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Statement by the Children’s Commissioner for England

On Friday 24th April the ‘Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020’ came into force, and are not due to expire until 25th September. These regulations make significant temporary changes to the protections given in law to some of the most vulnerable children in the country – those living in care.

I appreciate that Local Authority children’s services are likely to be experiencing challenging working conditions during the pandemic, and there are many inspiring examples of frontline workers going above and beyond the call of duty to keep children safe. Nevertheless, I do not believe that the changes made in these regulations are necessary– except perhaps for some clarifications (in guidance) about contact with children taking place remotely during the lockdown. Children in care are already vulnerable, and this crisis is placing additional strain on them – as most are not in school, less able to have direct  contact with family and other trusted professionals, and facing the challenges of lockdown and anxiety about illness – all on top of the trauma they have already experienced. If anything, I would expect to see increased protections to ensure their needs are met during this period.

These changes have been made with minimal consultation, and without complying with the usual 21 day rule of being published three weeks before coming into force. The explanation for this is that ‘waiting 21 days will put extraordinary pressure on local authorities, providers and services to try to meet statutory obligations while continuing to provide care for vulnerable children and young people during the outbreak.’ However, the reports I have been receiving from local authorities are that staffing for social care is holding up well.  It therefore appears that bringing in these regulatory changes to ease excessive strain on a depleted workforce, and to do so without the opportunity for public scrutiny, is not justified.

I am extremely concerned about the following changes in the regulations meaning that:

I would like to see all the regulations revoked, as I do not believe that there is sufficient justification to introduce them. This crisis must not remove protections from extremely vulnerable children, particularly as they are even more vulnerable at this time. As an urgent priority it is essential that the most concerning changes detailed above are reversed.

As an absolute minimum, if the Government refuses to revoke these Regulations, I wish to see guidance make clear that these changes will only ever be used as a last resort, and for as short a time as possible. Similar protections must be introduced for children as those set out for adults when changes to the Care Act were introduced by the Coronavirus Act. This would mean that Local Authorities can only relax their adherence to duties if they can show their workforce has been significantly depleted, and that this decision must involve the Principal Social Worker and be evidenced and recorded. In addition, guidance would have to be clear that all the ‘reasonable endeavours’ to meet timescales should be recorded and evidenced if the decision was taken to relax adherence to duties. The Department for Education and Ofsted should be notified by any Local Authority that decides to do so.

In addition, these decisions taken by Local Authorities, as well as the data that informed them, should be closely monitored by the Department for Education and feed into monthly reviews of the regulations. The Department should also immediately publish an assessment of the impact of these changes on children’s rights.

Some of the key changes are detailed in this table:

RegulationWhat the change does
Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 9, 19 and 47CThis amends the requirements to complete placement plans once a child has been placed within five or ten days (depending on circumstances) to as soon as reasonably practicable. This also applies to children on remand.
Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulation 11This means that a child can be placed outside their local area with a carer, even if this carer is not ‘connected’ to them, without approval by a nominated officer.
Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulation 23An emergency placement with an approved foster carer can now last 24 weeks, rather than 6 days, even if that foster carer is eg not approved to look after that many children
Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulation 28 This sets out that ‘visits’ to children in care can be done by phone or video call. It states that  ‘Where (a social worker) is unable to visit (a child) within the timescales set out in this regulation the responsible authority must ensure that R visits C as soon as is reasonably practicable thereafter.’ This is a relaxation of the requirement to visit to those timescales.
Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulation 33 and 48This changes the requirement for care plan reviews to take place every six months – it is now ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’ after that if six months is missed. This also applies to children in short breaks care.
Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulation 48Children can stay with short breaks carers for up to 75 days in one go, rather than 17 days in one go (the 75 day per year total remains the same)
Fostering Services (England) Regulation 23This removes the requirement for foster panels to be set up to approve new carers or review foster carers.
Fostering Services (England) Regulation paragraph 2 of Schedule 3This removes the requirement for a medical report at the initial stages of foster care approval
The Children’s Homes Regulation 6Changes the requirement for care from staff outside the home to be delivered by someone with the knowledge and skills to do it, to make this only ‘as far as reasonably practicable’
The Children’s Homes Regulation 8This sets out a ‘reasonable endeavour’ to make sure children achieve the education standard in Children’s Homes
The Children’s Homes Regulation 20This sets out that children can be deprived of their liberty under public health powers of the Coronavirus Act 2020 if they are symptomatic
The Children’s Homes Regulation 22Allows for contact with family to take place remotely
The Children’s Homes Regulation 44This sets out independent visitors should ‘make reasonable endeavours’ to visit monthly, rather than that they have to
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Fees and Frequency of Inspections) (Children’s Homes etc) Regulation 27This stops the requirement for children’s homes to be inspected twice a year
Residential Family Centres Regulation 10This states that for residential family centres (such as mother and baby units) the provider must only make ‘reasonable endeavours to ensure’ that they promote and provide for the health, welfare, care, treatment and education of residents rather that that they ‘shall’ do so.
Residential Family Centres Regulation 20This allows for complaints to be responded to within 28 days ‘as far as reasonably practicable’ rather than a hard time limit
Residential Family Centres Regulation 25This allows for the registered provider to only have to make ‘reasonable endeavours’ to visit the unit once a month.
Adoption Agencies Regulation 17 and 30D and 31This allows for a Local Authority to choose not to have an adoption panel approve placements for adoptions and to have the decision for whether adopters remain suitable approved by the panel
Adoption Agencies Regulation 4This reduced the number of people required on an adoption panel, if it does go ahead
Adoption Agencies Regulations 27This means that a potential adopter can go through the first stage of pre-assessment without medical or DBS checks, although these would still be needed before final approval
Adoption Agencies Regulations 36This stops the requirement for reviews when a child has either been approved or placed with adopters if this is not reasonably practicable, but an adoption order has not yet been made, unless the agency thinks there is a safeguarding issue
Private Arrangements for Fostering Regulations 4,7 and 8This means that if a LA becomes aware of a child who is, or is about to be, privately fostered they now only need to visit them ‘as soon as is reasonably practicable’ rather than within seven days, and then only make reasonable steps to visit every six or 12 weeks in subsequent years
Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure Regulations 18, 19 and 20These regulations mean that review panels into complaints only have to respond to complainants ‘as soon as reasonably practical’ rather than to statutory timescales
Education and Inspections Act 2006 (Inspection of Local Authorities) Regulation 3

AND

Children Act 2004 (Joint Area Reviews) Regulation 4

This change relaxes the requirement to provide a response and proposed plan of action within 70 days of an Ofsted inspection of LA services. The same change applies after joint area inspections