Speeches by Paffey.

“Thank you. I recognise and very much welcome the additional money that has been promised. For clarity, you are saying t hat we are moving in the right direction. Are you moving specifically towards a £2.6 billion spend on the things that the review recommended or are you saying, if I have understood rightly, that you i…”

“Good morning, Minister. From both our side and your side we have referenced the very important independent review of children’s social care that was done. One of the conclusions of that was that an additional £2.6 billion needed to be spent over a four-year period to get the outcomes that it was recommending. Do you ag…”

“When do you expect to be able to give the first update on the impact? When do you expect there to be something at least substantive enough to comment on and give some initial findings?”

“On one of the specifics of the reform around regional care co-operatives, what evidence have you seen so far from the current pilots that these are a successful measure?”

“There are clear benefits coming through and we look forward to seeing more evidence of those. Are you alive to some of the challenges around how you define the region? Some of the evidence that the Committee’s heard took a supposedly sensible region but then noted that actually parts of it would work with its northern …”

“Minister, in the autumn Budget, the Government committed £90 million to renovating and expanding the children’s home estates. That is a welcome investment but, particularly on the expansion, how many new places are you expecting that money to buy? You will need to staff those. How will you ensure that there are suffici…”

“It is 200 general homes and 180 homes.”

“Obviously the demand will differ from region to region but overall, do you have data yet from the local authorities as to what their pressures are and how many places they need those 200 homes to provide?”

“What is roughly the split that you are expecting in money for new builds and money for refurbs on existing estate?”

“How much of the overall £90 million pot do you expect to go to new and how much to refurb?”

“Is any of the money announced revenue for staffing costs or is that expected to be absorbed into local authority?”

“It is all capital, okay. On the basis that we have heard worrying reports about unsuitable supported accommodation, all new placements in much better accommodation will be welcome. But the unsuitable accommodation—and the evidence presented to this Committee was about children living in hostels, B&Bs, barges, caravans,…”

“In which case, what more needs to be done to ensure that there is no chance of children ending up in the places that we have described, whether registered or not?”

“Have you yet decided what those things are, what data you will need at what point?”

“October 2023, so we are now 18 months later. How many have been done, how many remain to be done, and when do you expect that to be completed?”

“I think we would absolutely accept the points you make. The urgency of having places for children to go to that are safe and known to be safe is absolutely of paramount importance. We probably would want the reassurance of the data on how long you have until you have inspected all of those so that we can have some reas…”

“Two brief questions on social workers. We have heard evidence that there is a recruitment and retention problem. Obviously the turnover and the instability that results from that is bad for the children that social workers are there to serve. Are you intending to take any steps? I appreciate the comments you have just …”

“We obviously welcome those good signs. I assume you will be monitoring retention of them. Having higher numbers is great but we want to make sure that they are staying in post. Do you have a plan for monitoring that and taking action if anything changes?”

“On that point about caseloads, almost half of social workers say they do not feel like they get enough time with the families that they are working with. If caseloads are going down, what is that due to or what more are you doing as a Department to ensure that caseloads can come down for those for whom it has not yet?”

“I rise to comment on Government new clauses 18 to 22 and new clause 3. I very much welcome the new corporate parenting duties and the value they add to the Bill and to the activities of authorities up and down the country. The new clauses add value because this Bill is about boosting standards in schools and creating o…”