Ennals warns changes could cause ‘collapse’ of residential care sector

Uncertainty over the future of training and improvement support could put the children’s residential sector at serious risk, Sir Paul Ennals has warned.

According to the National Children’s Bureau’s chief executive, the cumulative impact of government decisions could severely undermine the quality of specialist provision.

One issue for Ennals is that the aspiration to expand the social care registration system for all residential social care workers has been dropped after the decision was made to absorb the duties of the General Social Care Council into the Health Professions Council.

Another fear is since the announcement that the Children’s Workforce Development Council will lose its status as a non-departmental public body, there has been no news on how training of residential care workers will be funded. Ennals also warned that Labour’s decision to stop funding the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care and the coalition’s subsequent decision to drop the Tribal contract for improvement support will weaken levels of support previously provided.

“The cumulative effect of small decisions can lead to an unintended consequence which could be the collapse of a specialist sector,” Ennals said. “Residential care tends to provide for the 5,000 most needy children. But the risk is we might lose that safety net or undermine its quality, which I know is not the government’s intention.”