Social workers believe racial bias greatly affects child protection practice, a poll has found.

This follows a recent report by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel on the impact of race, ethnicity and culture on cases where children have died or suffered serious harm.

The case reviews studied, which involved mixed-heritage, black and Asian children, were “silent” about the presence of racial bias in professionals’ decision making and on the role of racism in services’ responses to families.

The panel found that children’s race and ethnicity were often not recognised, appropriately explored or understood by practitioners, resulting in them not having a full understanding of children’s lived experience and the vulnerabilities they faced.

Only 7% said racial bias affected child protection practice “not at all”, while 5% believed there was “little” influence.

The national panel’s report is the latest in a series of studies to highlight issues with the way the social care system responds to children and families from black, Asian and ethnic minority communities.

Practitioners did not sufficiently consider children’s needs in relation to their race, ethnicity and culture in responding to child sexual abuse, found a review last year carried out for the panel by the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, a 2023 Nuffield Family Justice Observatory study identified significant ethnic inequalities in the use and timing of care proceedings.

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The representation of Black social workers in the children’s services workforce in English councils halves between the front line and management, Department for Education (DfE) data has shown.

There is also a drop-off in the proportion of Asian practitioners and those from mixed or multiple ethnic groups at senior levels, compared with the front line, according to the figures, which date from September 2024.

By contrast, the proportion of white social workers increases with seniority, revealed the data, which has been published on the DfE’s children’s social care dashboard.

Chief social worker Isabelle Trowler said the figures showed action needed to be taken to ensure better representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff at senior level, which remained “very very white”.

Fall in Black representation at senior levels

The proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff in the children’s social work workforce in English councils (26.2%) is higher than in the general population (19%).

This is driven by the particularly high representation of Black staff, who accounted for 15.2% of children’s social workers, as of September 2024, compared with 4.2% of the population.

However, while Black staff accounted for 20.5% of case holders – which encompasses those in frontline roles who are not senior practitioners – this fell to 13.1% among senior social workers and 10.2% among managers.

Asian and mixed-heritage staff’s representation

Among Asian and mixed-heritage staff, there was a similar, though smaller-scale, drop-off. Asian staff accounted for 6.5% of the whole workforce, 6.9% of case holders, 6.3% of senior practitioners and 5.3% of managers, while mixed-heritage social workers were 3.6% of the workforce, 4% of case holders, 3.7% of senior practitioners and 3% of managers.

White staff exhibited the opposite trend, accounting for 67.7% of case holders, 75.9% of senior practitioners and 80.7% of managers.

The figures do not include the director of children’s services (DCS) role, 90% of whose postholders were white as of 2024, according to data from the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.

Senior leadership is ‘very very white’

Trowler addressed the issue in the opening session of Social Work Week, Social Work England’s annual programme of online events, which , this year, runs from 17-21 March 2025.

Isabelle Trowler, the chief social worker for children and families

“We have a really diverse junior part of our workforce, but we know that the leadership, particularly senior leadership, is very very white. And we have to do something about this.”

Trowler also referenced the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s recent report on race in child protection. This found that the race and ethnicity of children was often not recognised, appropriately explored or understood by practitioners, resulting in them not having a full understanding of children’s lived experience and the vulnerabilities they faced.

Workforce diversity ‘not translating into addressing of inequality’

“Even though we have this representation at junior levels of the workforce, that isn’t translating into addressing inequality in practice,” she added.

“Good representation at junior levels is absolutely necessary, but is not sufficient in seeing systemic shifts in the way we are working alongside families and understanding their experience and what they need from the state.”

A key initiatives to tackle racial inequalities in the social work workforce is the social care workforce race equality standard (SC-WRES).

Workforce race equality standard reveals inequalities

Under this, councils collect data on nine metrics measuring the experiences of their Black, Asian and minority ethnic social care staff against those of white counterparts, and then submit this to Skills for Care. They are also expected to draw up action plans to address the findings.

Data from the 2023 SC-WRES revealed that, compared with white staff, Black, Asian and minority ethnic social care workers had, in the previous 12 months, been:

• half as likely to be appointed to a job from a shortlisting;
• 40% more likely to enter formal disciplinary processes;
• more than twice as likely, as a regulated professional, to enter fitness to practise processes;
• 20% more likely to experience harassment, bullying or abuse from people who use social care, relatives or the public;
• 30% more likely to experience harassment, bullying or abuse from a colleague and 90% more likely to have experienced this from a manager;
• 10% more likely to leave their organisation.

More than half of councils in England are now signed up to the SC-WRES. However, unlike its NHS counterpart, the scheme receives no government funding, meaning it is resourced by Skills for Care and participating authorities.

By Tim Spencer-Lane

The Mental Health Bill, which would amend the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA), has now passed through committee stage in the House of Lords after five days of debate.

This stage allows peers to scrutinise the detail of a bill, although by convention no votes are taken on tabled amendments.

Committee stage normally provides an important indicator of which issues peers are interested in and may revisit at third reading, where amendments are likely to be put to a vote. It is important to remember that the government does not have a majority in the Lords and could be defeated on particular votes.

Principles

The bill does not insert principles onto the face of the MHA. Instead, it sets out four principles (choice and autonomy, least restriction, therapeutic benefit, and the person as an individual) to be included in the MHA code of practice.

Baroness Tyler (Liberal Democrat) was concerned that “placing the guiding principles in the code leaves a loophole in which they can be deviated from”. She also proposed that “equity” should be added to the principles to “provide additional momentum towards the goal of addressing the racial disparities in the Mental Health Act”.

Lord Bradley (Labour) supported a principle based on identifying and supporting “the communication needs of the individual”.

In response, Baroness Merron (parliamentary under-secretary of state, Department of Health and Social Care), argued that, in respect of statutory principles “the real concern is about making very complex legislation even more complex”.

Unlike the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA), the MHA “has not been designed or structured around statutory principles”. She also argued that “it feels unnecessary to include equity as a specific principle because it is already a requirement of the Equality Act 2010” and that the code of practice will give guidance for practitioners “on how to support individuals with communication needs to make sure that their voices are heard”.

Learning disability and autism exclusion

A topic that dominated debates in the Lords was the position of people with learning disability and autistic people. The bill would prohibit people being detained for treatment under the MHA solely on the basis of learning disability or autism.

Baroness Browning (Conservative) welcomed “the removal from the Mental Health Act of the presumption of mental illness in people with autism and learning difficulties”.

However, she was concerned that “once it is removed the Mental Capacity Act will be used more frequently” to deprive autistic people and people with learning disabilities of liberty. In relaition to this, she pointed to the widespread difficulties associated with the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.

Baroness Berridge (Conservative) argued “there is the other danger that – when there is no co-occurring mental health condition – you end up with people coming through the criminal justice system”.

In response, Baroness Merron stated that “the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals is indeed unacceptable”. She argued that the government did not want the MCA to “be a loophole, back door or anything of that nature”.

She also pointed to the bill’s duty on integrated care boards (ICBs) to establish and maintain a register of people with a learning disability and autistic people who are at risk of detention. ICBs and local authorities must have regard to the register and the needs of the local ‘at risk’ population, when carrying out their commissioning duties.

Baroness Merron said the intention of these provisions was that “people with a learning disability and autistic people are not detained but supported in the right way”.

Professional roles and responsibilities

Amendments were tabled by the former prime minister, Baroness May (Conservative), intended to “widen the definition of those who can attend a mental health incident and act to detain an individual in a variety of circumstances”.

These aimed at extending the powers given to police officers to remove a person suffering from a mental health crisis to a place of safety, to health and social care professionals (including social workers and paramedics). The proposals were supported by several peers, who argued it would lead to the reduction of police attendance at mental health incidents, in line with the Right Care, Right Person concordat.

However, Baroness Merron argued that “extending the ability to health and social care professionals to enter someone’s home without their permission would be a major shift in their roles” and “it would impact on relationships between patients and health and care staff”.

She committed to look at reducing police time in health settings and to update the code of practice to clarify the handover process between police and health, including in A&E.

Community treatment orders (CTOs)

The bill proposes to tighten the criteria for the use of CTOs and limit how often they are used. A range of views on CTOs were expressed in the debates. Baroness Fox (non-affiliated) referred to their “spiralling and increasing use”. She noted that “CTOs are necessary when community care is under huge strain, because the idea of voluntarily accessing a wide variety of support in the community is a myth in today’s circumstances”.

Baroness Berridge (Conservative) felt that CTOs should be “in the last chance saloon”. On the other hand, Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat) felt that CTOs “can be valuable for people with eating disorders – and for forensic patients”. Lord Kamall (Conservative) called for more data on why a disproportionate number of black people were subject to CTOs.

Baroness Merron restated the government’s position that “CTOs can be valuable for certain patients” but “reform is needed so that they are used only when appropriate and for the shortest possible time”.

She also confirmed that “officials are working with NHS England and others to understand what additional data should be collected to understand the impact of the reform”, adding that the government was “committed to ongoing monitoring of CTOs as we implement the changes”.

Children and young people

Many of the safeguards in the bill are linked to a determination of capacity (for those aged 16 and over) and competence (for those aged under 16); for example, the rights for a child to appoint a nominated person or make an advance choice document depend on their competence to make this decision.

However, Baroness Tyler (Liberal Democrat) raised concerns that “there is also no clear and consistent approach for determining whether a child is competent. Although the concept of competence is generally understood, how to assess a child’s competence is not.”

Consequently, she argued, children may not benefit from the reforms in the bill that depend on competency.

Several peers called for a statutory test of competency to be inserted onto the face of the MHA. Lord Meston (crossbench) tabled an amendment which adopted the MCA’s functional test but without the need to consider if the inability to make the decision is caused by an impairment of or disturbance in the mind/brain.

Peers were concerned about how the nominated person role, which replaces the nearest relative, would work for children and young people. Baroness Berridge (Conservative) called for a prescribed list of people that an approved mental health professional could appoint as the nominated person for children and Baroness Butler-Sloss (crossbench) called for greater rights for parents to be consulted and challenge appointments in the court.

The bill does not provide any reforms aimed at addressing the position of children placed on adult mental health wards and those placed in hospitals out of area. Earl Howe (Conservative), therefore, called for procedural safeguards for children placed on adult wards and Baroness Berridge (Conservative) wanted a new notification process for out-of-area placements.

For the government, Baroness Merron rejected the amendment for a statutory test of competency, pointing out that the courts had rejected the proposed definition.

She added: “To introduce a statutory test for under-16s only under the Mental Health Act is likely to risk undermining Gillick, which remains the accepted competence test for under-16s across all settings, including reproductive health and children’s social care, and the wider legislative framework on matters related to children.”

The minister also said detailed guidance would be provided in the code on how the nominated person role would work for children and young people, and confirmed that people who were a risk to a child could not be the nominated person.

Baroness Merron said that additional guidance would be provided “on the process to determine, and review throughout a child’s detention and treatment, that the environment in which they are accommodated continues to be in their interests”.

Racial disparities

The bill does not include any reforms expressly aimed at reducing racial and ethnic inequalities in the use of the MHA. However, there was depth of feeling amongst peers when debating this area.

Baroness Whitaker (Labour) highlighted the discrimination faced by the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and their lack of access to services. Baroness Tyler (Liberal Democrat) felt that the bill “still does not go far enough to address that deeply entrenched inequity”. Lord Kamall (Conservative) probed the government “to understand what they know and what research they are aware of, so we can understand the reasons for these racial disparities and put in place measures to tackle them”.

Some peers called for the creation of a “responsible person” in each hospital who would be responsible for driving change

Baroness Merron acknowledged the need for better data and argued that the patient and carer race equality framework (PCREF) “will improve data collection on racial disparities over the coming year, and the [Care Quality Commission (CQC)] has existing duties to monitor and report on inequalities under the Mental Health Act”.

She also said the department “will continue to monitor racial disparities in the use of CTOs”. But the minister rejected the creation of a responsible person role as “it would duplicate existing roles and duties”, including the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010 and the monitoring role of the CQC.

Implementation of the reforms

Many peers called for greater clarity and specific guarantees over when the bill would be implemented.

Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat) tabled an amendment to “create an obligation for the government to lay a costed plan for sufficient services before Parliament within four months of the passage of the bill”. Baroness Tyler (Liberal Democrat) called for a costed plan for community care to support the reforms in the bill and Lord Stevens (crossbench) advocated for a statutory backstop for implementing the bill.

Baroness Merron set out an indicative plan for implementing the bill. The first priority would be the code of practice (which would take a year) and the secondary legislation. There would be training of the existing workforce in 2026-27 and commencement of the “first major phase of reforms in 2027”. It would take up to 10 years to fully implement the bill.

Mental health commissioner

The joint committee on the draft bill had recommended the post of a statutory mental health commissioner should be created to provide an independent voice advocating for mental health service users and act as a watchdog to oversee the implementation of the reforms. This was not included in the bill.

Baroness Tyler (Liberal Democrat) called for the creation of a statutory commissioner to provide “sustained leadership for mental health”, transform mental health services and drive forward the reforms.

Lord Bradley (Labour) disagreed with claims that the commissioner would duplicate the functions of the CQC, pointing to the example of the Children’s Commissioner for England, which functions alongside Ofsted. Lord Kamall (Conservative), however, expressed some concern about the creation of a new bureaucracy.

Baroness Merron repeated that a commissioner would duplicate existing functions of the CQC and Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, as well as NHS England. She also claimed that the Children’s Commissioner was operating in a much broader landscape than that proposed for the mental health commissioner and was therefore less duplicative.

The ‘human rights protection gap’

In the months leading up to the publication of the bill, the High Court handed down its judgment in Sammut v Next Steps Mental Healthcare Ltd [2024] EWHC 2265 (KB). This decision confirmed that private care providers commissioned by local authorities and NHS to deliver services under section 117 of the MHA were not public authorities for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998, so were not bound by its provisions.

Consequently, Baroness Keeley (Labour) raised concerns about the ongoing gap in protection for those receiving care from the private sector and tabled an amendment to extend the protection of the Human Rights Act to include all section 117 service users, informal patients and those being deprived of their liberty in any setting. The amendment was strongly supported by ‘legal’ members of the Lords – Lord Pannick (crossbench), Baroness Chakrabarti (Labour) and Baroness Butler-Sloss (crossbench).

In response, Baroness Merron confirmed the government was “actively considering” this matter.

What was not debated at committee stage

It is noteworthy that several important areas of the bill received little mention in the debates.

These include the new powers to enable restricted patients, who have capacity to consent to their arrangements, to be discharged from hospital with conditions amounting to a deprivation of liberty. Stakeholders have raised concerns that the reform crosses the Rubicon by allowing the detention of people with capacity in the community and argued that greater safeguards are needed.

The part 4 reforms concerning consent to treatment also provoked little debate, no doubt in part because of their complexity. But there was little discussion of matters such as the  increased right for mental health patients to refuse medication and urgent electroconvulsive therapy, as well as the new clinical checklist to guide decision makers.

There was also no mention of the reforms to the meaning of ordinary residence for the purposes of section 117 aftercare services, including the introduction of new ‘deeming rules’. These will have a significant impact on local authority funding of section 117 services.

What happens next?

The next stage for the bill will be the report stage, which is an opportunity for the whole House of Lords to consider what has been done during the committee stage. This will be followed by the third reading which is the final opportunity for peers to consider the whole bill. Amendments will be tabled, debated and voted on during these stages.

The bill will then be considered by the House of Commons.

Tim Spencer-Lane is a lawyer specialising in adult social care, mental capacity and mental health and legal editor of Community Care Inform. 

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A “sea change” is needed in practitioners’ approach to race in child protection cases to better safeguard Black, Asian and mixed-heritage children from harm.

That was the message from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel in a report on the impact of race, ethnicity and culture on multi-agency practice where children have died or suffered serious harm.

The study was based on 54 case reports – 14 local child safeguarding practice reviews and 40 rapid reviews – 25 involving mixed-heritage children, 15 concerning Black children and 14 relating to Asian children.

As previously reported, the panel found that reviews were “silent” about the presence of racial bias in professionals’ decision making and on the role of racism in services’ responses to families.

But to the extent that reviews did address race, they identified significant practice issues, said the panel, whose role is to oversee and draw together learning from serious cases.

Race ‘not recognised’ by practitioners

Race and ethnicity of children was often not recognised, appropriately explored or understood by practitioners, resulting in them not having a full understanding of children’s lived experience and the vulnerabilities they faced.

Fourteen reviews noted that children and families faced service barriers relating to race, ethnicity or culture, including because of past experiences of racism, language barriers, cultural perceptions that seeking support indicated an inability to cope, and practitioner bias.

The latter included the issue of adultification, where professionals attribute adult-like characteristics to Black children and treat them as more responsible than others of a similar age.

One example of this concerned a Black Caribbean child who was viewed as suspicious by professionals for wearing protective clothing after witnessing the murder of a friend. When they were subsequently injured in a knife incident, they were viewed as a perpetrator, not a victim.

‘Not hearing the child’s voice

Seven reviews found that children’s voices and wishes had not been heard by practitioners, while a further 11 highlighted barriers to hearing the child, including fear of retribution from disclosure and communication difficulties.

In 19 reviews, risks to the child had been at least partially recognised, but this had not translated into a professional response, including because disclosures by children had not been appropriately addressed.

This included “several cases” where girls of Asian or mixed Asian heritages had made disclosures about sexual abuse, but these appeared either to have been dismissed as untrue or not carefully followed up.

‘Silence around racism deeply concerning’

Jahnine Davis

Race and safeguarding expert Jahnine Davis, the panel’s lead for the report, said: “The silence around race and racism in child safeguarding practice is deeply concerning.

Improving the safeguarding of Black, Asian and mixed-heritage children meant “challenging current policies, practices and how services are designed and delivered, recognising how racism and racial bias impact our work to protect children”, she added.

Recommendations included that safeguarding partnerships create conditions to empower practitioners to have conversations with children and families about race and identity, and build their skills and confidence. They should also ensure appropriate internal structures are in place to support practitioners to recognise, discuss and challenge internal and institutional racism, the panel said.

Leaders ‘need to equip staff with confidence’

Association of Directors of Children’s Services president Andy Smith said the report made for difficult reading but “must act as a catalyst for further change”.

“Leaders across public services have an important role in addressing discrimination and bias and in supporting anti-racist practice in their organisations by equipping our staff with the confidence and the courage to do so via appropriate training and support, including challenge where necessary,” he added.

“As the panel recognises, these conversations can be hard, but the consequences are too great if we do not get this right in terms of children being seriously harmed, or worse.”

‘Stark evidence gaps’

Sector evidence body Foundations said there were “stark evidence gaps about the experiences and outcomes of racially minoritised children in children’s social care, despite the over-representation of these children in safeguarding reviews”.

Its chief executive. Jo Casebourne, added: “Foundations is committed to taking a proactive role in addressing the issues the panel identifies.

“We will continue to integrate considered and critical examination of race, racism and racial bias into our work, generating evidence on what works to inform local safeguarding strategies, empower leaders and practitioners, and strengthen our collective ability to protect children.”

Reviews of serious cases are “silent” about the role of racial bias in child protection decision making, safeguarding experts have found.

Case inquiries relating to black, Asian or mixed heritage children inconsistently featured the voice of the child and their recommendations failed to provide high-quality learning for practitioners on working with these groups of children.

Inquiry into race and child protection

Those were among early findings from a Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel inquiry into the impact of race, racism, and ethnicity on practice where a child has died or been seriously harmed.

The panel has examined 54 reviews submitted from 2022-24, 25 of which involved mixed heritage children, 15 relating to black children and 14 involving Asian children. The children ranged in age from under one to 17, with 32 being male and 22 female.

Thirteen children were recorded as having a disability, however, this information was missing in 16 cases; similarly, while 11 were recorded as having a neurodivergent condition, such as autism or ADHD, this information was not reported in 23 reviews.

This lack of data hampered reviews’ ability to undertake an intersectional analysis of children’s lives, panel member Jahnine Davis told this year’s National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC).

‘Silence’ about racial bias

More broadly, reviews did not consistently identify the extent to which race, racism, racial bias or culture impacted on practice responses to black, Asian and mixed heritage children, said Davis, a researcher specialising in the safeguarding of black children.

There was a silence about the presence of racial bias in professionals’ decision making and on the role of racism, whether internalised, interpersonal, institutional or structural, in services’ responses to families.

This was despite other forms of bias – such as in relation to sex/gender – being highlighted in reviews.

Davis, who is also the Department for Education’s national kinship care ambassador, said that reviews inconsistently featured the voice of the child.

Voice of the child lacking

“There were significant missed opportunities to include the child’s own words within review reports,” she added. “It’s been a struggle in the 54 reviews to identify an explicit quote from that child to bring to light what their experiences are.”

Meanwhile, review recommendations “infrequently featured high quality and vital learning for practice with black, Asian and mixed heritage children”, said Davis.

Recommendations tended to be generalised, rather than specific to these groups of children, and some were insufficiently detailed to promote effective practice changes.

Practice deficits

To the extent that reviews did address issues around race, they found that practitioners’ understanding of black, Asian and mixed heritage children’s lived experiences was incomplete, meaning they had a poor understanding of their vulnerabilities and risks, Davis added.

Her panel colleague, Jenny Coles, told NCASC delegates: “Reviews are highlighting an urgent need to understand the extent to which racism reverberates across the safeguarding system. Race, racism and bias are not being understood and this seriously impacting on the safety of those children.”

The panel’s report is due to be published early in 2025.

Black, male and 40-plus social workers remain disproportionately represented in fitness to practise (FtP) cases, Social Work England data has confirmed.

The regulator has released an update on analysis it conducted last year on how different groups of practitioners were represented in the FtP process, which was based on referrals received from its inception in December 2019 to March 2023.

That found that the three groups were not only overrepresented in concerns referred to the regulator but also in cases that were subsequently investigated and those referred to a hearing, when a panel determines whether the social worker’s fitness to practise is impaired.

The latest analysis extends the dataset by a year, meaning it now runs from December 2019 to March 2024. Unsurprisingly, the overrepresentation of black and male social workers and those aged over 40 remains, at multiple points of the FtP process.

Longstanding concerns about overrepresentation

There are longstanding concerns about overrepresentation in the fitness to practise system.

The then regulator, the General Social Care Council, identified disproportionate numbers of men, black practitioners, those aged 40-49 and disabled social workers in referrals that it received from 2004-11.

In July 2020, seven months after it took over the role, Social Work England reported that black and ethnic minority social workers were overrepresented in fitness to practise referrals it had received thus far.

At the time, it said investigating whether its processes were non-discriminatory was something that it was “absolutely committed to” working on but it needed to develop a system to do that.

Collecting diversity data on social work population

Its next step was encouraging social workers to submit data on their protected characteristics, under the Equality Act 2010, and demographic categories.

By 2023, it had this information for the vast majority of the registered population, which enabled it to carry out the analysis of fitness to practise data published last year.

Commenting on the 2023 data last year, Social Work England said: “We must take considerable care in drawing conclusions, because the apparent differences identified in this analysis do not necessarily indicate that differences in outcomes are caused by a social worker belonging to a group within a particular characteristic.”

In its latest analysis, Social Work England examined whether types of concern, regional differences or practitioners’ employment sector helped explain its findings. It found minimal differences depending on the social worker’s region and that the top three types of concern were the same for black, male and 40-plus social workers.

Children’s social workers appeared to be overrepresented in initial referrals compared with adults’ practitioners, but this did not explain the overrepresentation of black, male and 40-plus staff across the FtP process.

Further work to identify causes of disproportionality

Social Work England said it would now undertake a more detailed analysis of a sample of cases, including male and female and black and white practitioners, “to gain a deeper understanding of what causes overrepresentation, and understand potential actions to address this”.

It would combine this by repeating its broader analysis of fitness to practise and diversity data using “a more advanced method of statistical analysis” that would enable it to “consider multiple factors that may influence how a case progresses” through the FtP process.

The two pieces of work would help it design potential improvements to the FtP process and provide guidance to its decision makers. However, it cautioned that identifying and addressing the root causes of overrepresentation was “a challenging and complex area of work” that would take time.

The regulator’s executive director of professional practice and external engagement, Sarah Blackmore, said: “Equality, diversity and inclusion is integral to and embedded in all we do at Social Work England.

“We have always been committed to pursuing positive change in this area for both the profession and people who use social work services. We will continue our work to ensure that our processes and outcomes are fair, efficient, proportionate, and in the public interest.”

A government-backed leadership training scheme has been launched for principal social workers (PSW), approved mental health professional (AMHP) leads and principal occupational therapists (POT) in adults’ services in English councils.

The adult social care leadership programme, which will mostly be delivered online, will also offer places to senior practitioners from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds who are aspiring towards PSW, AMHP lead or POT roles.

Funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the programme is designed to enable leaders to promote high-quality and reflective supervision, learning and continuing professional development within their organisations.

Online-focused leadership programme

Research in Practice, which is delivering the programme on behalf of the DHSC, said it would consist of:

• Five day-long online learning sessions delivered over three months, with some ‘homework’ between each.
• Two online mentoring sessions, at the beginning and end of the programme, respectively.
• Three online group-based learning sessions exploring race, disparity and allyship.
• Two online small-group sessions to enable participants to put their learning into practice.
• An in-person conference at the end of the programme.

Participation is through nomination by directors of adult social services or other senior leaders, who can select up to four nominees, two PSWs, AMHPs or POTs and two aspiring leaders from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (known as global majority aspirant leaders). Nominations should be made using this form, by 14 April 2024.

Research in Practice will deliver the scheme to three cohorts of 20 leaders between June and December 2024, and the DHSC has held open the possibility of the programme being extended for a further two years.

Disparity between children’s and adults’ services

The DHSC has allocated an estimated £100,000 to the programme, a sum which highlights the disparity in government-funded leadership development for staff between staff in adults’ services and those in children’s services.

In 2022, the Department for Education awarded Frontline £7m over two years to deliver leadership training and development to children’s services staff at four levels: practice supervisor, middle manager, heads of service and practice leaders (equivalent to assistant directors).

The DfE has also recently agreed a new contract with the Staff College, worth £2.15m over the next two years, to continue delivering Upon, its programme to develop aspiring directors of children’s services.

The government is no longer funding a scheme to promote racial equality in local authorities’ social care workforces.

The news comes 18 months after the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) committed to rolling out the social care workforce race equality standard (SC-WRES) beyond the 18 councils that have been testing the scheme in 2021.

The decision is tied to DHSC’s prioritisation of adult social care policy on “making sure that people have access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time”, leading to it to review spending on other areas earlier this year.

The SC-WRES work is now being taken on by workforce development body Skills for Care, which the DHSC had previously funded to deliver the scheme but is now resourcing the project from its own coffers.

Though most of Skills for Care’s income – which was £38.5m in 2021-22 – comes from government contracts to deliver several national social care workforce programmes, it is a charity.

By contrast, the health’s service’s WRES, on which social care’s is based, is funded, to the tune of £1m a year by its main statutory body, NHS England, itself resourced by the DHSC. The health WRES is also mandatory for all NHS commissioners and providers.

Speeding up progress towards race equality

The SC-WRES was announced in October 2020 by the DHSC’s then interim chief social workers for adults, Mark Harvey and Fran Leddra, so councils could better understand the experiences of their minority ethnic staff and make faster progress towards race equality in the workplace.

In December 2020, the DHSC selected 18 councils to test the scheme, by collecting data on the nine metrics (see above) in 2021-22.

It then awarded Skills for Care the contract to collect and analyse data from the scheme, with the workforce development body receiving £75,000 from the DHSC’s Office of the Chief Social Worker in 2021-22 to do so.

Pledge to roll out WRES

In December 2021, in its adult social care white paper, the DHSC committed itself to “expanding the rollout” of the SC-WRES to help ensure “staff from ethnic minority backgrounds are treated equally, feel included and valued, their health and wellbeing are prioritised and they have access to culturally appropriate support”.

The SC-WRES’s test phase finished in March 2022, though the pilot local authorities continued working on the project in 2022-23, developing action plans in response to the data they collected in 2021-22.

Though it wasn’t funded by DHSC for the SC-WRES in 2022-23, Skills for Care said it continued to work on the programme and analyse data during this time.

In July 2022, the House of Commons’ health and social care select committee urged the DHSC to expand the scheme to independent providers, who employ the vast majority of social care staff, in a report on improving workforce training, recruitment and retention.

In its response to the committee, published in April 2023, the DHSC rejected this proposal but said it was “currently reviewing the lessons from the initial roll-out of the SCWRES”. This will result in a report on the 2021-22 pilot, due out shortly.

Social care workforce funding cut

However, the DHSC’s follow-up to its 2021 white paper, also published in April 2023 and setting out its key policy priorities, contained no mention of the SC-WRES. At the same time, the department cut its committed funding, under the white paper, for supporting and developing the adult social care workforce up to 2025 from £500m to £250m, though this may be added to in future.

Skills for Care said it was taking the programme forward without DHSC funding and wanted to work with the sector to develop “a sustainable model to ensure the workplace race equality standard continues to be most effective for the workforce”.

It has just launched a callout for local authorities beyond the 18 pilots to take part in the next round of SC-WRES data collection, from 1 September to mid-October 2023.

Skills for Care taking responsibility for WRES

“Skills for Care remains committed to SC-WRES as a tool for measuring improvements in the workforce in the respect of the experiences of Black and minoritised ethnic staff,” said a spokesperson for the workforce development body.

“We want to support and empower social care leaders, employers, and the wider workforce and ensure the workforce is treated equally, feels included and valued, and is supported to stay well and pursue their careers in social care.”

The spokesperson added: “SC-WRES supports organisations to have conversations about how they can embed diversity, as well as address and evidence their own progress, and dismantle issues and blockages. The SC-WRES has nine metrics that help us examine inequality. It gives a sense of where action is needed, supports the development of action plans, and the implementation of solutions. Race equality needs to be at the heart of policies and practice.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “All local authorities and care providers should consider how to ensure staff from ethnic minorities are treated equally, feel included and valued, their health and wellbeing are prioritised, and have access to culturally appropriate support.

“We are continuing to fund Skills for Care in 2023-24 to deliver a wide range of activities to support social care employers and the sector’s vital workforce. This includes initiatives to support recruitment and retention of care staff and funding to support the workforce to access high-quality training to further their careers.”

More information on the SC-WRES is available on Skills for Care’s website. You can also email Skills for Care for further details.

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Racial diversity among directors of children’s services remains low, compared with the populations they serve and the workforces they lead, a survey has revealed.

Just 6% of DCSs were black or from a non-white ethnic minority as of 31 March 2023, compared with 18% of the population of England and Wales in the 2021 census and 24% of statutory children’s social workers in England, as of September 2022. 

The figure was released last week by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) in its annual update on the DCS workforce, and showed little change on the previous year, when the figure was 5%. 

This year’s data is more comprehensive, being based on 131 responses, 86% of the total, compared with 94 (62%) last year.

‘Huge amount still to do on ethnic diversity’

John Pearce, ADCS president, 2023-24

ADCS president John Pearce said it showed there was “a huge amount still to do” in improving ethnic diversity among DCSs.

“This is something all local authorities are focussed on, as is the association. It is important that our sector leaders are representative of the communities they serve, and that we fully maximise the potential within our sector.”

He said the association was setting up a working group “which will explore what ADCS can do to encourage and increase greater diversity across the association”.

The issue was also highlighted by leadership development body the Staff College in a report earlier this year on how to reduce turnover among DCSs.

‘Urgent action needed to tackle racism’

The report said the lack of ethnic diversity reflected a loss of talent and councils needed to be addressed through targeted leadership development. It also urged action to tackle racism, misogyny and other forms of discrimination “so that people feel welcomed and valued in the workplace and that the pipeline of talent through to a DCS role is as wide as possible”.

The college runs an annual there-day training scheme, the Black and Asian Leadership Initiative (BALI), to tackle the barriers to children’s services leaders from ethnic minorities rising to leadership roles, particularly director level. It also runs a network for BALI alumni.

For the first time, the ADCS survey also asked directors about other aspects of identity, finding that:

• 60% were aged 50-59, 21% were 40-49 and, 15% aged 60-65.
• 8% considered themselves disabled.
• 51% said they had no religion, while 37% identified as Christian.
• 83% of DCSs identified as heterosexual, 11% as gay or lesbian and 3% as bisexual.

As in 2022, just under two-thirds of directors were women, with the proportion of female leaders increasing steadily from 2018, when the split was last 50:50. However, the current percentage of female directors (64%) is below the proportion of women in the children’s social work workforce in England (87%).

DCS turnover rising and below that for adults’ chiefs

Turnover among DCSs had also risen from 2022-23, while the numbers leaving the role were higher than for directors of adult social services (DASSs) and council chief executives, the research revealed.

There were 50 DCS changes during the year, across 42 authorities (28% of the total), up from 47 changes across 36 councils in 2021-22. By contrast, there were 42 changes of DASS in 2022 and 19 moves at chief executive level in 2022-23.

While the number of DCS changes was below the average per year since 2007-8 (48), it fell far short of the record of 65, in 2017-18.

The recent Staff College report found that council culture was the biggest driver of job satisfaction among DCSs, with a third of directors surveyed for it reporting that bureaucratic, political, financial and workload pressures were among the “frustrations” of the job.

Its recommendations included:

• Greater national and local recognition of the role.
• For Ofsted to reduce the “blame culture” associated with children’s services inspections.
• The development of supportive working cultures within councils.

Ongoing fall in directors also running adults’ services

The number of DCSs with statutory responsibility for adults’ services continued to fall, hitting a low of 16 as of April 2023, down from 22 the year before and 61 in March 2015.

Government statutory guidance warns councils against combining the DCS role with other responsibilities because of its “breadth and importance”.

ADCS president John Pearce added: “One reason why more local authorities may have moved away from these combined arrangements than adopted them in the past year could be because of the complex challenges and demands facing both local authority children’s services and adult services.

“However, it is for local authorities to design their local systems to best meet the needs of communities. The key thing remains there must be a clear and ultimate line of accountability for children’s outcomes in a local area.”

The government must set up a task force to tackle longstanding racial disparities in the adoption system, including by making the workforce more diverse.

That was one of the conclusions of a House of Lords committee examining 2014 children’s social care law reforms that, among other things, sought to make it easier for black and ethnic minority children to be adopted.

The Children and Families Act 2014 removed the requirement for adoption agencies to give due consideration to the child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background when making decisions about them.

This was not designed to prevent agencies from taking race into account – as they and the courts have remained under an obligation to make the child’s welfare paramount, which includes taking into account their background.

Rather, the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to ensure black and ethnic minority children were “not left waiting in care longer than necessary because local authorities [were] seeking a perfect or partial ethnic match”.

Reform ‘has had limited impact’

However, in a report last week, the committee found the change had had limited impact, quoting figures from the Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board showing children from black and ethnic minority groups waited three months longer than white peers to be adopted.

Though some of its witnesses criticised the 2014 reform for underappreciating the importance of racial matching in meeting a child’s ethnic and cultural needs, others said social workers continued to prioritise ethnic matching. This was because of an increasing focus on the role of race in identity formation and the challenges of transracial adoptions.

However, the committee found there were significant barriers to black and ethnic minority prospective adopters coming forward, including because of poverty and the perception that families needed a spare bedroom in order to adopt a child.

Adopters also told the committee that some social workers needed more training in cultural competence to work with prospective adopters from an ethnic minority, while witnesses also raised concerns about the lack of diversity of the workforce and, in particular, of adoption panels.

Lack of diversity in adoption workforce and panels 

Sarah Johal, the DfE-appointed national adoption strategic lead, told the committee that, “generally, the panel is all-white and mainly female, which is reflected in the adoption workforce … It is an ongoing issue”.

Though 23% of local authority children’s social workers are black or from an ethnic minority, compared with 18% of the English and Welsh population, this is not broken down by team or service area.

Others said the lack of diversity of panels – whose role is to recommend whether a child should be placed with particular prospective adopters – was due to inadequate pay and the fact they were chosen from adoption leaders’ existing networks.

The committee said: “Ethnic minority children still wait too long to be adopted; a disparity which is unacceptable. There remains a shortage of prospective adopters who are prepared to adopt children from minority ethnic groups and those who do are insufficiently supported. The adoption workforce, and adoption panels, are insufficiently diverse.”

Need for task force to tackle racial disparities

To “drive whole system change at all level”, it urged the government to set up a task force to tackle racial disparities in adoption, accountable to the education secretary and with “specific, targeted and measurable outputs”.

It should focus on “increasing diversity in the workforce and on adoption panels, support for transracial adopters, training for those working with minority ethnicity adopters and adoptees and recruiting and supporting minority ethnicity adopters”.

In response, the professional body for children’s guardians, Nagalro, urged the government to implement the committee’s recommendations.

“For too long, Black children have been over-represented in children in care and wait longer for an adoptive placement,” said chair Yvonne Wilson. “We need to deal with why we have so many Black children coming into care and why we do not have enough Black people coming forward to adopt.”

The committee was set up to examine the impact of the Children and Families Act 2014’s reforms in areas including adoption and family justice.

Its overall verdict was that they were a “missed opportunity” to improve the lives of children and young people because of their inadequate implementation and a lack of data against which to judge success.

Lack of data on impact of fostering to adopt

For example, the committee found there was no data on which to measure the impact of measures in the act to promote so-called fostering to adopt placements. These require a local authority to consider placing a child, for whom they are considering adoption, with foster carers who are also approved prospective adopters, once they have considered a placement with a connected foster carer.

Peers said that, while the government collected information on so-called early permanence placements, these were not disaggregated between fostering to adopt placements and concurrent planning. Under the latter, a child is placed in foster care with prospective adopters, while the council also considered if they may be reunified with their family.

This meant it was not possible to track trends in fostering to adopt placements, though the committee concluded that the impact of the act had been minimal. This was because the number of early permanence placements as a whole had grown from just 250 (0.4% of looked-after children) in 2015 to 470 (0.6%) in 2021.

While witnesses were “unanimous” about the benefits of fostering to adopt placements, particularly in reducing the number of moves children experience before finding a permanent home, the committee said they posed “unique challenges”.

Not only did prospective adopters need to reckon with the uncertainty that the adoption would take place, but the placements also often involved greater contact with birth families while placement orders were being sought, necessitating more support from social workers.

In its adoption strategy last year, the DfE announced £500,000 for regional adoption agencies to promote early permanence placements, and the committee called on it to publish an impact assessment of the funding, alongside a longer-term strategy to promote early permanence.

Call to reinstate national adoption register

The committee also called on the DfE to reinstate the national adoption register, which adoption agencies were previously required to refer unmatched children within 90 days of their adoption plan being approved. The 2014 act allowed for the making of regulations, in 2017, to enable prospective adopters to search the register, but the DfE then suspended the register in 2019.

All adoption agencies use the Link Maker service, with which they they can voluntarily share the profiles of unmatched children and allow prospective adopters to see them. However, while witnesses said they valued Link Maker, the committee said there was no requirement for agencies to refer children or social work support for matching, as was the case with the national register.

Peers said this “undermined the ability of children to be seen by all those who may be able to provide them a permanent home”.

Their report added: “This is an unnecessary barrier to finding loving, secure homes for children, and one the government failed to account for.”

Elsewhere, in its report, the committee called on the government to set a target for reducing the length of care proceedings which, as of earlier this year, were running at almost double the 26-week legal limit.

Act has had ‘transformative impact’

In its response to the report, a DfE spokesperson said: “The Children and Families Act has had a transformative impact on the lives of children in or leaving care. Under this government, more than half of children’s social care services in England are rated good or outstanding, up from 30% five years ago. We have invested in creating stable homes for children in care, reducing delays in the adoption process, and we have introduced provision that allows children leaving care to keep their support networks as they become adults.”

This is a reference to Staying Put and Staying Close, which allow care leavers to stay with their former foster carers or stay connected to and supported by former children’s home staff, respectively.

The spokesperson also pointed to the DfE’s response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, due early in 2023.

“We will publish our bold reform plans for children’s social care early in the new year,” they added. “This will be informed by our close working with the sector to make sure future services are built on the strong data base that we have developed over the past 10 years.”

Dr Carol Homden, chief executive of children’s charity and adoption agency Coram, said: “This timely report from the Lords committee lays a gauntlet to us all by underlining that good intentions when it comes to policy making are not enough. At Coram, we are clear that a rigorous focus on implementation is essential to realise results for children.”