Social workers urge DfE to halt consultation on outsourcing children services

Professional body the College of Social Work said, in its response to the Department for Education consultation, that an immediate pause was needed to allow consideration “of the very serious implications of these proposed regulatory changes”.

The college’s response said the proposals as they stood had the potential to seriously affect “the lives, health and wellbeing of children in the care of local authorities”.

Among its concerns were what it said was the lack of a clear evidence base for the proposal to enable councils to delegate to others assessment and decision-making functions.

It also objected to a weakening of democratic accountability over children’s services and was worried about how risk would be managed in a profit-making environment and the potential for conflicts of interests.

College chair Jo Cleary said: “The proposals raise serious and important questions about how services to some of the nation’s most vulnerable children and young people may be delivered in future.

“These need to be carefully considered in the light of the full spectrum of evidence. The limited consultation and accompanying regulations has not enabled the necessary public discussion on these important policy matters.”

The consultation paper said the change would “broaden the range of approaches available to local authorities as they look to secure the best outcomes for children in their area.

“They will allow authorities to harness third party expertise, and/or set up more agile delivery structures outside traditional hierarchies.”

It said that at present innovation could occur only “in the context of failure and as a result of government direction”, a situation the DfE said was “illogical and [which] is already causing some local authorities difficulties”.

Mark Smulian

See also: Authorities to be able to delegate “nearly all” childrens social care functions