Speeches by Daby.

“Obviously this situation needs to be addressed where that is found. The Law Commission, as you will be aware, is undertaking an independent review of disabled children and social care legislation, with a report that is due in summer 2025. We will review this when it is brought to our attention. We will look at what the…”

“This would not just be for the Department of Education, is my understanding. It would be across Departments. I will take this away and look at it and come back to you with a cross-departmental perspective.”

“What I am saying is that we don’t want any child to go hungry, so therefore we have the rollout of the breakfast clubs. That provides an opportunity for families or parents to take their child to school early to be able to have breakfast and therefore not to be hungry. If there is a situation where teachers recognise o…”

“The Government are committed to improving mental health support to children and to young people. It is critical in helping young people and children to achieve and to thrive throughout their life. There are challenges within the NHS and there are challenges that they are addressing in those areas. When a child is first…”

“I am aware that all of the Departments recognise their responsibilities as corporate parents and are dedicated in this space. I believe I need to get back to you on this to give you some more information. I will bring in Fran on this point.”

“I did not catch all of that question, I am afraid.”

“I am very pleased that local authorities are prioritising the needs of care leavers and are taking this very seriously. We need to reduce care leavers from having mental health issues, from being in need, and also from moving into criminality. It is an area where local authorities recognise they have a responsibility a…”

“We recognise the postcode-type lottery for care leavers. We are committed to making sure that care leavers have a good experience. You have already highlighted where we are aware of some of the awful situations that care leavers fall into because they do not have the support that they so crucially need. We have a cross…”

“Family meetings can take place as well, but local authorities will obviously have some guidance and national guidance is something that we can take away and have a discussion with the relevant groups.”

“Thank you for raising that. I recently met with a family rights group and I met with parents. It was very rewarding because they were able to explain to me about some of the contact they have lost with their children and some where their children have returned home in a planned way but the reunification planning did no…”

“It works, with some of the information we have already shared, that if we are reducing the number of children that come into care, automatically the caseload will come down because the social worker has children as part of their caseload. If they have 15 looked-after children, they have 15 cases. But as we are working …”

“We do need to keep an eye on it, and we absolutely are. We are assessing and reviewing it. We have Social Work England and BASWA, very keen players and organisations in this, who want to make sure that we have the social workforce that we need and that we retain them. That is crucial. We have also seen that caseloads h…”

“Yes. You are absolutely right, which is why it needs a level of focus so that it is comparable.”

“There are data that we need to do better and that is recognised. I have been raising that since being in Government for data to do with protected characteristics and so on. That absolutely needs to be done better. There is a challenge in data collection for local authorities—not all of them, but some. There are some lo…”

“We need to make sure that what we are doing delivers, basically. We have regional co-operatives, where there will be a regional way of working to be able to assess and analyse what is happening around the whole recruitment of foster carers—where we need to recruit foster carers, where we need to do our advertising. It …”

“Thank you very much for your question. We need to keep children as near to their local areas as possible; within 20 miles is absolutely our aim, which you have quite rightly mentioned. There is a small number, but there will be some cases, where it is in the child’s interest to be placed outside that 20-mile area; that…”

“You are absolutely right about the additional expertise. You need to have the right people in the room who have the right expertise, knowledge and experience of how to deal with these types of complex situations, which can be very scary and very frightening. I think it is absolutely right to make sure that the right pr…”

“There is guidance for local authorities around family group decision making. There will also be training for professionals in how that is carried out and that information will be available and present. It is very important that that family group decision making is a safe place for the families and around the decisions …”

“The reforms are also seeking to further family group decision making, to look at other provisions for children, making sure that you know the support is there for the family. That is looking at provisional kinship care as well and where interventions are needed to support the families through that.”

“I will pass on to Fran for a moment to help clarify while I look for some information.”