The UK’s children’s social care reforms are centred on improving outcomes for children, young people, and families, with a significant focus on early intervention, safeguarding, and placement sufficiency. Introduced under the Conservative government in 2023 and further developed by the Labour government in 2024, the reforms are structured around four key outcomes: keeping families together, utilising family networks, ensuring safety, and providing stable homes for children in care and care leavers.
1. Family Help and Early Intervention
One of the core elements of the reforms is a shift toward early intervention. Acknowledging that preventative measures can often mitigate the need for more severe child protection or care interventions, the government introduced Family Help Services.
These services aim to merge early help and child-in-need provision into one unified structure that families can access without stigma. This multi-disciplinary approach helps families address issues such as domestic abuse or mental health challenges with a lead practitioner coordinating support.
These services are currently being tested in 10 Pathfinder areas. The government has pledged a £250m children’s social care prevention grant to roll them out nationwide by 2025-26.
2. Strengthening Kinship Care
Kinship care involves relatives or close friends taking responsibility for a child’s upbringing and has been a significant focus of the reforms. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces a legal definition of kinship care, covering informal arrangements and those involving local authorities or family courts. Financial allowances are being piloted for special guardians caring for former looked-after children, addressing the financial burdens often faced by kinship carers.
Another important measure is the introduction of virtual school heads (VSH) for kinship care. This ensures that children in kinship care receive educational support, which was previously provided only to looked-after children.
3. Improving Safeguarding and Multi-Agency Collaboration
The reforms heavily emphasise multi-agency working to improve child protection practices. Creating multi-agency child protection teams ensures collaboration between children’s services, health, and the police in child safety cases. These teams are being piloted in several regions and are expected to be mandated nationally by 2027.
A duty to share information among professionals has been introduced to bolster safeguarding efforts further. This duty addresses confusion about when information can be shared for safeguarding purposes, clarifying that consent is not required when children’s welfare is at risk.
4. Increasing Placement Sufficiency and Supporting Care Leavers
The reforms also ensure children in care and care leavers have stable and loving homes. There has been an increasing shortage of suitable care placements, with children often being placed far from home or in inappropriate settings. To tackle this, the government has allocated substantial funding to increase the number of foster carers and children’s home places.
Regional commissioning is also being developed to better forecast placement needs and improve the quality of placements. Local authorities pool resources through regional care cooperatives (RCCs). This collaborative approach is being tested in two regions, and plans are in place for national expansion.
Support for care leavers has also been enhanced with the introduction of the Staying Close scheme, which provides care leavers with advice, housing support, and assistance securing employment or education. Local authorities will now be required to offer this support to all eligible care leavers up to age 25.
5. New Legal Protections and Enhanced Oversight
In light of recent failures in child protection, the reforms include provisions for more robust oversight of children’s homes and placements. This includes tackling the rising use of unregistered homes, ensuring stricter regulation, and giving Ofsted more power to enforce penalties on providers who fail to meet standards.
Additionally, new measures under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will impose financial oversight on provider groups running multiple services, helping local authorities avoid the collapse of essential services due to financial mismanagement.
Conclusion
The UK’s children’s social care reforms represent a broad effort to improve the overall system by focusing on early intervention, supporting kinship carers, improving multi-agency working, and ensuring stable homes for children in care. These changes aim to build a more efficient, child-centred system, ensuring that vulnerable children and families receive timely, practical support.
For financial professionals, particularly those in the public sector, the reforms present opportunities to contribute by ensuring the sustainable allocation of resources and supporting workforce development. Financial oversight will be critical to ensure these programs deliver positive outcomes for children and families.
