The government wants every child to be in a stable, loving home that is right for them.<\/p>
One of the key principles of the legislation which underpins the UK\u2019s 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\u2019s care will be in the child\u2019s best interests.<\/p>
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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\u2019s Social Care What Works Centre, whose initial research priority focuses on \u2018what works in safely reducing the need for children to enter care\u2019.<\/p>
In the Autumn Budget, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an additional £410 million for adult and children\u2019s 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 will build on three of our most promising Innovation Programme projects, with the aim of improving social work practice to enable children to stay safely at home where that is in their best interests.<\/p>
This investment is in addition to the almost £270 million the department has invested in our Innovation and Improvement programmes since 2014. There have been 4 programmes in local authorities in the East Midlands region and over 90 in local authorities across England to help innovate and re-design service delivery to achieve higher quality. The Creating Strong Communities model, for example, developed by North East Lincolnshire has been designed to fundamentally change the way local practitioners and partners in North East Lincolnshire work together to safeguard vulnerable children.<\/p>
The number of children taken into care in the East Midlands region and Nottingham local authority area is shown in the attached table. The department does not collect this data by parliamentary constituency area.<\/p>