of the total.

Local government can open homes especially for complex high–level needs – needs that are going to require regulated homes when the use of unregulated for under-16s comes in. There is a plateau already reached for a market solution to meeting these needs. The solution must be a non-market solution, a local authority focus on specialist care seems opportune.

On the same day, we received an email from Yvette Stanley commenting on Charlotte’s speech. She also spoke about the need for better residential care that really meets children’s needs and regulation that works.

What is that “better regulation” that is necessary and why have we not had it? It is the responsibility of the government and its agency regulator to enact the best regulations necessary; the welfare of the child is the paramount principle for children’s legislation. The government must address anything preventing this progress.

Jonathan Stanley, director, The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care

Prioritise education in the Spending Review

The Education Policy Institute (EPI) report highlights the scale of the disruption caused by the pandemic and the necessary funding needed to repair the damage (cypnow.co.uk, 14 May). The EPI estimates that interventions costing £13.5bn over three years are necessary.

The government’s response is insufficient. Instead, it must invest properly in education to enable children to recover. The government has only set aside £250 per pupil, which compares poorly with other nations such as the Netherlands and the US who are investing £2,500 and £1,600 per pupil respectively.

The investment proposed by the EPI is for the purpose of education recovery caused by the pandemic; however, schools have been in financial difficulty for years. Before the pandemic, a quarter of maintained secondary schools were in deficit and class sizes had risen sharply. In January 2020, one million children were being taught in classes of more than 30.

School budgets have been hit hard by coronavirus and have had inadequate reimbursement from government. Schools have had to spend more on cleaning, heating, supply costs and other Covid security measures, while important sources of income such as from lettings is down. The public sector pay freeze in September is intended to help balance the books – punishing teachers and support staff who have gone the extra mile during the pandemic.

The government must prioritise education in the forthcoming Spending Review so that schools can increase the number of properly qualified teachers on staff and bring down our historically high class sizes. The solution to Covid cannot be yet more austerity.

For any plan to succeed, we must also end the blight of child poverty – no longer can we allow children to come to school hungry.”

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary, the National Education Union