Today I am providing an update on the Department’s response to whistleblowing allegations made to Ofsted and the BBC by former employees of Calcot Services for Children. The allegations describe shocking abuse and safeguarding failures in children’s homes run by Calcot, including allegations of grooming, rape, sexual assault, and of Calcot cutting corners on staffing ratios. This is something that I, and the Department, take with the utmost seriousness. We expect all children’s homes to provide the right support, care and protection for children who live there—no organisation should exploit those in need.
Calcot runs eight children’s homes and three independent schools in Reading and the surrounding areas for children with complex emotional, behavioural difficulties and or learning disabilities. Ofsted is responsible for regulating children’s homes and ensuring that action is taken where homes are not providing good quality and safe care for the children they look after. I met Her Majesty’s chief inspector at Ofsted on 14 June to discuss my concerns about Calcot. In the light of the most recent concerns, Ofsted have further accelerated their planned programme of inspection across Calcot’s children’s homes and schools. Following recent inspections, the first inspection report was published on 21 June and the children’s home was rated as inadequate. Ofsted has issued the home with compliance notices and it is restricted from taking more children until it can demonstrate it has improved the quality of care.
As some inspections are still in progress, I cannot say more on the outcomes at this time. However, three further homes have had restrictions imposed limiting the number of children they can care for. If Ofsted find widespread and systemic failings, they will not hesitate to issue a notice to suspend the registration of the home and consider serving a notice to cancel the registration of the home if necessary. This action would be taken if Ofsted considered that the children were not safe and if they did not have confidence that the provider could make appropriate and sufficient changes quickly enough.
The safeguarding of the children in our collective care remains paramount and as these inspections progress Ofsted will update the Department, and both will continue to work with placing local authorities to ensure that appropriate and proportionate action is taken to safeguard children.
With regards to the three independent schools run by Calcot, the Department is working with the inspectorates to ensure they are meeting the independent school standards and keeping their children safe.
Independent schools should meet all of the independent school standards at all times. Where any school has serious failings or failings for an extended period of time, the Department may consider whether enforcement action is appropriate under its published regulatory and enforcement policy action, which can be found at the following link:
Separately, in January, the Education Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), agreed that the independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel should undertake a national review into safeguarding children with disabilities and complex health needs in residential settings. It will ask some important questions about how children with disabilities are safeguarded. Most importantly, it will seek to identify ways in which practice and policy might need to change to protect children better in the future.
We will consider all this information together with the findings from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and Competition and Market’s Authority market study, to inform our implementation strategy, due to be published later this year.
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