The National Children’s Bureau welcomes the passing of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill into law. It contains several measures we have long advocated for, with the potential to improve the lives of children, young people and families in significant ways.
Evidence shows that earlier support with proportionate assessment, an equitable needs-led eligibility framework and multi-agency responses with shared accountability across education, health and social care are more effective in supporting children and young people.
The single unique identifier, for example, and the new requirement to share information regarding the safety and welfare of children will be key to analysing the data of children and young people at risk of poor outcomes. Our experience shows that the use of large, linked data sets can create huge opportunities for evidence-informed insights and innovation.
Commissioners, researchers, local authorities, health services, the justice system, childcare and education providers, and other multi-agency teams will be able to develop innovative ways of sharing data, enabling services to work better together to provide more effective care and support for more children and young people. Learning from these data sets may also help answer policy makers’ questions about what interventions are most effective to support children and families.
However, it is essential that children and families understand how their data is being used, and care must be taken to ensure they are engaged ethically and inclusively in local areas’ information use.
The new Act also sees poverty measures enshrined in legislation, such as free breakfast clubs, expanded free school meals and limits on branded uniforms. Taken together with the child poverty strategy, these steps have the potential to meaningfully improve the lives of many children across the UK.
Although the online world presents some great opportunities for children and young people, they can be exposed to a range of adverse experiences that impact their safety and wellbeing, particularly those already facing disadvantage or vulnerability. We support the government’s commitment to impose functionality restrictions online for children under 16 to protect them from harmful and addictive features. This represents a significant step forward in tackling unsafe online environments for children.
We believe government must do everything possible to ensure children are safe wherever they grow, learn and connect. We will continue to work closely with government and partners to ensure that children’s needs and rights remain at the centre of online safety policy.
The Act also includes new safeguarding measures with a focus on better information sharing and earlier intervention. NCB recognises the effort and the dedication of local areas and practitioners already working tirelessly to implement the government's ambitious reforms to the children's social care system.
Despite this significant milestone there are still huge challenges ahead, with the government itself still predicting 4.3m children living in poverty. Effective early help, accessible to all those who need it, is not yet a reality and the complexities and culture around data sharing and the single unique identifier pose a challenge to the vision of joint working.
We look forward to working with the government and partners across the sector to build on this progress, amplifying children and young people's voices to create positive change so that every child can thrive now, and for life.