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1125713

registered interest
date	09/05/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) number of and (b) reasons for children being taken into care.
tabling member constituency	Westmorland and Lonsdale
tabling member printed	Tim Farron
uin	252568
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/05/2019 answer text <p>Information on the number of children who started to be looked after during the year by reason is published in Table C1 in the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England including Adoption’ at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018</a>. Information for children taken into care is shown in the attached tabled.</p><p>The government wants every child to be in a stable, loving home that is right for them. One of the key principles of the legislation which underpins the UK’s child protection system, is that children are best looked after within their families. However, that is not always possible and, as a last resort, local authorities can apply to the courts for a care or supervision order where the child is suffering, or is at risk of suffering, significant harm. In making their decisions, the courts must be satisfied that the threshold for significant harm has been met and that taking the child from his or her family’s care will be in the child’s best interests.</p><p> </p><p>Where a child cannot live at home, we must make sure they are safe and receive the highest quality care, which is why we are working hard to improve the social care support for children across England through our reform programme, Putting Children First. We have also established the Children’s Social Care What Works Centre, whose initial research priority focuses on ‘what works in safely reducing the need for children to enter care’.</p><p> </p><p>In the Autumn Budget, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an additional £410 million for adult and children’s social care in 2019-20. A further £84 million is also being invested over the next 5 years through the Strengthening Families, Protecting Children programme. This programme will support up to 20 local authorities with high or rising demand for children’s social care services to improve the support offered to vulnerable children and their families. Through this, we aim to enable more children to stay at home thriving in stable family environments, and safely reduce the number of children entering care.</p><p> </p><p>Across the government, we are also tackling the problems that cause children to be in need in the first place. This includes better supporting those with alcohol-dependent parents, the introduction of landmark legislation for those affected by domestic abuse, preventing young people being drawn into serious violence, and unprecedented investment in early years education and support for children and young people’s mental health.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 252574 question first answered 14/05/2019 15:46:32 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi attachment 1 file name 252568_252574_Children_In_Care_Table.doc title 252568_252574_Table
tabling member	1591 label Biography information for Tim Farron

1125743

registered interest
date	09/05/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he has taken to reduce the number of children being taken into care; and what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of measures implemented by his Department to support that aim.
tabling member constituency	Westmorland and Lonsdale
tabling member printed	Tim Farron
uin	252574
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/05/2019 answer text <p>Information on the number of children who started to be looked after during the year by reason is published in Table C1 in the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England including Adoption’ at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018</a>. Information for children taken into care is shown in the attached tabled.</p><p>The government wants every child to be in a stable, loving home that is right for them. One of the key principles of the legislation which underpins the UK’s child protection system, is that children are best looked after within their families. However, that is not always possible and, as a last resort, local authorities can apply to the courts for a care or supervision order where the child is suffering, or is at risk of suffering, significant harm. In making their decisions, the courts must be satisfied that the threshold for significant harm has been met and that taking the child from his or her family’s care will be in the child’s best interests.</p><p> </p><p>Where a child cannot live at home, we must make sure they are safe and receive the highest quality care, which is why we are working hard to improve the social care support for children across England through our reform programme, Putting Children First. We have also established the Children’s Social Care What Works Centre, whose initial research priority focuses on ‘what works in safely reducing the need for children to enter care’.</p><p> </p><p>In the Autumn Budget, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an additional £410 million for adult and children’s social care in 2019-20. A further £84 million is also being invested over the next 5 years through the Strengthening Families, Protecting Children programme. This programme will support up to 20 local authorities with high or rising demand for children’s social care services to improve the support offered to vulnerable children and their families. Through this, we aim to enable more children to stay at home thriving in stable family environments, and safely reduce the number of children entering care.</p><p> </p><p>Across the government, we are also tackling the problems that cause children to be in need in the first place. This includes better supporting those with alcohol-dependent parents, the introduction of landmark legislation for those affected by domestic abuse, preventing young people being drawn into serious violence, and unprecedented investment in early years education and support for children and young people’s mental health.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 252568 question first answered 14/05/2019 15:46:32 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi attachment 1 file name 252568_252574_Children_In_Care_Table.doc title 252568_252574_Table
tabling member	1591 label Biography information for Tim Farron

1125436

registered interest
date	08/05/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data his Department holds on the number of children of offenders currently in the care system.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	252096
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/05/2019 answer text <p>​The department does not collect information specifically on the number of children of offenders taken into care and the costs associated with this.</p><p>Information is collected on the main category of need for which a child is looked-after, including low income, family in acute stress or family dysfunction, but within those categories offending by a parent is not identified separately as a reason for a child to be looked-after. The main category of need is dependent on an individual child’s circumstances; not solely a shared characteristic of parental offending. Children who are in need simply because a parent has been imprisoned but the reason for imprisonment bears no relation to the child being in need can be included as in need under the category of absent parenting.</p><p>The cost of support and care placements varies across individual children. Local authorities are required to submit their spending on children in care to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, which is published annually. We also publish information on the average weekly unit costs of looked after children, by local authority, in the Local Authority Interactive Tool.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 252107 question first answered 14/05/2019 10:00:16 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1125449

registered interest
date	08/05/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made an assessment of the cost to the public purse of children of offenders taken into care in the latest period for which data is available.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	252107
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/05/2019 answer text <p>​The department does not collect information specifically on the number of children of offenders taken into care and the costs associated with this.</p><p>Information is collected on the main category of need for which a child is looked-after, including low income, family in acute stress or family dysfunction, but within those categories offending by a parent is not identified separately as a reason for a child to be looked-after. The main category of need is dependent on an individual child’s circumstances; not solely a shared characteristic of parental offending. Children who are in need simply because a parent has been imprisoned but the reason for imprisonment bears no relation to the child being in need can be included as in need under the category of absent parenting.</p><p>The cost of support and care placements varies across individual children. Local authorities are required to submit their spending on children in care to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, which is published annually. We also publish information on the average weekly unit costs of looked after children, by local authority, in the Local Authority Interactive Tool.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 252096 question first answered 14/05/2019 10:00:16 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1121558

registered interest
date	11/04/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the need to require a placing local authority to introduce a procedure for when young people are placed in another local authority area for that local authority to be informed of the young person’s circumstances and needs and to jointly assess the suitability of the placement and the risk exposure of the young person; and whether they have any plans to introduce such a requirement.
tabling member printed	Lord Bach
uin	HL15209
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/04/2019 answer text <p>Where local authorities are placing a young person out of area, there are clear statutory requirements in place to safeguard young people. These require the placing authority to inform the host authority before confirming the placement, and to check whether the host authority is aware of any concerns about the setting.</p><p> </p><p>The statutory responsibilities for looked after children remain with the placing local authority, and Directors of Children’s Services must approve all distant placements.</p><p> </p><p>As a lack of sufficient placements to meet young people’s needs can lead to children being placed out of area, we are investing part of our £200 million Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme in projects in London, where demand for placements outstrips supply. This would also help to increase councils’ capacity so that fewer children are placed far away from home.</p><p>Where there is a dispute between local authorities about who should have responsibility for a looked after child, the ordinary residence determination process provides a mechanism to resolve this.</p><p> </p><p>The department has also launched the Boarding School Partnerships (BSP) to encourage boarding school placements for children in care and those on the edge of care, where it was in the best interests of the child. The BSP has been working with the boarding schools sector to provide a supply of places to local authorities supported by bursaries.</p> answering member printed Lord Agnew of Oulton grouped question UIN HL15210 question first answered 29/04/2019 16:27:55 answering member 4689 label Biography information for Lord Agnew of Oulton
tabling member	3451 label Biography information for Lord Bach

1121559

registered interest
date	11/04/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to evaluate the impact of the passing on of costs by local authorities to other local authorities when placing a young person in another local authority; and what consideration they have given to asking the National Policing Chief’s Council and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services to undertake such work.
tabling member printed	Lord Bach
uin	HL15210
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/04/2019 answer text <p>Where local authorities are placing a young person out of area, there are clear statutory requirements in place to safeguard young people. These require the placing authority to inform the host authority before confirming the placement, and to check whether the host authority is aware of any concerns about the setting.</p><p> </p><p>The statutory responsibilities for looked after children remain with the placing local authority, and Directors of Children’s Services must approve all distant placements.</p><p> </p><p>As a lack of sufficient placements to meet young people’s needs can lead to children being placed out of area, we are investing part of our £200 million Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme in projects in London, where demand for placements outstrips supply. This would also help to increase councils’ capacity so that fewer children are placed far away from home.</p><p>Where there is a dispute between local authorities about who should have responsibility for a looked after child, the ordinary residence determination process provides a mechanism to resolve this.</p><p> </p><p>The department has also launched the Boarding School Partnerships (BSP) to encourage boarding school placements for children in care and those on the edge of care, where it was in the best interests of the child. The BSP has been working with the boarding schools sector to provide a supply of places to local authorities supported by bursaries.</p> answering member printed Lord Agnew of Oulton grouped question UIN HL15209 question first answered 29/04/2019 16:27:55 answering member 4689 label Biography information for Lord Agnew of Oulton
tabling member	3451 label Biography information for Lord Bach

1093507

registered interest
date	22/03/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional financial support his Department provides to local authorities that experience a significant increase in the number of looked-after children under their care.
tabling member constituency	Easington
tabling member printed	Grahame Morris
uin	235757
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/03/2019 answer text <p>Funding for children’s services is made available through the Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS), which gives local authorities flexibility to target spending according to local needs and to fulfil their statutory responsibilities, including services for looked-after children.</p><p> </p><p>Over the five-year period to 2019-20, councils have access, through the LGFS, to over £200 billion to deliver local services, including children’s services. Core spending power has increased from £45.1 billion in 2018-19 to £46.4 billion in 2019-20.</p><p> </p><p>Social worker caseload data is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childrens-social-work-workforce-2018" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childrens-social-work-workforce-2018</a>. The average caseload per children and family social worker was 17.4 cases (based on full-time equivalent counts) in 2018. Specific data on the ratios for social workers working with looked after children is not available.</p><p> </p><p>Along with my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, we regularly meet key stakeholders, including Directors of Children’s Services, to discuss children’s services. Officials in regional teams also meet local authorities regularly and the most recent meeting with Durham County Council was earlier this month.</p><p> </p><p>The department recognises how important it is to speak directly with those who are delivering services for children and families and we are working between now and the Spending Review to get a sharper and more granular picture of children’s services costs and pressures.</p><p> </p><p>We are also, through our ‘Strengthening Families, Protecting Children’ programme, investing £84 million over the next 5 years to support up to 20 local authorities with high or rising demand for children’s social care to work more effectively with their most vulnerable families.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 235789 235790 question first answered 27/03/2019 16:59:08 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	3973 label Biography information for Grahame Morris

1093508

registered interest
date	22/03/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the average caseload ratios for social workers working with looked-after children.
tabling member constituency	Easington
tabling member printed	Grahame Morris
uin	235789
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/03/2019 answer text <p>Funding for children’s services is made available through the Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS), which gives local authorities flexibility to target spending according to local needs and to fulfil their statutory responsibilities, including services for looked-after children.</p><p> </p><p>Over the five-year period to 2019-20, councils have access, through the LGFS, to over £200 billion to deliver local services, including children’s services. Core spending power has increased from £45.1 billion in 2018-19 to £46.4 billion in 2019-20.</p><p> </p><p>Social worker caseload data is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childrens-social-work-workforce-2018" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childrens-social-work-workforce-2018</a>. The average caseload per children and family social worker was 17.4 cases (based on full-time equivalent counts) in 2018. Specific data on the ratios for social workers working with looked after children is not available.</p><p> </p><p>Along with my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, we regularly meet key stakeholders, including Directors of Children’s Services, to discuss children’s services. Officials in regional teams also meet local authorities regularly and the most recent meeting with Durham County Council was earlier this month.</p><p> </p><p>The department recognises how important it is to speak directly with those who are delivering services for children and families and we are working between now and the Spending Review to get a sharper and more granular picture of children’s services costs and pressures.</p><p> </p><p>We are also, through our ‘Strengthening Families, Protecting Children’ programme, investing £84 million over the next 5 years to support up to 20 local authorities with high or rising demand for children’s social care to work more effectively with their most vulnerable families.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 235757 235790 question first answered 27/03/2019 16:59:08 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	3973 label Biography information for Grahame Morris

1091381

registered interest
date	19/03/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked-after children there were in (a) Warrington, (b) the North West and (c) England in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
tabling member constituency	Warrington North
tabling member printed	Helen Jones
uin	234121
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/03/2019 answer text <p>The latest information on the number of looked after children at 31 March 2018 for the last five years by local authority, region and for England can be found in table LAA1 in the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England: Including Adoption: 2017 to 2018’ at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018</a>.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 22/03/2019 14:01:15 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	432 label Biography information for Helen Jones

1087069

registered interest
date	12/03/2019
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Children in Care
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children there were in each local authority in England in each of the last 10 years.
tabling member constituency	Westmorland and Lonsdale
tabling member printed	Tim Farron
uin	231419
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/03/2019 answer text <p>The latest national information on the number of looked-after children in England can be found in table A1 of the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England Including Adoption: 2017 to 2018’ at the following link: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018</a>. These figures are also disaggregated at local authority level for the latest 5 years in the underlying data tables that accompany this statistical release. Figures for earlier years can be found in the underlying data that accompanies earlier statistical releases: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children</a>.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi grouped question UIN 231420 question first answered 15/03/2019 12:30:01 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	1591 label Biography information for Tim Farron