Asked by: Meg Munn (Labour (Co-op) - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations he has received in support of his proposals to allow further delegation of children's social care functions in order to improve outcomes for children in receipt of child protection services.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Responses to the consultation on further delegation of children's social care functions are currently being considered.
Asked by: Meg Munn (Labour (Co-op) - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to develop pilot projects of his proposals to allow further delegation of children's social care functions.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Responses to the consultation on further delegation of children's social care functions are currently being considered. Local authorities will be able to apply to the Children's Social Care Innovation Programme for support to make use of any new freedoms introduced, and the impact of activities funded through the programme will be robustly evaluated.
Asked by: Meg Munn (Labour (Co-op) - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department takes to ensure that third party organisations delegated to undertake children's social care functions of local authorities are of an appropriate standard.
Answered by Lord Gove
The Government's recent consultation seeks to enable local authorities to delegate children's social care functions to broaden the range of approaches available to secure the best outcomes for children in their area. The proposals do not remove responsibilities from local authorities for ensuring their statutory obligations on child protection and children's social care are met, and it remains local authorities' responsibility to ensure the quality of that provision.
Delegated social care function arrangements will continue to be inspected by Ofsted, in the same way as directly delivered local authority social care functions, as part of its local authority inspection framework. In addition, regulations currently govern the fitness of third party providers and require their registration with Ofsted.
Asked by: Meg Munn (Labour (Co-op) - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to exempt any functions from his proposals to allow further delegation of children's social care functions.
Answered by Lord Gove
Part 1 of the Children and Young Person's Act 2008 currently allows local authorities to delegate social care functions relating to children in care and care leavers. The legislation precludes delegation of independent reviewing officer functions, and of adoption functions, unless the other party to the arrangement is a registered adoption society.
The Government's proposals would not alter those exemptions, but seek to enable local authorities to delegate a wider range of social services functions (if they so wish), to broaden the range of approaches available to secure the best outcomes for children in their area. The recent consultation on the proposals closed on Friday 30 May and responses are being considered.
Asked by: Meg Munn (Labour (Co-op) - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effects of proposals for further delegation of children's social care functions on the implementation of the recommendations of the Munro Review of child protection.
Answered by Lord Gove
The Government is considering the outcome of its consultation on proposals to enable local authorities to delegate children's social care functions to third parties, to help broaden the range of approaches available to secure the best outcomes for children in their area. The proposals place no obligations on local authorities and do not remove their responsibility for ensuring their statutory obligations on child protection and children's social care are met.