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RESOLVED:

1.      That
this Council notes:
(a)         
that care experienced people face significant
barriers and challenges that impact them throughout their lives,
including discrimination, and stigma across housing, health,
education, relationships, employment, and the criminal justice
system;
(b)        
that despite the resilience of many care experienced
people, society too often does not take their needs into
account;
(c)         
that as corporate parents we have a special
responsibility for providing the best possible care and ensure they
get the support they need to live the happiest and healthiest life
as possible so they can reach their full potential;
(d)        
the positive work of the City Council’s
Corporate Parenting Panel in improving the lives and experiences of
our care-experienced children and young people through lived
experiences, working in partnership to embed a corporate parenting
culture within Milton Keynes; and
(e)        
recommendations  of the
Independent Review of Children’s Social Care by Josh
McCallister (May 2022) including:
·           
‘Government should make care experience a
protected characteristic’
·           
‘new legislation should be passed which
broadens corporate parenting responsibilities across a wider set of
public bodies and organisations’.

2.      That this Council believes
that:
(a)         
the children and young people of Milton Keynes
deserve the best start in life;
(b)        
the voices, needs, priorities, and rights of
children and young people should be at the heart of everything we
do;
(c)         
care experienced people are a disadvantaged group
who face challenges and discrimination and that Milton Keynes has a
duty to put the needs of disadvantaged people at the heart of
decision making;
(d)        
Councillors should be champions of our looked after
children and challenge the negative attitudes and prejudice that
exists in all aspects of society; and
(e)        
MKCC must continue to ensure the support we provide
to our care-experienced children and young people is of the same
quality we would expect for our own birth children.

3.      That this Council believes
that it should proactively seek out and
listen to the voices of care experienced people when developing new
policies based on their lives and therefore resolves to ask the
executive to consider and implement the
following:
(a)         
that this Council will treat care experience as if
it were a protected characteristic;
(b)        
that in the delivery of the Public Sector Equality
Duty the City Council include care experience in the publication
and review of the Equality Policy (2021) relating to people who
share a protected characteristic in services and
employment;
(c)         
that future decision, services, and policies made
and adopted by the City Council should be assessed through Equality
Impact Assessments to determine the impact of changes on people
with care experience, alongside those who formally share a
protected characteristic; and
(d)        
to formally call upon other bodies and organisations
to treat care experience as a protected characteristic until such
time as it may be introduced by legislation.