The government are sneaking through another privatisation: this time it’s children’s social care that could be run by big companies like G4S. 

The government’s pushing through a new law to shake up the legal basis of child services and allow councils to “opt out” of national children’s services law for six years. It means nothing would stop cash-strapped councils from outsourcing children’s social work to any private company that wants to make a quick buck.

We know where privatisation of public services ends. When Hitchingbrooke hospital was handed over to a private company, lives were endangered and the NHS had to take back control. And there was a huge scandal when corporate care homes led to abuse and neglect of older people. We can’t let the same happen to children’s care. 

The government is hoping that nobody will notice this dodgy clause in its plans and it’ll be able to sneak them through. But if enough of us speak out we can get the clause dropped.

Justine Greening: drop the plans for councils to opt out of children’s services laws which open the way for more privatisation. 

This plan makes no sense -- we have laws designed to protect all children but this allows councils to scrap all of that on a whim. Some children will be protected while others won’t, in a postcode lottery 

All children’s services would be affected -- from child protection, fostering and adoption to services for children with disabilities. It’d be a bonfire of children’s rights built up over decades, and let private companies profit from care for some of the most vulnerable children in society. 

The SumOfUs community stands up for public services against privatisation. Right now, over 60,000 of us are pushing back plans for G4S to take over government’s discrimination helpline. Let’s make sure it can’t move on to children’s services before it’s too late. 

The law is being debated in the House of Lords in just two weeks. The Lords often call out the government on dangerous parts of new laws. The government could easily just drop the privatisation clause. But right now it's not a big enough issue for that to happen. So let’s change that together with a big public outcry. 

Make the government drop the privatisation clause from the ‘Children and Social Work Bill’.