The government has appointed its fourth children’s social care minister of the year ahead of a critical period for the sector.
Claire Coutinho, appointed as a junior minister in the Department for Education last month, has been given responsibility for social care, alongside special educational needs and disability and other issues concerning vulnerable and young children.
Coutinho, in effect, succeeds Kelly Tolhurst, who left her post as minister for schools and childhood in October, just one month after her appointment was announced.
Unlike Tolhurst, Coutinho will not combine her responsibilities for children’s social care and vulnerable children with oversight of schools policy, while her appointment also returns children’s social care to being the responsibility of a junior minister. Tolhurst had held the role at the more senior minister of state level.
Before joining the DfE, Coutinho, an MP since 2019, spent a month as minister for disabled people, and her previous roles have included working for centre-right think-tank the Centre for Social Justice in areas including regeneration policy.
New minister’s praise for social workers
While her brief as minister for children, families and wellbeing was confirmed today, Coutinho signalled that she would be responsible for children’s social care on Friday, when she tweeted her appreciation for social workers ahead of the annual Social Worker of the Year Awards ceremony.
As with incoming education secretary Gillian Keegan – who became the fifth holder of that post in 2022 last month – Coutinho’s appointment comes ahead of a significant period of change for the sector, with four major reports sitting in their in-trays.
Sector faces shake-up and demand pressures
The DfE had committed to responding to three of these – the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care’s final report, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s inquiry into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson and the Competition and Markets Authority’s study of the children’s social care market – before the end of 2022.
However, it is not clear how far this timetable will hold under new prime minister Rishi Sunak.
