- Conference
- 2024 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 19 December 2023
- Decision
- Carried
This union/conference notes: –
1)The Conservative Government introduced Children’s Trusts as a means of outsourcing control of children’s social care from local authorities.
2)There is no evidence to show that removing children’s social care from democratic local authority control automatically improves services.
3)One early trust, Doncaster, has returned to local authority control.
4)That the establishment of Children’s Trusts still means all the funding commitments need to be found by the local authority.
5)The creation of Children’s Trusts has been part of the Tories drive to marketise and privatise public services through the dogma that ‘public’ is bad.
6)That the last couple of decades has seen an increasing reliance upon market providers for both foster and residential placements of children, adding to the increasing cost pressures faced by local authorities.
This union/conference believes: –
a) Children’s social care should be provided for the needs of children. The profit motive should have no place in supporting vulnerable children;
b) Democratic control by local authorities is more accountable than any newly created appointed board;
c) Local authorities should have control over the expenditure they incur;
d) Removing the profit element from providing both foster care and residential care will help reduce the financial burden of increasing demand upon local authorities.
Conference calls upon the Service Group Executive to: –
i) Campaign for all Children’s Trusts to be insourced back into local authority control;
ii) Work with Labour Link to campaign for Labour Party policy to reflect children’s services should be delivered by local authorities, including insourcing those Children’s Trusts currently outside local authority management.