Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in which local authority areas the £39 million is being spent in reducing parental conflict through evidence-based interventions; over what time periods that money is being spent; whether there are plans to make service universal; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
There are 31 local authorities (listed below) who will be testing DWP-funded face-to-face interventions to reduce parental conflict. We are spending approximately £12m on these face-to-face interventions, which will be targeted at disadvantaged families – especially workless families, who face triple the risk of experiencing damaging parental conflict. The first referrals will be in April 2019 and interventions will take place for two years.
By 31 March 2019, we will also have made available approximately £9m to build local capability in reducing parental conflict. We are providing all local authorities in England with funding to work with their local partners to increase their strategic capability in embedding proven parental conflict support, and we will also be funding training for frontline practitioners, to help them to identify relationship distress; provide initial support; and to refer appropriately.
On 23 April 2018 the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department of Work and Pensions announced £6m for a jointly funded package of measures to support children of alcohol dependent parents. This package will run for three years and includes:
The areas which have been successful in their Innovation Fund bids are due to be announced shortly.
We will also be working closely with all local authorities in England, including providing expert advice and support through a team of Regional Integration Leads to help local areas to integrate support to reduce parental conflict into mainstream provision for children and families. This will help to ensure that more mothers and fathers can access support to reduce parental conflict.
Further announcements will be made on other aspects of the programme in due course.
Local Authorities where Face to Face Interventions will be delivered:
Westminster, Brent, Croydon, Lambeth, Kensington & Chelsea, Camden, Hammersmith & Fulham, Gateshead, Stockton, Sunderland, South Tyneside, Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland, Newcastle, Northumberland, Hartlepool, Durham, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Southend, Essex, Buckinghamshire, Peterborough, Dorset, Somerset, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Devon, Wiltshire, Poole, Torbay.
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) passports and (b) driving licenses have been removed from people for non-payment of child maintenance; and how many people received a custodial sentence for non-payment of child maintenance in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Child Support regulations recently laid in Parliament include changes to enable the Child Maintenance Service to disqualify a paying parent with child maintenance arrears from holding or obtaining a UK passport. These changes are expected to come into force in November subject to them gaining Parliamentary approval.
The number of driving licences removed and the number of custodial sentences as a result of non-payment of child maintenance for the period of June 2017 to June 2018 is as follows:
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will credit to victims of modern slavery the National Insurance contributions that were unpaid during the period of their slavery.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department for Work and Pensions recognises the difficulties faced by people found to be victims of modern slavery. The Department is currently exploring potential ways to ensure people who are victims of modern slavery are not disadvantaged in respect of their National Insurance records.
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will take steps to ensure that charities in the Relationships Alliance will be allocated funding from the public purse for existing relationship support contracts until funding allocations have been made under the Reducing Parental Conflict programme.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
We are exploring options with respect to the next steps for the current contracts DWP hold with the Relationships Alliance.
We are currently implementing the new Reducing Parental Conflict Programme, which aims to integrate proven help with parental conflict into local services. We will be offering support to all 152 top-tier English local authorities to help them - including making available funding to develop their strategic approach; and for training frontline practitioners.
We have announced £6m of joint funding with the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England, aimed at improving the outcomes of children of alcohol-dependent parents. This programme includes an Innovation Fund, which is seeking up to eight local authority bids, to address parents’ alcohol issues and reduce conflict. The closing dates for bids is 17 July. Funding is also available for the voluntary sector, where we are seeking to build capacity nationally to support children in families where parents are alcohol dependent and experiencing conflict. We expect to make announcements on the allocation of funding for these opportunities in the Autumn.
And we will build the evidence base for what works to reduce parental conflict by commissioning face-to-face support in 30 local authorities across England. We recently published a Prior Information Notice which outlined the timescales for the upcoming procurement of face-to-face interventions. These contracts will be open to all interested parties as an open competition.
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in seeking views from local authorities on the forthcoming Reducing Interparental Conflict programme and the range of interventions to be made available through it, whether local authorities were made aware that reducing couple conflict, rather than improving parenting, would be the primary goal of that programme.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We have been working closely with a wide range of local authorities to implement our Reducing Parental Conflict programme. The local authorities who will lead the areas where face-to-face interventions will be delivered have been drawn from participants in our Local Family Offer trial. So these areas have a good understanding of the need to address parental conflict, and have been working for some years to embed support for parental conflict into their services for families.
When compiling the list of interventions we plan to test as part of the Reducing Parental Conflict programme, we carefully considered the evidence of their impact on parental conflict. We recognise that variants of some programmes designed to improve parenting have content which is focused on the quality of the parental relationship. If these are delivered with fidelity they can reduce conflict between parents. We have been clear with local authorities that it is these versions that we plan to offer as part of our Reducing Parental Conflict Programme.
The organisations commissioned to deliver support in local areas under these contracts will be under contract to DWP and performance managed by this department. The local authorities hosting the contracts are fully committed to reducing parental conflict by supporting the delivery of the ten chosen interventions. We will be supporting other local areas to recognise the importance of this and embed interventions to reduce parental conflict into their services too.
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the proposed reducing interparental conflict programme, how local authorities will be encouraged to ensure that children in low-income and workless families benefit from any support provided by that programme.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Local authorities, and the partners they work with, are best placed to understand what support the families in their area need. DWP will be working with 30 local authorities to help build our understanding of how to do this well, through providing face-to-face support for disadvantaged (including low income and workless) families experiencing conflict. Local authorities will be responsible for identifying families experiencing damaging parental conflict and referring them to appropriate interventions, making sure that the parents who need help are offered support.
To help local areas do this, we will make training and guidance for frontline practitioners and relationship support professionals available in all local areas in England. We will support managers and commissioners to understand why and how to address parental conflict; support frontline staff to recognise parental conflict; and offer appropriate advice to make sure that they are able to refer parents to appropriate services.
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 12 December 2017 to Question 118243, on Travellers: children, what formal process his Department has in place for local authorities to make requests for the sharing of personal data where the welfare or safeguarding of (a) children and (b) other vulnerable people is concerned.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
DWP staff are empowered by DWP policy and relevant legislation to take any reasonable steps necessary to address risk to a child or vulnerable adult. Such risks include (but the list is not exhaustive) injury, ill treatment, neglect, physical or sexual abuse and exploitation.
DWP offices have reciprocal points of contact with local authorities in their area. Where an issue arises that gives cause for concern about a child or a vulnerable adult, a proactive disclosure or response to a request will be made by an appropriate officer, subject to departmental guidance. Information provided will be factual and directly relevant to the issue of concern.