Government sets out next steps for children’s social care reforms.

Recently, the UK Central Government has moved from legislation into delivery as it published the implementation plan for the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 aims to ensure that more children grow up in stable homes with people who know and love them, to enable stability and security for young people across the country.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Implementation Plan

The publication of the implementation plan for the Act is being positioned by the Government as a system-wide redesign of children’s social care, including structural changes for social care, policing, education, and health.

Under this new plan, there are a number of core structural shifts:

• The Family Help Service: All local authorities will be expected to deliver a single-family help service that offers interventions and support that are needed to keep families together where it is possible.
• Multi-Agency Protection: New multi-agency child protection teams will bring together policing, social workers, and education professionals to strengthen safeguarding for vulnerable children.
• The Localised Kinship Offer: Support for kinship carers will be enhanced, with every council being required to publish a localised kinship offer that is backed by national standards, enabling more children to be cared for by family members, such as grandparents, aunts and uncles, instead of going into care.
• Fostering and Regional Care Cooperatives: The capacity for fostering will be increased, and Regional Care Cooperatives will be expanded to assist in getting more children who are in care into supportive foster homes with the support networks that they require and in placements that are most appropriate for their specific needs.
• Market Oversights: Plans to address long-standing problems in the market, such as high financial risk among private providers, unsustainable costs and limited placements and improve commissioning practices with digital tools.
• The National ‘Staying Close’ Offer: Care leavers will be in receipt of strengthened support from 2029 via a national ‘Staying Close’ offer. This means that they will get help with essentials, such as accommodation, healthcare, and employment, until age 25, reducing the care cliff edge.
• Corporate Parenting within Public Bodies: There will be new corporate parenting responsibilities across public bodies to ensure a more joined-up avenue to supporting young people in care and care leavers.

UK Care System-Level Implications

There will be several ways in which the reforms will impact the current systems and operational processes within the sector, and it is paramount that industry professionals should be aware of these implications and start preparing for key changes ahead of time.

Ashleigh Searle, Implementation and Innovation Manager for Children’s Social Care at CareCubed, believes that the new steps set out for the children’s social care reform highlight positive change in the sector and that the focus going forward is the way in which these policies are enacted.

“It is really exciting to see the progress being made with the learning from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and the tangible planned improvements to Children’s Services, Home Finding and Commissioning through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The ambition to intervene earlier, strengthen families and improve outcomes is both necessary and welcome. The challenge now will be translating policy into practice and acting on the implementation plan whilst creating the infrastructure to succeed. It’s an exciting time for all those involved in caring for vulnerable children to come together to ensure its success”.

Commissioning-based early intervention.

The implementation of single-family help services signals a consolidation of a currently fragmented early intervention approach.

This will have an impact across the social care and children’s commissioning system, as it is likely to prompt a move into placing more focus on a more upstream and preventative way of working.

By placing a greater focus on early prevention, two benefits emerge. There would be more children remaining with family or extended support networks when safe to do so, lowering the need for crisis placements. This would release some pressure on placement management and allow for more strategic use of available resources.

While this would not eradicate crisis placements, it would be a welcome move to improve the overall process.

Local authorities and providers can further enhance their positive outcomes in this case by using the CareCubed Cost of Care and Brokerage tools, as CareCubed provides cost transparency and supports commissioners and home finders to understand best value when sourcing care. This should help to reduce repeat crises from day one and through the provision of additional market oversight that provides commissioners and providers with a wider perspective through supporting sufficiency planning to manage future demands. CareCubed provides an opportunity for commissioners and providers to model end-to-end costing and step away from placement pricing methods used previously.

Lancashire County Council won the IESE CareCubed Award in March 2026 for its work using CareCubed, which has resulted in fantastic outcomes for young people, inspiring positive progress toward independence and more stability. By using CareCubed to drive transparent conversations with their providers, value for money was delivered, as well as a more effective process that focused on getting things right the first time, with more comprehensive market oversight.

New Operating Norms

There are aims to instil a multi-agency approach with integrated safeguarding measures across partners.

Through implementing safeguarding across multiple agencies, the aim will be to formalise joint working, help decision-making become more collective across teams and organisations, with a stronger evidence-based approach through working together.

A multi-agency safeguarding approach is also likely to increase scrutiny regarding the outcomes and appropriateness of placements.

Tools like CareCubed can help meet the demand for consistent costing and articulation of needs across providers as well, as CareCubed helps to drive a shared language in the sector.

Regionalisation and Structures

The expansion of Regional Care Cooperatives aims to introduce stronger coordination around supply. Providing regional oversight and introducing sufficiency of placements as a system-level responsibility rather than being managed locally.

A Focus on Fostering

The reform has a large focus on fostering; where possible, this should reduce the reliance on residential placements and look to increase scrutiny around where residential care is used and whether investment is reflective of outcomes.

Care Leaver Supports

As part of the package of reform there is a greater focus on supporting Care Leavers as they leave children’s care. With these reforms, there will likely be a greater demand placed on transition services for those who require entrance to the adult system, as well as support services for those who transition from care altogether.

Find out how CareCubed can help your organisation with the children’s social care reforms by booking a demo now. The CareCubed team can assist you with how you can drive positive outcomes in alignment with the reforms while optimising your organisation’s workflow.