Richard Foord

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western. As of March 2025, nearly nine in 10 London councils were rated good or outstanding for children’s services. By contrast, in the south-west of England, the figure is barely half that. Children’s services in Devon have faced serious challenges over recent years and in May 2025, Ofsted’s full inspection of Devon county council’s children’s services judged the service to be inadequate overall. That means that too many children experiencing neglect or abuse did not receive timely or effective help, too many plans drifted, and too many care leavers did not get consistent support. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) and I agree with almost all of what he said. For me, I want to make it plain that I would not criticise the people working in children’s services, because I feel that individual social workers are a bit like goalkeepers: all too often, rather than praising their work for the children they save, we condemn and lambast the individuals who have cases where things go wrong. Yes, there is failure, and yes, there are real errors of judgment at the local authority level, but my sense is that the fault and the blame—indeed, the sin that my hon. Friend points to—lie with the perpetrators. Devon’s position is serious, but it is not static. In formal correspondence with Devon county council in December 2025, the Minister for Children and Families set out the Government’s position on the progress being made in improving children’s services in Devon. He explicitly noted the “improving picture” and the “increasing evidence of improvement to social work practice”, linked to stronger prioritisation and support from corporate and political leadership. He also pointed to Ofsted’s recent monitoring work, which recognised that “the range and impact of support provided to care leavers in Devon has improved since the last inspection.” I appreciate that the Minister said that from a place of caring deeply for children’s services, not just as a political leader, but as someone who has been a leader in this sector for well over a decade. Workforce instability in children’s services in Devon, especially the high use of agency staff, has held the service back. Reports in 2023 show that about 50% of children’s social work posts were filled by agency staff, compared with the national average of about 18%. In Devon, a permanent children’s social worker costs roughly £23 per hour, while agency staff cost about £44 per hour. Closing that gap and reducing the reliance on agency staff is clearly urgent. Devon has taken measurable steps in the past year to build stability in children’s services and to reduce reliance on agency staff. According to Devon county council’s latest People First strategy, the number of agency team managers has been cut by about 40% from 20 to 12 as of last April, improving leadership within frontline teams. Devon’s assessed and supported year in employment programme for newly qualified social workers, and the county council social care academy, continue to recruit and support newly qualified social workers, with roles actively advertised throughout 2025 and tailored development pathways to encourage permanent careers in the county, rather than the short-term contracts that we have seen before. I will now talk about residential care.