1 - Introduction: critical perspectives on children’s services reform

Summary

Introduction

It is an honour to present this collection which brings together the perspectives of a range of contributors with different experiences and expertise. This includes contributors with experiences of the care system as children, experiences of the children's social care system as parents and carers, as practitioners, as campaigners and as academics with interests in children's services practice and policy. While the focus is children's services policy and practice in England, a number of the authors are based in, or bring substantive experience of, practice and policy in other UK countries, and several of the issues here resonate with dilemmas, challenges and debates about child welfare provision internationally.

Each of the chapters shines a light on particular aspects of children's services reform. The chapters adopt, to varying degrees, a critical lens on the MacAlister Review of Children's Social Care in England which the UK government announced in January 2021 and which concluded with its Final Report in May 2022 (MacAlister, 2022). While the thinking underpinning the chapters is united in advocating for how children's services policy and practices can and should be different, it is worth stating that the authors have a variety of perspectives on what such changes should be.

The announcement of the MacAlister Review was the catalyst for the development of this collection. Among those who have taken a critical stance to elements of the reform agenda in children's services since 2010 there was some concern at Josh MacAlister's appointment as chair of a notionally independent review (see, among others, Dickson, 2021; Hanley et al, 2021; Jones, 2021; Mansuri, 2021; Radoux, 2021). Mr MacAlister has been closely associated with aspects of the Department for Education's reform agenda since 2013, and has close connections to a number of individuals and organisations which have been influential within children's services policy development in this period (Jones, 2019; Interdependence of Independence, 2021). Such associations led to questions about the Review's ability to provide critical scrutiny of policy developments over the last decade (Hanley et al, 2021). Before MacAlister's appointment as chair there had been high hopes for the fresh thinking and insight an independent review could bring.