Proposals for a national care system
“The proposal as it stands will create very significant disruption with few guarantees of improved outcomes for children, in fact the opposite could easily arise from huge structural reforms. Nationalising 152 local care services and dividing other key services, such as health provision into two sections, would require the creation of new laws as well as the wholesale transfer of records, systems and staff, the tearing up established guidance and ways of working as well as the severing of democratic links with local communities.
“The separation of care from family support and child protection work in local authorities plus the creation of other agencies to oversee independent reviewing officer functions, the purchasing of care placements and a network of new local advisory boards risks more siloed working and confusion, not less. We are ambitious for children and open to reform but we should learn from the failed reforms of probation services and the NHS. This does not seem like the best use of either energy and resources at this time and carries unacceptable levels of risk.”
ENDS
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