Today (19 November), Darren Paffey, MP for Southampton Itchen, has welcomed the Labour government’s reform to the children’s social care system, hailing it as a ‘landmark moment’.
The children’s social care system has been a major concern both for MPs and councils. The number of looked after children rising – up to 84,000 last year, from 75,000 the year before. With spending on looked after children which ballooning from £3.1 billion in 2009/10 to £7 billion in 2022/23, with Southampton City Council forking out £32 million.
A number of local authorities are on the brink of bankruptcy. With a lack of homes for looked after children, councils have to look to private providers, often charging extortionate prices. There are now over 1,500 children in placements each costing over £0.5 million every year, while the largest 20 private providers make an average of 23 per cent profit.
Some children have been placed in unsafe, unregistered placements hundreds of miles from vital support networks. Such settings are illegal to run but Ofsted found 887 unregistered
homes, up from 370 in 2022-23, meaning at least 1,000 children are in these settings.
Darren has first hand experience with this issue as a care leaver himself, but also as a former Children’s Cabinet member at Southampton City Council. The MP for Southampton Itchen claimed the system had been subject to years of drift and neglect which had let children down, put councils at risk and provided bad value for taxpayers’ money, during a speech in the House of Commons where he called for the end of profiteering in children’s social care.
Darren pledged to back the government’s much needed reforms and its wider mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for children in Southampton Itchen.
Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, said:
‘Our care system has suffered from years of drift and neglect. It’s bankrupting councils, letting families down, and above all, leaving too many children feeling forgotten, powerless and invisible.
‘Labour wants to break down the barriers to opportunity and end the cycle of crisis through ambitious reforms to give vulnerable children the best life chances – because none of us thrive until all of us do.
‘We will crack down on care providers making excessive profit, tackle unregistered and unsafe provision and ensure earlier intervention to keep families together and help
children to thrive.’
Darren Paffey, MP for Southampton Itchen MP, said:
‘I am so thrilled that in the first few months of taking office, this Labour government has made more progress on children’s social care than the Conservatives did in fourteen years.
‘It is further evidence that this is a child-centred Labour government that is focused on breaking down barriers to opportunity for every child in Southampton Itchen.
‘As a care leaver myself and my experience as Children’s cabinet member in Southampton; major reforms like this are something I have been long campaigning for.
I am particularly pleased to see the Government taking action on profiteering of children’s social care after I called for it to end in Parliament.’
Notes to editors:
- Relevant table (LA expenditure on children’s services – unrounded data):
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/ff6e9405-
bdef-4954-bce1-08dd0879bf62 - Department for Education press release, containing further quotes from Chair of the
Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, Children’s
Commissioner, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, CEO of the CMA:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-overhaul-in-a-generation-tochildrens-social-care. - Department for Education newsdesk – for journalists: 020 7783 8300