Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the the effect of the change in the level of funding for children’s services in West Lancashire on the number of (a) referrals to children’s services; (b) re-referrals within 12 months, (c) children in need, (d) child protection enquiries, (e) child protection plans and (f) looked after children since 2010.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
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 children and families. Since 2010, the responsibilities of local authorities and the makeup of their funding streams have changed significantly. Therefore, wider spending power measures are not directly comparable over this period.
Over the 5 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.
In addition to this the Autumn Budget announced a further £410 million in 2019-20 for local authorities to invest in adult and children’s social care services. It also announced £84 million of extra funding, over the next 5 years, to support local authorities to invest in initiatives that improve social work practice and decision making.
Local authority level data since 2013 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-interactive-tool-lait.
National level children in need and service use since 2010 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-children-in-need and: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children.
The most common factors recorded in children’s social care assessments are domestic abuse and mental health. These have been consistently the top two factors for the years during which we have collected this data and have risen in line with trends in demand.
The Department for Education are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the review of relative needs and resources to develop a robust, up-to-date approach to funding distribution for children's services at LGFSs.
The government will continue to work closely with the sector to consider long-term children’s services funding as part of the upcoming Spending Review.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the change in the level of funding per child for children’s services on the number of (a) children in need (b) child protection plans and (c) looked after children since 2010.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
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 children and families. Since 2010, the responsibilities of local authorities and the makeup of their funding streams have changed significantly. Therefore, wider spending power measures are not directly comparable over this period.
Over the 5 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.
In addition to this the Autumn Budget announced a further £410 million in 2019-20 for local authorities to invest in adult and children’s social care services. It also announced £84 million of extra funding, over the next 5 years, to support local authorities to invest in initiatives that improve social work practice and decision making.
Local authority level data since 2013 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-interactive-tool-lait.
National level children in need and service use since 2010 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-children-in-need and: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children.
The most common factors recorded in children’s social care assessments are domestic abuse and mental health. These have been consistently the top two factors for the years during which we have collected this data and have risen in line with trends in demand.
The Department for Education are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the review of relative needs and resources to develop a robust, up-to-date approach to funding distribution for children's services at LGFSs.
The government will continue to work closely with the sector to consider long-term children’s services funding as part of the upcoming Spending Review.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the financial sustainability of local authority children’s services departments.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
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 children and families. Since 2010, the responsibilities of local authorities and the makeup of their funding streams have changed significantly. Therefore, wider spending power measures are not directly comparable over this period.
Over the 5 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.
In addition to this the Autumn Budget announced a further £410 million in 2019-20 for local authorities to invest in adult and children’s social care services. It also announced £84 million of extra funding, over the next 5 years, to support local authorities to invest in initiatives that improve social work practice and decision making.
Local authority level data since 2013 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-interactive-tool-lait.
National level children in need and service use since 2010 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-children-in-need and: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children.
The most common factors recorded in children’s social care assessments are domestic abuse and mental health. These have been consistently the top two factors for the years during which we have collected this data and have risen in line with trends in demand.
The Department for Education are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the review of relative needs and resources to develop a robust, up-to-date approach to funding distribution for children's services at LGFSs.
The government will continue to work closely with the sector to consider long-term children’s services funding as part of the upcoming Spending Review.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what provisions are in place to ensure a sustainable future for children’s services in West Lancashire.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Funding for children’s services is made available through the Local Government Finance Settlement. We are in the final year of a multi-year settlement deal – worth over £200 billion in the 5 years to 2020.
At the Autumn Budget 2018, the government made £410 million available to local authorities, in 2019/20, for adult and children social care. The government also announced £84 million in targeted, evidence-based interventions which will transform services to reduce demand, saving money for local authorities but most importantly, improving the quality of services for our most vulnerable children.
The Department for Education is working closely with Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government on the review of relative needs and resources to develop a robust, up-to-date approach to funding distribution for children's services at local government finance settlements.
The government will continue to work closely with the sector to consider long-term children’s services funding as part of the upcoming Spending Review.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on extending supplementary funding for nursery schools after April 2020.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Maintained nursery schools (MNS) make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. They experience costs that other providers do not and we are providing local authorities with approximately £60 million a year in supplementary funding to enable them to protect the funding of MNS.
I announced on 28 February that the government would extend the supplementary funding paid to local authorities by approximately £24 million to enable them to fully fund MNS for the whole of the 2019/20 academic year. This provides local authorities with the reassurance to allocate places for this September with confidence. The announcement was made with the agreement of HM Treasury. Next steps after the 2019/20 academic year will be determined by the next Spending Review.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure nursery school funding is sustainable for the future.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Maintained nursery schools (MNS) make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. They experience costs that other providers do not and we are providing local authorities with approximately £60 million a year in supplementary funding to enable them to protect the funding of MNS.
I announced on 28 February that the government would extend the supplementary funding paid to local authorities by approximately £24 million to enable them to fully fund MNS for the whole of the 2019/20 academic year. This provides local authorities with the reassurance to allocate places for this September with confidence. The announcement was made with the agreement of HM Treasury. Next steps after the 2019/20 academic year will be determined by the next Spending Review.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure sufficient capacity for children and young people with vision impairments to be assessed by education and habilitation VI specialists to enable a plan to be devised for them to (a) access learning and (b) develop their independence.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
In relation to the capacity of education and habilitation VI specialists to allow for the assessment of all young people with vision impairment and to support their access to learning and the development of independence, I refer the hon. Member for West Lancashire to the answer I gave on 21 February 2019 to 222014.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of ring-fencing funding for low incidence high needs children, including those with a vision impairment to ensure that resources go directly to the children to (a) meet their needs and (b) ensure they are fully supported.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We believe that the decisions about the level of support required by individual children, and how much funding will be required to provide that support, are best taken by the child’s school or other education provider who works most closely with them and their parents and is therefore best placed to gauge what they need.
The special educational needs and disabilities reforms in the Children and Families Act (2014) have enabled greater personalisation of support through the use of a personal budget to provide children’s parents and young people with choice and control over the design of their care and education package. The personal budget is a sum of money made available by the local authority at the request of a parent or young person if it is clear that, without this additional funding, it will not be possible to meet the child’s learning needs.
Part or all of the personal budget payment can be paid directly to the family as a direct payment. This can be used for anything that achieves the child’s outcomes in their education, health and care plan, out of school activities, overnight short breaks or group activities supported by a personal assistant. It can also be used for targeted support such as specialist teacher services, sensory impairment support or speech and language therapy.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that there is a sustainable future for children’s services in West Lancashire.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Children's social care services in Lancashire were judged as ‘Requires Improvement' by Ofsted in August 2018. This followed a period of intervention by the department after an earlier ‘Inadequate’ judgement in 2015. As a result, services in Lancashire are now in a period of support and supervision and will receive regular support and challenge from the department to ensure that recent improvements are sustained.
The government is committed to improving outcomes for disadvantaged children and young people. That is why our children’s social care reform programme is working to deliver a highly capable, highly skilled social work workforce as well as high performing services everywhere and a national system of excellent and innovative practice.
The Autumn Budget announced a further £410 million in 2019-20 for local authorities to invest in adult and children’s social care services. We are also investing £84 million in targeted evidence-based interventions to unlock better work with vulnerable children and their families. This is in addition to the over £200 billion that was made available at the 2015 Spending Review until 2020 for councils to deliver local services, including children’s services.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing the national funding rate for sixth form students.
Answered by Anne Milton
We have protected the base rate of funding for 16 to 19 year olds for all types of providers until the end of the current spending review period in 2020. We are actively exploring the efficiency and resilience of post-16 education and will be assessing how far existing and forecast funding and regulatory structures enable high quality provision. As with other areas of departmental spending, 16 to 19 funding from 2020 onwards will be considered as part of the next Spending Review.