Consultation Hub

The Department for Education consulted on proposals to strengthen safeguarding requirements in the statutory EYFS framework. Proposals covered: safer recruitment, child absences, safeguarding training, paediatric first aid training, safer eating, toileting and privacy.

The consultation received 1470 responses. There was strong support from respondents for all the consultation proposals, with clear consensus that the safeguarding reforms will improve children’s safety and align with current best practice in early years settings.

Based on consultation responses Government will proceed with implementing:

• All of the safeguarding changes that were consulted on, with minor changes to the wording for additional clarity.

• 2 new changes on whistleblowing and providing employment references.

We intend to proceed with statutory national implementation of the EYFS safeguarding reforms from 1^st September 2025. You can read the Government’s response to the consultation in full on the Early years foundation stage (EYFS) safeguarding - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) webpage.

This consultation invited views on draft statutory guidance for local authorities on the use of agency child and family social workers.

A total of 110 responses were received. The responses were broadly supportive of the draft statutory guidance with a range of 48% to 86% of respondents agreeing that the statutory guidance across each of the agency rules contained the correct level of detail.

The government’s response to the consultation is available online at: Child and family social workers: agency rules statutory guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Listening to the feedback, we have taken the opportunity to make changes to improve drafting of the rules where there were lower levels of agreement, namely on price caps (48% agreed or strongly agreed) and notice periods (58% agreed or strongly agreed). We have also made minor changes throughout the statutory guidance to improve clarity.

New statutory guidance for local authorities on the use of agency child and family social workers was published on 12 September 2024 and will come into force on 31 October 2024. This is available online at: Child and family social workers: agency rules - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

We asked for views on our proposals to make changes to the fees for children’s social care providers and how we consult on them in the future. We also sought views on the frequency of children’s homes inspections when there are no children accommodated and the disclosure of names and addresses in secure 16-19 academy and secure children’s homes inspection reports.

13% of respondents said a 20% increase in fees payable by children’s social care providers would have no impact. 18% thought the impact of the proposed fee increase would be minor. 38% told us it would have a moderate impact. 31% said it would have a major impact.

Most respondents (69%) thought it was necessary to consult on future fee increases and 19% thought it was not necessary.

The majority of respondents (69%) were in favour of our proposal of removing the requirement for Ofsted to undertake a second inspection on a children’s homes when there are no children accommodated in the home at the time of the first inspection. 12% were not in favour and 19% were not sure.

Half of respondents (50%) did not foresee any issues with the proposal for Ofsted to disclose names and addresses in secure 16-19 academy and secure children’s homes inspection reports. 25% did foresee issues and 25% were not sure.

The results of the consultation have been set out in a report on the gov.uk website. Based on these results the department has decided to implement a  20% increase on current fees payable by children’s social care providers not paying the full cost rate and not consult on future fee increases of 20% or less.

The department will remove the requirement for Ofsted to undertake a second inspection on a Children’s Home when there are no children accommodated in the home at the time of the first inspection and will allow Ofsted to disclose names and addresses in secure 16-19 academy and secure children’s homes inspection reports.