Children and Families Act 2014: A failure of implementation

The report, Children and Families Act 2014: A failure of implementation was published 6 December 2022. It followed an inquiry conducted by the cross-party Children and Families Act 2014 Committee to scrutinise how the Act is working in practice and whether it is fit for purpose.

The report notes that the Act was envisaged to give greater protection to vulnerable children, better support for children whose parents are separating, introduce a new system to help children with special educational needs and disabilities and help for parents to balance work and family life. The report makes a number of recommendations on how the Government can “realise its ambitions initially set out in the Act across adoption, family justice and employment rights.”

One of the Committee staff who worked on this inquiry is Sarah Jennings (Policy Analyst) Deputy Director Adoption, Family Justice and children’s rights from the Department for Education, who will be coming to meet our Adopt South West managers in January 2023.