Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to which legislation his Department has applied the Family Test, published in August 2014.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government is committed to supporting families. To achieve this, in 2014 we introduced the Family Test, which aims to ensure that impacts on family relationships and functioning are recognised early on during the process of policy development and help inform the policy decisions made by Minsters. The Family Test was not designed to be a ‘tick-box’ exercise, and as such there is no requirement for departments to publish the results of assessments made under the Family Test.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 30 November 2017 to Question HL3576, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen families.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families announced our commitment to tackle the damaging levels of parental conflict in workless families. This in response to recent evidence which shows that children exposed to frequent, intense and poorly resolved conflict can suffer a decline in their mental health and experience poorer long term outcomes. Our new Reducing Parental Conflict Programme will provide workless families in a number of local areas across England with face-to-face, evidence based interventions to reduce parental conflict. This provision will be available to workless parents, whether they are together or separated, as when it comes to the critical issue of improving children’s outcomes, the evidence shows that the quality of relationships within a family are more important than family structure. Alongside these face-to-face interventions, we will be working closely with local authorities to raise awareness of the negative impacts of parental conflict on children and families, and to help them embed proven parental conflict support into existing services for families.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to implement the recommendations of his Department's report on Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, published in April 2017.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families set out a framework for improving outcomes for disadvantaged children, now and in the future. The Department for Work and Pensions continues to work with key stakeholders and with other Departments to take forward the four policies set out in the document. Further announcements will be made in due course.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 31 October 2016 to Question 50529, which 12 local authorities the Government has been working with to help develop evidence-based strategic delivery plans to embed relationship support into local services for families.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The 12 local authorities delivering the Local Family Offer, which is trialling evidence-based strategic delivery plans to embed relationship support into local services for families, are:
Blackpool
Blackburn with Darwen
Croydon
Dorset
Essex
Gateshead
Greater Manchester
Hertfordshire
Lambeth
Luton
Newcastle
Westminster
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 31 October 2016 to Question 50529, what plans his Department has to carry out a review of the link between poor relationship outcomes and child life chances and effectiveness of relationship support.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Department funded the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) to complete the evidence review ‘What works to enhance inter-parental relationships and improve children's outcomes’, which was published on 22 March 2016. This evaluates the impact of inter-parental relationships on children’s outcomes and is informing the development of our new programme to tackle parental conflict. This review included an assessment of the effectiveness of 15 UK programmes which aim to enhance the inter-parental relationship and improve outcomes for children, in addition to further international evidence. The Department continues to fund and work with the EIF to expand the evidence base for the effectiveness of such interventions.