From-Prevention-to-Reconnection Report 2026

A County Councils Network and Newton Research Programme

SOCIETY OF COUNTY TREASURERS

From prevention to reconnection: working towards a multi-agency system that keeps more families together

A programme from the Society of County Treasurers, the County Councils Network, and Newton June 2026

Contents

Foreword

Report overview

01: Executive summary

02: Introduction

03: System shifts to help prevent children and young people from coming into care or remaining in care

Partners

SOCIETY OF COUNTY TREASURERS

04: Wider enablers of change

05: Impact of making these system shifts

The Society of County Treasurers (SCT) is comprised of all Chief Financial Officers from the 21 shire counties in English local government. Following successive reorganisations of local government (LGR), the SCT also includes 20 shire unitary authorities that have similar interests in local government issues. Together, SCT authorities represent 48% of the population of England and provide services across 87% of its land area. www.sctnet.org.uk CCN is the voice of England’s counties. Representing the local authorities in county areas, the network is a cross- party organisation which develops policy, commissions research, and presents evidence-based solutions to issues on behalf of the largest grouping of councils in England. In total, the 21 county councils and 18 unitary councils that make up the CCN represent 27 million residents, account for 39% of England’s gross value added (GVA), and deliver high- quality services that matter the most to local communities. www.countycouncilsnetwork.org.uk

06: Next steps

References

As a strategic delivery partner, Newton helps local authorities create resident centric, connected, and financially sustainable public services which achieve the best outcomes for people and families. Newton supports with the significant and immediate improvement challenges of today, and reimagines and innovates public services for the future, centred around proactive prevention and early intervention, enabled by digital and AI. In doing so, this also improves the experience for those who deliver and lead these services, improving practice, productivity, and engagement. From design through to implementation, Newton works with local authorities and their partners until all can jointly be confident that services are measurably and sustainably better and more financially effective. www.newtonimpact.com

Foreword

Last year a report commissioned by a coalition of children’s charities showed that council spending on early intervention declined by 42% since 2010/11 i . Yet the County Councils Network (CCN) and Society of County Treasurers (SCT) have previously demonstrated, across many reports over the past few years, how the number of children in the care system has risen to record levels in the 2020s ii , how spending on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) has tripled in just a decade, whilst outcomes have at best flatlined iii . They have also shown how councils have needed to increase their proportional spending on statutory services to cope, thus further squeezing funding available to deliver and commission more preventative services iv . The pandemic created additional complexity to addressing these trends, but this should not be allowed to distract from the underlying ethical and fiscal priority – meeting needs early. Insufficient preventative services to place around a family at an early stage and the difficulty of identifying children and families most at risk due to fragmented data across partner agencies are often cited by those working in children’s services as key challenges to overcome to achieve this aim. This report is therefore timely in attempting to help unpick how the support provided by children’s social care and their partners might be better tilted towards an ecosystem geared

around prevention. It focuses specifically on how the present high number of children in the care system might be reduced over the coming years with a more effective use of preventative services. Beyond ‘what ifs’, the analysis suggests evidence-based ways in which councils can use this learning to change lives and outcomes for children. This report describes five fundamental ‘shifts’ that the analysis suggests can help in redesigning systems within child protection and family support at a local level. These will require collaborative working between councils and other agencies such as schools and adult support services. It will also require better co-ordination at central government level, and a commitment to investing in ‘pump-prime’ development. But collectively, success would mean reduced pressure on services, and more importantly would help to prevent many more children from needing to come into care. It is hoped that the following research helps to further underpin an evidence base for how local and national leaders can effect strategic reform in conjunction with national government, at a time where the benefits of prevention are needed more than ever. Councillor David Hitchiner Herefordshire Council CCN Vice Chair (Independent)

Whilst this aim can be universally agreed upon, the practical reality of reforming the system to achieve it has proved immensely challenging. This is due to a number of factors: • The complexity of governance in the UK which can lead to siloed working and fierce protection of budgets rather than pooling; • Local authorities’ duty to provide statutory services which can mean that non-statutory preventive services are reduced when resources are constrained; • The complexities of scaling up existing local good practice, for example how differing attitudes to risk can affect if and how scaling up happens; • The need to potentially ‘double fund’ some services for at least a period while the effects of a particular intervention have time to be demonstrated; • The difficulty of using standard outcome measures and performance data to incentivise and account for investment in prevention and early intervention – particularly where agencies expected to invest time or resources (e.g. schools or health services) may not be the same agencies that will see the financial benefit. This report is timely in attempting to help unpick how the support provided by children’s social care and their partners might be better tilted towards an ecosystem geared around prevention.”

Councillor David Hitchiner

It is a common goal that has underpinned many of the policy debates of the past three decades around social care, education, and beyond: the need to deliver high quality, cost-effective, prevention interventions that will help people before they reach the point of crisis, and that will end up paying for themselves in the longer term. This ambition has been consistently supported by governments of all hue: from the creation of Sure Start in the late 1990s to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in 2022 and its subsequent implementation, this aim has always shaped policy around children’s services and education. This is not because care is a bad thing in principle – often it can transform a child’s life chances. However, research over many decades has consistently shown the importance of family bonds being preferable, wherever possible, in delivering positive outcomes in the future. The more that children can be supported to stay within – or indeed to return to – their homes, the more stability and roots they should have as they develop and grow.

From prevention to reconnection: key findings “Prevention begins with connection: when communities and services work together, families thrive and fewer children are taken by the system.” Care experienced young person

Five priority system shifts identified

2 4 Evidence suggests that five priority system shifts – additive in nature – would positively impact children at risk of entering care or already in care: 3

The current picture

99.3 % of children in England are cared for by their families. 0.7 % are in the care of their local authority

Many elements of the children’s social care ‘ecosystem’ are undergoing national reform to improve outcomes for children and families

Supporting parents

Targeted early support

Support to families of children in care

Greater trust to gain consent

Integrating schools into family support

80 %

50 %

58 %

40 %

80 %

had not received an EH, CIN or CP plan in the 6 months prior to entering care only received support at CP threshold before entering care 35 %

who stay in care for more than a year start in foster placements

of children entering care are school-age attend school 3+ days per week 80 %

of cases reviewed identified difficulty gaining parental consent for early support as a barrier

of cases involve adult needs; only half those adults received support

increase in the number of children in the care of county and CCN unitary member authorities since 2016. 29 %

increase in county and CCN unitary member authorities expenditure on children in care. 240 %

These shifts will need to be facilitated by various local and national enablers

20,761

26,732

£1.3bn

£3.2bn

(2016)

(2025)

(2016)

(2025)

Potential impact for children and families

How can we keep more children safely with their families, and what changes would make the biggest difference?

If system shifts are implemented by 2028:

6,000+ more parents receiving specialist support for mental health, domestic violence or substance misuse.

fewer children needing to enter care each year (14.5% reduction). Approx 2,250

more children positively exiting care each year (2.2% increase). Approx 260

Key findings 100+

70 %

32 %

Potential financial impact Do nothing: Placement spend likely to rise from £3.2bn (2024/25) to £4.7bn by 2035, an increase of £1.5bn.

Net effect: • In 2024/25, CCN councils exceeded placement budgets by c£550m. • Even if the five shifts are successfully made, modelling suggest councils will not break even until 2033, accruing a £2.7bn cumulative overspend. • Most of the £4.7bn potential saving would be cost avoidance, reinforcing the case to extend the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant (now part of the Children, Families, and Youth Grant) to at least 2032/33.

For 32% of children, improved multi-agency support might have been possible after entry into care. For 33% of those, practitioners believed this could have enabled a positive exit from care before the age of 18.

For 70% of children who entered care, at least one element of the multi-agency system could have better supported the family before the child entered care. For 47% of those, practitioners were reasonably confident this could have prevented entry into care at that point in time.

stories of children who had been in the care system were analysed by practitioners, revealing that:

With system shifts implemented by 2028: Placement spend could be contained to £3.8bn by 2035.

a cumulative benefit of vs. do-nothing. £4.7bn

01: Executive summary

Context In the context of multiple major national policy reforms, England’s multi-agency children’s services ‘ecosystem’ (spanning education, health care providers, local authorities, the voluntary sector, and other partners) has a significant opportunity to transform how support is provided to children and their families. A particular focus of these reforms is on services becoming more preventative, including: • Primary prevention: ensuring additional needs never arise. • Secondary prevention: ensuring that additional needs are quickly met at the earliest point before further escalation. • Tertiary prevention: ensuring that additional needs are de-escalated as quickly and effectively as possible after a crisis. To successfully join up the delivery of these multiple reforms at a local level, and to maximise the opportunity to deliver improved services for families, the system needs to navigate challenges in the detail of day-to- day service delivery, which will not be defined at a policy or reform level. These challenges span increasing need; constrained finances and resources; ongoing structural reform, in particular Local Government Reorganisation (LGR); system-wide practice; operations; workforce (including the workforce implications of LGR); digital systems and more. Overcoming these will be critical to ensuring that the various policy initiatives underway deliver what they are designed to achieve: better outcomes for children, young people, and families alongside a more financially sustainable system. Within this context, the costs associated with providing homes for children in care represent an increasing challenge for local authorities.

Over the past decade, the number of children in the care of county and CCN unitary member authorities has increased by 29% v . In parallel, county authority expenditure on children in care has increased by 240% – from £1.3bn to £3.2bn vi . Whilst not analysed in this programme, extensive work is underway locally and nationally to seek to address increasing unit costs, including through the work of new Regional Care Co-operatives (RCCs). This context raises an important question: how can these opportunities presented be maximised, and the challenges overcome, to best support children and young people at risk of entering or in the care system, by creating a system even more anchored in This work, delivered in partnership by the Society of County Treasurers (SCT), the County Councils Network (CCN), and Newton, aims to provide an evidence base illustrating which features of the multi-agency ‘ecosystem’ should be prioritised across the delivery of the current reforms for one particular cohort of children: those who interact with the care system. It is the first phase of a longer programme of work to support more effective prevention for this group. Whilst comprising less than 1% of England’s child population, children in care represent one of the most vulnerable and complex cohorts, and outcomes for them should be prioritised through any changes introduced through reform. The decision to take a child into care is one of last resort and often follows a history of multiple, individualised attempts to support the family, across different agencies within the children’s services system. It is important to recognise that, for some children, this is ultimately the option that most effectively keeps them safe and delivers the best long- term outcomes. prevention and reconnection? Objectives of the programme

Programme approach This qualitative and quantitative research programme took the following approach: 1. Analysis of three years of children’s social care data held by nine county and CCN unitary member authorities. This provided an initial understanding of children who have been in their care and was supplemented with analysis of publicly available national data sets. 2. Activities to gather ‘on the ground’ evidence from five county authority areas. This included: • Engagement with local children, young people and families. • Facilitation of local practitioners across agencies to review 100+ stories of local children who have been in the care system. • Engagement with local frontline staff to understand local practice. 3. Engagement with senior local authority officers; elected members; and care experienced consultants, through Coram Voice. This was critical to help interpret and contextualise the evidence gathered. The programme was overseen by a cross- sector Advisory Group, with representation from local authorities (Directors of Children’s Services, Section 151 Officers, Directors of Public Health and Chief Executives); Department for Education (DfE); Coram Voice; The Early Years Alliance; and the NHS, including providers of Child and Adolescent Health Services (CAMHS). Throughout the programme, the principles, outcomes, and enablers of the Children’s Social Care National Framework have been used to guide the analysis and recommendations vii . In particular, this statutory guidance clearly defines the core purpose of children’s social care: ‘Children’s social care exists to support children, young people and families by addressing problems early , intervening decisively when there is likelihood of harm, and to provide care for those who need it so that they grow up to achieve and thrive with safety, stability and love’.

Key findings Part of the evidence shaping this report was gathered from an analysis by local practitioners of over 100+ stories of children that have been in the care system. This provided a useful baseline for the key issues the report has sought to address. They waited until it really, really got bad before taking action. Things could have been prevented if they’d taken it seriously earlier.” Care experienced young person When analysing the stories of the children against a conceivable system uninhibited by factors such as current practice or resource constraints, they found that: • For 70% of children, their family could have been supported in an improved way, by at least one element of the multi-agency children’s support system, before they entered care. This does not mean that the decision to take these children into care was the wrong one when that happened, but does suggest opportunities where improved earlier support was conceivably possible. • For 47% of those children, there was a degree of confidence amongst practitioners that if their family had received that alternative support, the child would have likely not needed to be taken in to care at that point in time. • For 32% of children, their family could have been supported in an improved way by the complex multi-agency system, after the child entered care. • For 33% of those children, there was a degree of confidence amongst practitioners that if their family had received that alternative support (as described in Section 3), the child could have exited the care system positively before the age of 18. The findings were tested through wider data analysis, and engagement with children and young people; front line practitioners; and senior system leaders. These inputs all triangulate to a meaningful, material opportunity to shift the system to enable more children to be cared for by their family network.

You don’t come into care as a result of one crisis but after several.” Care experienced young person This programme does not start from the premise that entry to care is a system failure – local authorities have a statutory duty to assess, manage and mitigate risk, and this action can be a warranted result of that duty. Rather it asks: what would need to change fundamentally in the complex, multi-agency, children’s social care system to safely and positively prevent more children coming into care, and support more children to return to their family network? This work takes place within a policy shift towards more preventative services, as well as the wider, existing evidence base on the benefits of a child growing up in the care of their family network. The programme has been purposefully aspirational, seeking to identify large-scale, whole-system opportunities to make ‘shifts’ that: • More effectively support a greater number of families that could benefit from early support, as needs emerge, so that fewer children need to be taken into care (secondary prevention). • Support the families of children in care so that more children positively exit the care system back to their family or family network (tertiary prevention). These objectives have been met by building an evidence-based understanding of the patterns in the journeys of children who have been in care. These journeys and patterns have then been analysed to identify high priority ‘system shifts’ which have the greatest likelihood of promoting the preventative outcomes referenced. The potential quantified impact of making these shifts on children and public sector resources and finances has subsequently been modelled.

Although this work has focussed on those children who enter the care system, this is a small group relative to the large number of families supported to stay together by the existing multi-agency children’s services system. More than 99% of children live with their families. Even when narrowing the focus to consider the 90,000 children who begin a statutory social care plan in county and CCN unitary member authorities each year, 94% of these children remain with their family. As a result, this programme’s findings are distinct recommendations within a much wider system – one that is already anchored in prevention but with a clear policy aspiration to move even further in that direction. Prevention begins with connection: when communities and services work together, families thrive and fewer children

are taken by the system.” Care experienced young person

It should be noted that this work has started to identify what can be done to address the issues highlighted by the evidence gathered, and this will be explored in more detail in the next phase of the programme.

What does this report add to the sector’s existing knowledge?

• Reminds partners across the sector about the importance of continuing to try to reconnect children and young people with their family network after they enter care – alongside early intervention to help avoid children coming into care, this analysis highlights the scale of the potential for further support to enable reconnection and, for some, earlier exit from the care system. • Demonstrates the link between children’s social care and support for children with Special Educational Needs (SEND) – again, practitioners often see a link between those with SEND needs and those in need of support from children’s social care – this programme quantifies that relationship to inform prioritisation of support and improvement.

This report is intended to support existing improvement and reform activity across the sector. Drawing on evidence gathered from the journeys of children who have interacted with the care system, it identifies which parts of the multi-agency children’s services system most commonly shape those journeys, both before and after a child enters care. This provides local and national leaders with a guide to where system improvement efforts are most likely to make a difference, and by implication, where they may be less critical, as indicated by the evidence. In particular it: • Adds evidence to what many in the sector already see in their practice, to help quantify the scale of both the issues and the opportunity. For example, practitioners have long known that gaining parental consent is a key issue impeding early intervention, but this work quantifies the scale of the challenge and the opportunity that can be realised by tackling it. In this way it highlights the key features of the system which are likely to impact the majority of children who enter care (and their families). Similarly, being able to see the proportion of children entering the care system without receiving support from a local authority safeguarding specialist (through an Early Help, Child in Need, or Child Protection Plan) in the six months before they enter care helps to prioritise system wide early identification for proactive support.

Priority system shifts identified Assuming that historic patterns in the needs

These shifts are purposefully ambitious and expansive, reflecting the programme’s aim of using the evidence gathered to identify and challenge how the multi-agency care ‘ecosystem’ could support children and families even more effectively. The shifts are additive in nature and the likelihood of positive impact increases as more of them are made. The shifts that lead to improved support for families before a child enters the care system are also true for supporting children already in care.

of children and their families who enter the care system are a predictor of future patterns, the evidence gathered suggests five priority ‘system shifts’ which will positively impact children at risk of entering care in the future. For each shift, the evidence base is summarised below, alongside the key changes the report recommends in response. Whilst aspects of these shifts are in the direct control of a local authority, the interconnected nature of the multi-agency care ‘ecosystem’ means that achieving the full impact on outcomes for children and families will rely on the whole system to implement them.

System shift 1: Successfully supporting adults’ needs more often through aligned partnership resource and practice

System shift 3: Integrating schools in multi-agency partnerships that support families

Evidence driving this shift: Analysis of data about the needs of families of children who have entered care found that parental support needs relating to mental health, domestic abuse, or substance misuse were present in 81% of cases. Whilst these have been known in the children’s social care system as common adult support needs for some time, evidence gathered for this programme indicates that only half of parents with these needs accessed relevant specialist support before the child needed to be taken in to care (primarily as a result of their choice and willingness to engage in this support, as described in shift #2 below). This indicates an opportunity for the system to more successfully address these needs. What could be done differently: The established Family Safeguarding model is recognised good practice whereby practitioners specialising in adult mental reviewed the stories of 100+children who had been in care. They found that in 42% of cases, the biggest barrier to earlier, more effective support was successfully gaining parental consent and engagement. Analysis of data showed that children who grow up in more deprived neighbourhoods come in to care at 2.5 times the rate of children who grow up in less deprived neighbourhoods. In the cases analysed for this programme, less than a third of children’s journeys into care that practitioners reviewed had consistent engagement and inclusion of the voice of the child. In over 50% of journeys reviewed where practitioners felt the child’s wishes had been listened to and considered, practitioners also had a degree of confidence that the child could have been supported outside of care. This compared to just 22% of journeys where the voice of the child was not captured. What could be done differently: Ensure that all practitioners in the system likely to take on the role of Family Help Lead Practitioner are upskilled in the ability to form positive

health, domestic abuse, and substance misuse are embedded within children’s safeguarding teams. However, many local areas engaged in this work spoke of the difficulty in funding and sustaining this model. This leads to a possible conclusion that a more fundamental reshape of wider services to support adult needs is needed (across adult social care, public health commissioned and NHS services), enabled by joint commissioning of pooled budgets across partners. This should be done with an underpinning model of using child and adult level data to inform the prioritisation and targeting of support for adults integrated with wider children’s social care partners. At a system level, eligibility criteria across adult social care, NHS, and public health services should be reviewed to close gaps that currently leave many parents without the support they need. relationships with families that lead to trust and consent. Attention should be paid to agencies not previously experienced in taking on this role as part of a family receiving social care support. The success rate of gaining consent should be measured and reported as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) alongside others that are already established. Expand the use of Family Group Decision Making across the social care pathway, not just at the pre- proceedings stage, using data on individual family circumstances to prioritise where needed. Develop locality and neighbourhood models of delivery, including peripatetic Family Hub approaches in rural areas, to help practitioners build the trust and cultural understanding that makes gaining consent more likely. Finally, the importance of including the voice of children and young people within the consent process should not be overlooked. For older young people, their views should be taken into account alongside that of the views of the parents, even when those views are not aligned.

Evidence driving this shift: 56% of children who enter the care system each year are school age, and this cohort accounts for 77% of the direct costs of homes for children in care. Within this cohort, children entering the care system during primary school account for the largest number and cost. 80% of children who enter care at school age attend school three or more days per week (rising to 92% in primary age). This shows that schools are the public sector body most regularly interacting with children before coming into care and therefore have a key role in supporting the family. The work also found that one in three children in care have recorded special education needs, further highlighting their critical role in supporting children. What could be done differently: Use historic and live data to target school-facing resources proportionately to patterns of need, focusing effort on the schools and neighbourhoods with the highest concentration of at-risk children. Prioritise the system design work needed to integrate schools’ colleagues into multi-agency Family Help and Child Protection teams around individual children, ensuring that schools move from referrers into active, ongoing partners in the team around the family.

I think it would be good for schools to have vouchers like the council do when it comes to food banks… they could be the first point of contact before social workers are even involved.” Care experienced young person

System shift 2: Gaining the trust and consent of families to participate in early support more often Evidence driving this shift: Local practitioners

System shift 4: Targeted support from specialists in the local authority, at the right time, where it is needed, informed by joined up data across agencies

What could be done differently: Drawing on pre-existing information governance arrangements, develop improved data- sharing mechanisms and infrastructure across agencies to proactively identify families who could benefit from early specialist support, before a crisis point is reached. Analytical tools offer a practical means of focusing limited professional capacity on the right families, at the right time (such as the machine learning model piloted by one authority to identify children at risk of entering care not currently supported by the local authority). These tools should support, not replace, practitioner judgment, and require careful ethical and governance frameworks.

Evidence driving this shift: 39% of children enter the care system without receiving support from a local authority safeguarding specialist (through an Early Help, Child in Need, or Child Protection Plan) in the six months before they enter care. 35% of children enter the care system having only been in receipt of a Child Protection Plan before entering care. Building on shifts one to three, this demonstrates the opportunity to connect these families to specialist local authority resource earlier. The second most common enabler to early support identified by practitioners when analysing over 100 stories of children who had been in care, was information-sharing across agencies and other local authorities, which would offer an opportunity to connect local authority specialists to families earlier.

Supporting enablers to help achieve these system shifts Engagement with stakeholders across the system identified several key enablers which, if implemented, will help maximise the outcomes that can be achieved through the system shifts. Local level enablers: 1. Commitment across local leaders, including local councillors, to prioritise outcomes for children at risk of entering care or in the care system. 2. Development of local financial mechanisms and incentives to promote proactive, early support to families of children at risk of entering care or in the care system. 3. Use of data to inform targeted support to families and prioritised service design, enabled by appropriate information governance arrangements, to support practitioners’ judgement and decision-making. 4. Continuous improvement of the system’s ability to successfully engage families and gain consent for support. 5. Family Group Decision Making used as a practical means of facilitating the wider family network to support a family, potentially as an enabler of successfully gaining consent. 6. Joined-up local commissioning of services (across adult social care, public health and the NHS) to support adults and help ensure that parents of children at risk of entering care or in the care system can receive support for their needs. 7. Promoting positive exit from the care system as a priority partnership outcome. 8. Integrating foster carers into teams around the families of children in care. 9. Planning for continuity of local partnership improvement and transformation through Local Government Reorganisation. 10. Meaningfully engaging children, young people, and families in service design and strategic decision-making.

System shift 5: Supporting an ongoing connection between families more often and more successfully, across foster carers and partners Evidence driving this shift: Over 80% of

National level enablers: 1. Commitment to prioritising outcomes for families where children are most at risk across all government reform and policy development. 2. Protecting funding for preventative services, through support to manage overspend on children in care budgets and dedicated funding. 3. Extending the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant (now part of the Children, Families, and Youth Grant) beyond its current end date of 2028/29 to at least 2032/33. 4. Investment in a national data infrastructure to enable joined-up intelligence about families’ needs. 5. Development of a national framework for the ethical use of data and Artificial Intelligence to identify families that may benefit from proactive support, with a clear boundary beyond which human judgement and consent should be utilised, to accelerate the benefits of this technology at local levels in a responsible way. 6. Adding working with families to gain consent for support to statutory safeguarding training requirements for all roles within the children’s services system. 7. Aligning statutory thresholds for adult support services across adult social care and NHS services to ensure parents of vulnerable children receive the support they need (which would require legislative change and updates to statutory guidance). 8. Ensuring that Regional Care Co-operatives are developed in a way that incentivises and enables providers of homes for children in care – particularly foster carers – to actively support children in care to return to their family where appropriate (as part of the team around a child in care and their family). Across all of the shifts identified, it is clear that if the benefits from the preventative approaches outlined in this report are to be maximised, a cultural shift will be required for all partners in the system. This cultural shift centres on how risk is balanced, potentially moving away from short-term interventions to contain immediate risk that can inadvertently impact on longer-term outcomes.

What could be done differently: Use data to identify children in care for whom return to their family network (including siblings, wider family members and friends) is most likely, and ensure available capacity is focused on those children. Foster carers should be integrated into the wider multi-agency team around the child and family, rather than operating in isolation from it. Partnerships should strongly promote a leadership-endorsed, system- wide culture of championing positive exit from care as a priority outcome. This outcome should be tracked and reported alongside other KPIs with a view to ensuring the need for crisis response work does not ‘crowd out’ reconnection work. They asked me once [about whether I wanted to return home] and then never asked me again… In hindsight I wasn’t supported to understand the decision, and I wish I’d made a different one…

children stay in care for more than a year, and approximately half of those who enter above the age of five remain until they turn 18. For children who stay in care for more than one year, 80% were initially placed in fostering. 28% of these children had an initial permanence plan of returning to their family showing the potential to pursue this outcome for more children. Case reviews identified that those themes contained in shifts one to four would best enable this – particularly support aligned to parental need and consent to receive that support. However, senior leaders engaged in this work consistently articulated the challenge of capacity to support this work alongside dealing with crises such as other children needing to come in to care or existing placements breaking down.

I felt like an inconvenience.” Care experienced young person

Potential impact for children and families Across partnerships in county and CCN unitary member authorities, the findings of this programme suggest that the long-term impact of implementing the system shifts identified could result in: • At least 6,000 more parents receiving support from specialist mental health, domestic violence, or substance misuse services . • Approximately 2,250 fewer children entering the care system each year (a reduction of 14.5%) compared to an assumed increasing baseline, formed by extrapolating historic trends forward. • Approximately 260 more children positively exiting the care system each year , compared to the likely trend following the reduction in children in care entering the system described above (an increase of 2.2%). These outcomes are ambitious and, as outlined in this report, will consequently require fundamental shifts across the wider children’s social care ‘ecosystem’ as a whole, not just within local authorities. This report aims to make the case for change on this scale to improve outcomes for children and families. Potential financial impact The net financial impact of achieving these outcomes would reflect financial benefits from fewer children in care, minus any additional investment needed to deliver the required support to families.

Next steps Local areas that have participated in the programme have all received their own individual analysis, which can be used to help support their local system improvement efforts. One of the main themes highlighted in this report is the potential for more effectively using data and information across agencies. In this way, families that could benefit from support could be identified, and earlier support could be offered more proactively, in a more targeted way. To help make this happen in practice, some of the authorities who took part in this work are now exploring how they could work together on a second phase of work to follow the publication of this report. This could take the form of a ‘community of practice’ model to use a consistent approach to implementing the shifts recommended in this report. By working in a consistent manner, this will accelerate learning and impact and will also help contribute towards a national evidence base for the impact of prevention in children’s social care. Any local authorities with either existing or intended activities to pursue this objective are invited to express their interest in joining such a community of practice to share learnings, collaborate across areas and contribute to the development of a national evidence base.

Reduced spend on placements for children in care In 2024/25, county and CCN unitary member authorities spent approximately £3.27bn on placements for children in care. If trends from the last decade continue unchanged to 2035, modelling suggests this would rise to £4.74bn per year, an increase of £1.47bn. This ‘do nothing’ projection has not been rigorously tested through this work, but the findings below could be combined with any wider sector modelling that informs a more sophisticated baseline. If these changes are delivered by 2028, with the appropriate policy and capacity alignment, modelling suggests that placement spend could be contained to £3.81bn per year by 2035. This is approximately £0.93bn per year less than the projected do-nothing scenario, but still represents a net increase of £540m on 2024/25 spending levels. The cumulative financial benefit compared to the do-nothing scenario, to 2035, is modelled at approximately £4.67bn. The pressure of existing overspends These potential benefits should be considered within the context of the financial pressures that councils are already facing. In 2024/25, CCN member authority spend exceeded placement budgets by approximately £550m. If trends in available budgets continue, and if the potential impacts from the five system shifts outlined above are achieved, modelling suggests that CCN member councils will not ‘break even’ until 2033, at which point a cumulative overspend of £2.73bn will have been accrued. This means that almost the entirety of the £4.67bn potential saving would, in practice, represent cost avoidance rather than cashable savings. Taken together, these figures illustrate the significant long-term financial benefits that could be achieved by delivering better outcomes for this cohort of children, and also the very real medium-term pressure that authorities will face whilst the system is reformed.

Investment to enable reform Further work beyond the scope of this programme would be needed to evaluate the investment required to enable the shifts identified. Agencies such as schools or mental health services support a wider population and a broader set of outcomes, rather than only families of children at risk of entering care. Determining whether the families considered in this work could be supported through reprioritisation of existing resources, or whether additional investment is needed given existing resource pressures already facing these services, would require a full analysis of these services. At a minimum, modelling suggests that the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant (£280m in FY26/27 for CCN member authorities and now part of the Children, Families, and Youth Grant) should be extended beyond its current end date of 2028/29 to at least 2032/33. The modelling suggests this is the earliest point from which the benefits of a more preventative system could realistically be In the context of LGR, the findings above have been scaled on a pro rata basis to demonstrate the potential financial impact for a representative population of 500,000. Based on the modelling conducted, this would lead to: • Current expenditure on homes for children in care of £60m per annum, growing to £88m per annum by 2035 if trends continue. • Successful implementation of the shifts could contain the growth in expenditure to £71m per annum by 2035, with cumulative benefits of £86m to that point. • Current overspend compared to budget would be £10m per annum and even with the shifts successfully implemented and impacts achieved, cumulative overspend to 2035 would be £50m (with ‘break even’ still achieved in 2033). reinvested to sustain it. Scaling the impacts

02: Introduction

Context Helping children and young people to achieve the best outcomes in life is the goal of everyone involved in supporting families. A complex, multi-agency ‘ecosystem’ across education, health care providers, local authorities, the voluntary sector, and other partners supports children and families to achieve a wide range of different outcomes. Many elements of this ecosystem are undergoing a process of national reform with the aim of improving multiple outcomes for children and families, and potentially helping to reduce the number of children needing to be taken into care. These reforms include but are not limited to: 1. The Families First Partnership Programme (linked to further reforms in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act). 2. The Best Start in Life Programme. 3. The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reforms published in the 2026 schools’ white paper Every child achieving and thriving . 4. Reforms to education laid out in the 2026 schools’ white paper Every child achieving and thriving . 5. Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). 6. The policy direction towards integrated neighbourhood working across health and care services. A particular focus of these reforms is on services becoming more preventative, including: • Primary prevention: ensuring additional needs never arise. • Secondary prevention: ensuring that additional needs are quickly met at the earliest point before further escalation. • Tertiary prevention: ensuring that additional needs are de-escalated as quickly and effectively as possible after a crisis.

These reforms are taking place in the context of LGR which will fundamentally change the structure and delivery of children’s social care within the areas involved in reorganisation, and which will have a major impact on their available capacity. As such, LGR presents both a structural opportunity to redesign children’s services partnerships, and a transitional risk to the continuity of the preventative work described in this report. This context raises an important question: how can the various opportunities presented be maximised, and the challenges overcome, to best support children and young people at risk of entering the care system, by creating a system even more anchored in prevention and reconnection? To successfully join up the delivery of these multiple reforms at a local level, and to maximise the opportunity to deliver improved services for families, the system needs to navigate challenges in the detail of day-to-day service delivery, which will not be defined at a policy or reform level. These challenges span increasing need; constrained finances and resources; system-wide practice; operations; workforce; digital systems and more. This will be essential to make sure that the multiple policy initiatives deliver what they are designed to achieve: better outcomes for children, young people, and families as an enabler of a more financially sustainable system. Although the various reforms provide a new impetus and focus, striving to continuously improve services for children, young people and families has always been a core ethos of local and national children’s service systems. While there has been continuous complexity in achieving this, recent factors have created new and additional challenges, including the legacy from the pandemic; the emergence of online risk factors; the impact of local government reorganisation; and the cost of living crisis.

Aims of this programme This work, delivered in partnership by the Society of County Treasurers (SCT), the County Councils Network (CCN), and Newton, aims to provide an evidence base illustrating which features of the multi-agency system should be prioritised across the delivery of the current reforms for one particular cohort of children: those who interact with the care system. Whilst comprising less than 1% of England’s child population, they represent one of the most vulnerable and complex cohorts, and outcomes for them should be prioritised through any changes introduced through reform. The decision to take a child into care is one of last resort and will likely follow a history of multiple, individualised attempts to support the family, across different agencies within the children’s services system. You don’t come into care as a result of one crisis but after several.” Care experienced young person This programme does not start from the premise that entry to care is a system failure – local authorities have a statutory duty to assess, manage and mitigate risk, and this action can be a warranted result of that duty. Rather it asks: what would need to change fundamentally in the complex, multi-agency, children’s social care system to safely and positively prevent more children coming into care, and support more children to return to their family network?

Within this context, previous analysis by CCN and Newton has shown that, in a climate of reductions to overall council budgets, the proportion of children’s services budgets spent on statutory services has increased in recent years, reducing available resource to spend on prevention x . The costs associated with providing homes for children in care also represent an increasing challenge for local authorities. Over the past decade, the number of children in the care of county and CCN unitary member authorities has increased by 29%, from 20,761 to 26,732. This is due to numerous, systemic reasons, including an increase of 1,242 Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) in care since 2021, which this work has not sought to analyse xi . In parallel, county and CCN unitary member authorities’ expenditure on children in care has increased by 240%, from £1.3bn to £3.2bn – larger than the increase associated only with more children being in care xii . Other factors driving cost increases include: • A greater proportion of children being cared for in higher cost residential care, linked to the national shortage of foster carers (although some of this increase is offset by the increase in the proportion of children in lower cost kinship care placements). • Above-inflation increases in the unit cost of care, particularly residential care. • A larger amount of spend being associated with a small number of very high-cost placements for children with particularly complex care needs. Recent work by Newton in partnership with local authorities in the northeast of England found that 30% of spend on homes for children in care was linked to supporting 5% of children in care with particularly complex care needs. The combination of these factors, as well as the wider local government funding context, led to an increase in overspend on budgets for children in care placements of county and CCN unitary member authorities to £550m in FY 2024/25. Extensive work is underway nationally to address increasing unit costs, including through the work of new Regional Care Collaboratives.

This is a result of a system which is deliberately designed to keep families together where possible, given the evidence about the better long-term outcomes for children when cared for by their family. This is illustrated by the fact that a minority of children – 4.4% – are subject to a statutory social care plan at any point in time. A further subset of children within this proportion – 0.7% – are looked after in the care system. Put another way, the current system already successfully supports 99.3% of families to stay together ix . It should of course be acknowledged that, even though the proportion of children and young people in care is small, the care system plays a vital and protective role for these children and young people for whom remaining at home is not safe. Entry to care, when it happens, is typically the result of sustained professional judgment, legal scrutiny, and a considered decision that it is required for a child’s welfare.

Within and connected to the vast system supporting children and families – which incorporates significant parts of England’s public sector – exists the non-statutory and statutory children’s social care system. As defined in the children’s social care national framework, children’s social care exists to ‘support children, young people and families by addressing problems early, intervening decisively when there is likelihood of harm, and to provide care for those who need it so that they grow up to achieve and thrive with safety, stability and love’ viii . Within the wider children’s services ecosystem, the children’s social care system supports a small proportion of families. Of these, a further subset are children in care.

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