Agenda item

The Executive Director of Children and Young People presented a report giving an overview of the Social Care Reforms and the approach to implementation in Bury.

Following publication of the independent review of children social care in May 2022, the government outlined a commitment to deliver transformational whole-system reform as set out in their ‘Stable Homes, built on love’ Strategy.

The social care reforms have four overarching outcomes:

• Children, young people and families stay together and get the help they need.
• Children and young people are supported by their family network.
• Children and young people are safe in and outside of their homes.
• Children in care and care leavers have stable, loving homes.

The Policy Framework was set out within the report:

• May 2022 – publication of Josh Macalister’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

• February 2023 – publication of the Stable Homes, Built on Love Strategy, the Government’s implementation strategy for improving social care.

• December 2023 – publication of four key publications, outlining the changes, actions and plans to support delivery of the strategy:
  • National kinship strategy ‘Championing Kinship Care’
  • Children’s Social Care National Framework
  • Refreshed multi-agency statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’
  • Digital and data strategy
• November 2024 - Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive policy paper published, which the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill will put aspects of the reforms into law.
• December 2024 – Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill introduced into Parliament.
• March 2025 – Families First Partnership Programme Guide published setting out delivery expectations for safeguarding partners in England to support national rollout from April 2025.

It was explained that the Family First Partnership guidance was shared in April 2025 and set out the expectations to transform the whole system of help, support, and protection, requiring safeguarding partners to bring together targeted early help, child in need and multi-agency child protection into a seamless system, including services and workforces such as family support workers, social workers, and other highly-skilled, experienced, alternatively qualified practitioners. The intention is that children, young people and their families can receive the right level of support at the right time to meet their needs.

The three key delivery strands to the FFPP are:

• Family Help
• Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs)
• Family Group Decision Making (FGDM)

Nationally, £523 million has been provided for the FFP Programme in 2025-26 and this will continue in each year of the Spending Review period (£523m each year from 2026-27 – 2028-29). This money will fund additional children’s social care prevention services, and commitments in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to improve help and protection for children.

Bury has been allocated £900,000 for each of the next 3 years with an additional transformation grant of £127,000 to support transformation activity across the partnership. Spending of the grant is monitored through quarterly returns to DfE/MHCLG.

The DfE have outlined their expectation that 2025-26 is the year of transformation as local areas invest time and resource into local design in the first stage of the programme. In June, Bury submitted phase 1 delivery plans to the DfE setting out leads from the safeguarding partners and first stage plans for co-design and readiness planning. Phase 2 of the delivery plan must be submitted by 19th December 2025.

There have been two immersive partnership workshops, supported by our DfE Delivery Partner Mutual Ventures, to socialise the reforms and established a shared vision for local implementation. A planning workshop with the delegated safeguarding partners – Social Care, Health, Police & Education – has taken place to agree our approach to implementation. This has considered Bury’s profile of need, geographical areas and strengths in the current system which are enablers to support pilot and implementation of the reforms.

Significant progress has already been made in relation to Family Group Decision Making which will be the first implementation strand in Bury. This will include the scaling up of the current team to provide Family Group Decision Making and Family Network Meetings earlier on in a family’s journey through the system (Spring 2026).

The  MACPT will be piloted followed by a Family Help team, allowing  the opportunity to learn from each pilot before moving to full implementation.

The aim to pilot these from Spring 2026 as we work over coming weeks and months with partners to understand the pathways for children and families and consider how the pilots will be resourced and delivered. There are significant changes in this space, which will require a reconfiguration and restructure of services across the partnership (including children’s social care) due to changes in how certain functions must be delivered and the changes in roles.

Once the learning from both pilots is fully understood more detailed plans can be developed for full implementation throughout 2026 and 2027.

Significant IT system changes are required to support the reforms, with DfE guidance to the system providers expected in November 2025. It is currently unclear what elements of the system will be required to be configured by the provider, versus what we will have to design and configure locally. System access will also need to be extended to partners to enable access to assessments and plans which will require development with dedicated resource.

Any redesign of service or delivery must involve staff, children and families (this is a national requirement) and other stakeholders to ensure the revised system reflects the views and needs of our borough. We have already begun to discuss the reforms with staff via engagement sessions and Extended Manager Meetings, and this will continue.

Councillor Southworth confirmed that this was long awaited and would be a big and a welcomed change.

• Councillor Boles referred to the Family First Partnership Programme  and explained that he couldn’t see any KPI’s or measures of impact and asked if it was known when these would be available.

Jeanette explained that the information included in the papers was the first step. The measures of impact would likely be details of numbers, fewer children in with child protection plans, fewer children becoming looked after or if they are within kinship care.

It was explained that ideally there would be a shorter period of engagement as delivery is more impactful and a reduction of repeat demand.

Jeanette explained that an outcome framework would be created to monitor and this will be included in the plan.

• Councillor Boles asked that a briefing note showing how success would be measured is provided at the next meeting.

• Councillor Haroon referred to potential barriers to success and asked how these would be overcome.

Jeanette explained that there would be a sequence of potential challenges in relation to implementation of change, high volumes of demand across the system and also the funding envelope which was £900,000 for 3 years and that may not be enough. It would be tough work but the workforce would be fully supported and joint working across the board will also support the challenges.

• Councillor Berry asked if this was a welcomed change and if there would be any negative impact?

Jeanette reported that many aspects were welcomed, keeping families together, addressing parental issues and worries, kinship arrangements. There were worries around supporting practitioners and the need to make sure that they have the skills set and that management is appropriate. It was explained that this is why the pilot approach to monitor impact and bring learning into the process would be valuable. It would be a significant change over 3 years so will be incremental.

• Councillor Lancaster asked how staffing and recruitment was looking now.

It was explained that there was still some work to do with regards to SEND. Early Help and Social Care was in a much better place that it had been with regards to Managers and Senior leaders, the use of agency staff had reduced which was positive for both the workforce and the families.

It was agreed:

1. That the contents of the report be noted.

2. That a briefing note showing how success will be measures in relation to the implementation of the  reforms is brough to the next meeting of the Scrutiny Panel.