The Guardian has reported on a Department for Education consultation, published last month, which has proposed that local authorities should be able to outsource children’s social services to encourage innovation and improve outcomes for at-risk young people. Only adoption services would remain exempt from the proposals. Councils can only currently delegate adoption services to non-profit-making registered adoption charities.
Unsurprisingly, the children’s care sector is against the move. Kathy Evans, Chief Executive of Children England, which represents more than 100 children’s charities, commented that: “such an important public function must never be open to the real, or even perceived, risk of being done in the pursuit of profit”.
