The English Care Review – A Personal Perspective

Over the Christmas period of 2019 I organised a letter to the Secretary of State for Education outlining the need for a genuinely independent and comprehensive review of the care system in England. I was not the first person to call for this, but I hoped it would give people an opportunity to rally around this goal. 642 people – charity CEOs, academics, social workers, residential workers, foster carers, kinship carers, teachers, care experienced people and many others with personal and/or professional experience of the care system signed it, and I was grateful.

I was motivated to do this, because I spent 14 years in care as a child, I had worked for 16 years in residential children’s homes (I still do) and, more recently, have seen children who are in care in my role as a therapist at a local primary school. I have seen, and experienced, first-hand the many failures of the care system, and the real and enduring harm it can cause, more times than I care to count.

None of this makes my views/feelings/concerns regarding recent announcements about the care review “right” or more or less relevant and important than other people’s – it is up to you how much weight you give them. But I do think it entitles me to express them. Anyway, it is fair to say I do not have fully formed views, I can’t have, because too many important questions remain unanswered.

The first, and most self-evident, question concerns Josh MacAlister’s self-proclaimed independence from Government. This is not nit-picking or hair-splitting. It is central. Because, very obviously, the review reports and final recommendations need to be written without fear or favour. Given the current care system does not serve the needs of thousands of children – it never has – it is extremely likely these recommendations will need to present a challenge to current policies, and radically reform how things are currently done. This would be true whichever political party was in power. Therefore, the chair of the review needs to be willing to make Government, officials at the DfE and local authorities uncomfortable. The chair’s role is to advocate for the needs and rights of children, young people and their families – irrespective of whose noses he may or may not put out of joint. Can we imagine Josh MacAlister doing this?

Yet, in his only publicly available response to this question, Josh MacAlister has dismissed the concern regarding his independence, he pretends the only issue is that he has headed an organisation that receives some funding from the DfE. He argues that “by this logic” no one from an organisation in receipt of DfE funding could head the review. I think it is important to try and find points of agreement so, on this, you will not get a Rizla paper between me and MacAlister. He is right, anyone who headed up an organisation largely funded, and exclusively commissioned, by the DfE would have an awful lot of work to do to persuade people they could be an independent enough review chair. At the time of writing, Josh MacAlister continues to refuse to undertake this work.

Of course, as many of you reading this – including his supporters and allies – will know, the most generous thing one could say about MacAlister’s response is that it is extremely disingenuous. However much we may wish it was not so, MacAlister is much more imbedded with senior figures in Government and at the DfE than he has thus far acknowledged – far beyond simply receiving some funding. All the Pollyanna thinking in the world will not make this issue disappear. We are asked to judge him on his actions, yet, as anyone who has ever applied for a job will know – it is entirely reasonable and common place to judge people on their professional track records. And, I am being asked to trust and take a leap of faith in someone I know is not being upfront – how can I possibly be expected to do this? It is inexplicable to me that anyone would think it was fair to ask.

So, what can MacAlister do? Obviously he cannot change the past. Well, he could acknowledge that concerns regarding his independence are, given the circumstances, unsurprising and understandable – he can stop downplaying them just because they are uncomfortable. And he can be a great deal more honest than he has been, because this will help to build trust. Will it win everyone over? No. But, “he might as well continue to be dishonest, because some people will never trust him” is not the winning argument some appear to think.

What else can he do? Well, he can mitigate accusations of bias by having a team/panel – call it what you want – around him which includes different thinking and contradictory perspectives. He should be open about who they are – publishing their names, biographies and roles on the review website, as well as the details of any external consultants used. At the time of writing it is not even clear if there is any kind of panel, although MacAlister has referred opaquely on Twitter to “the head of my review team”. This means we do not know what will happen to submissions and evidence that the review will receive. We do not actually know how it will be reviewed and assessed, or who by. We do know that this is an undertaking beyond the capacity of one man – however brilliant he may be. This invites speculation that he is going to be supported by a coterie of close-knit associates and allies. Only Josh MacAlister can end this speculation.

Bias in MacAlister’s thinking is especially likely. Why? Because just over a year ago he co-authored and published a “Blueprint” for children’s social care – a blueprint which won favour with the Government. We cannot simply pretend this did not happen. How wedded is MacAlister to this blueprint? Because, if the review is to be a genuine process, as once-in-a-generation as it has been billed, it must be set aside. Submissions, evidence and the input of lived experience, must be considered afresh. Otherwise the process has no integrity and of course people cannot, and should not, trust it. Silence on this issue invites speculation that the intention is to fit whatever the review finds into the Blueprint’s template. Only Josh MacAlister can end this speculation.

It is very important to understand that it is not the content of the Blueprint and whether you or I personally agree or disagree with it that matters. Let us imagine for a moment that someone with quite different ideas to MacAlister was chosen to head the review, someone like Ray Jones. It would obviously be harder to argue that Jones was not independent of Government, but, that aside, Jones is someone who has voiced, and is associated with, strongly held views on children and families social work. Would it be reasonable to ask if he could set these views, these cherished ideals, aside to run the review? Yes it would be. If, in this imagined reality, Jones surrounded himself with a team of close associates and likeminded academics, would I have something to say about it? You bet I would.

Yesterday I bristled when someone referred to “online malcontents and naysayers”, but I should not have done. It was an accurate description. In the respect that I am dissatisfied with the conception and current execution of this review – I am a malcontent. In the respect that I oppose much of what is currently happening regarding the review – I am a naysayer. I wear these badges with undiluted pride. I know people want hope – I get it, I desperately want it too, and I know disagreement and conflict are uncomfortable – I feel it too, honestly. But these issues, these questions, are simply too important, too crucial to set aside.