What is Corporate Parenting?

The term Corporate Parenting has been enshrined into legislation through the Children and Social Work Act 2017. It clarifies corporate parenting principles which local authorities and partners are required to adhere to.
When a child becomes ‘looked after’ the role of parenting is shared with parents and becomes
the corporate responsibility of the council. This
is known as corporate parenting and is a term used to describe how the city council and its partners collectively carry out their support and responsibilities to all children and young people who are in our care, by seeking the same positive outcomes that all parents would want for their own children.
Corporate parenting is a whole local authority enterprise. It places collective responsibility on the local authority to achieve good parenting for all children in care.
Specifically corporate parenting requires the Council and its partners:

  1. to act in the best interests, and promote the physical and mental health and wellbeing, of those children and young people
  2. to encourage those children and young people to express their views, wishes and feelings
  3. to take into account the views, wishes and feelings of those children and young people
  4. to help those children and young people gain access to, and make the best use of services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners
  5. to remote high aspirations, and seek to secure the best outcomes, for those children and young people
  6. for those children and young people to be safe, and for stability in their home lives, relationship and education or work; and
  7. to prepare children and young people for adulthood and independent living

As well as local authority responsibilities towards children and young people looked after, the Children Act 1989 placed a duty on partners including health, education and housing services to assist Children’s Services to fulfil its functions under the Act – providing help, support and services in order to meet its corporate parenting responsibilities. This was reinforced further under the Children Act 2004, which requires the local authority to make arrangements to promote cooperation with relevant partners to improve the well-being of children.

Effective corporate parenting needs a commitment from elected members and all council employees as well as an authority wide approach. It also requires ownership and leadership at a senior level within the council. This is demonstrated by the work of the Corporate Parenting Board.

In June 2022, following the ILACS inspection Ofsted reported:

“There is a strong political commitment to children’s services across the whole council...Strong partnership arrangements have led to strong joint working relationships”

Bringing agencies together has meant that a full range of opportunities and support can be considered. Working with each young person means that agencies can be creative in coming up with ideas to help people back into positive activities.