Thank you for coming!
The Families’ Alliance for Change was delighted to see so many councillors at the first FAC conference which focused on how parent blame contributes to the crisis in children’s social care. The conference took place on 25th October 2025 at the Kindle Centre in Hereford.
FAC would like to thank Cllrs Toni Fagan, Ben Proctor, Robert Highfield, Ivan Powell, Jeremy Milln, Liz Harvey and Jim Kenyon for giving up their Saturday morning to listen and join discussions around how collectively we can solve the problems which persist locally and nationally in children’s social care.
It has been noted in a previous blog, that the outgoing CEO Paul Walker has not engaged with the public over children’s services, famously claiming not to have been invited to the public meeting in October 2022 which 17 councillors and the Children’s Commissioner managed to get to!
With a new CEO soon to be appointed, families are welcoming the chance for a reset and active listening by both officers and councillors to grass roots civil society groups rather than parent groups carefully curated by officers.
Talking to grass roots groups of families and other stakeholders will give councillors access to a whole raft of vital information by which they can properly assess the improvement journey and effectively undertake scrutiny.
Ofsted does not engage with the public
This is all the more important because OFSTED fails to engage with the public which means their judgements can be wildly off the mark. Remember that it was only after parents went to the press and the Panorama expose was screened that Ofsted belatedly came in and rated the service inadequate across the board. This pattern within Ofsted of missing the risks has been seen repeatedly around the country.
Dialogue is key
When FAC came into being on the back of the General Election Hustings in 2024, its first task was to set its mission statement which reads as follows:
“The Families’ Alliance for Change (FAC) brings together parents and stakeholders to engage in honest, open and transparent dialogue which seeks to support improvements within Children’s Services both locally and nationally.”
FAC believes more strongly than ever that for things to really change, there needs to be more dialogue with the public, and braver dialogue.
As a result of the conference, FAC has grown in strength forging alliances outside of the county to amplify voices within the county. While some aspects of children’s services are improving, there are still significant problems within Children’s Services and crucially, the Council’s defensive culture towards mistakes and poor practice has not significantly improved. Children’s Services may be improving its approach, but unless and until the culture with the Complaints Team and within Legal Services changes, children are still going to be at risk. See our Complaints Page here for illustrations of the problems with complaints being unreasonably shut down.
Working together to safeguard children
FAC looks forward to becoming a trusted partner to support councillors and officers to help every child in Herefordshire to thrive, and always, where possible, to live within their birth families.
We hope that the success of the conference, which brought together a wealth of academics, authors and campaigners from around the country, demonstrates that FAC has the capacity to be a powerful force for good.
Instead of fighting to be heard, we would like to be supporting the work that is being done to help this county be a safe and wonderful home for children.