MPs urge education secretary to ensure further child deaths are avoided at 'failing councils'

The Education Select Committee is urging Malthouse to prioritise vulnerable children that it says are currently being failed by the local authorities. 

Following an accountability hearing with the councils’ chief executives and interim directors of children’s services in June, the Committee, made up of cross-party MPS, has condemned the ‘inadequate’ response of the local authority leaders and called on the Department for Education and Ofsted to assess the progress made by both councils.

The Committee’s letter to the education secretary highlights a ‘clear deterioration’ in standards at both children’s services, predating the pandemic, and asks him to consider whether the leaders are ‘capable of continuing to try and establish significant change.’

The MPs also question the urgency with which the National Child Safeguarding Review Panel has sought to push forward improvements at the failing Councils. They express concern that a planned multi-agency safeguarding hub system to prevent future shortcomings, would ‘shift accountability between agencies, leaving no one person ultimately responsible for vulnerable children like Star and Arthur.’