Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel's report entitled Safeguarding children at risk from criminal exploitation published on 4 March 2020, what plans his Department has to undertake a review of Working Together 2018.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The government welcomes the 'Safeguarding children at risk from criminal exploitation' report from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and thanks them for their detailed work and consideration. Child protection is a priority and when a child dies or faces serious harm and it is vital that lessons are learned from these tragedies. The government thanks the Panel for its recommendations and is considering carefully how to respond. In doing so, my ministerial colleagues and I will discuss the report with the Panel, and with those delivering children's social care and other interested parties.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Safeguarding children at risk from criminal exploitation report, published by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel on 4 March 2020, whether he plans to take steps to improve the National Referral Mechanism for children at risk of criminal exploitation.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The government welcomes the 'Safeguarding children at risk from criminal exploitation' report from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and thanks them for their detailed work and consideration. Child protection is a priority and when a child dies or faces serious harm and it is vital that lessons are learned from these tragedies. The government thanks the Panel for its recommendations and is considering carefully how to respond. In doing so, my ministerial colleagues and I will discuss the report with the Panel, and with those delivering children's social care and other interested parties.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s report entitled Safeguarding children at risk from criminal exploitation: review, published on 4 March 2020, if his Department will work with the (a) Home Office, (b) Youth Justice Board, (c) Association of Directors of Children’s Services and (d) police to agree a simple dataset on child criminal exploitation for local collection.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The government welcomes the 'Safeguarding children at risk from criminal exploitation' report from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and thanks them for their detailed work and consideration. Child protection is a priority and when a child dies or faces serious harm and it is vital that lessons are learned from these tragedies. The government thanks the Panel for its recommendations and is considering carefully how to respond. In doing so, my ministerial colleagues and I will discuss the report with the Panel, and with those delivering children's social care and other interested parties.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential effect on the wellbeing of vulnerable children of the UK's departure from the EU; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education made extensive preparations for leaving the EU based on government planning assumptions to ensure continued support for vulnerable children. We are working with the Home Office and local authorities to ensure that vulnerable children in the care system secure a status under the EU Settlement Scheme and have their rights protected in future.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Education, whether his Department collects data from local authorities on the number of (a) trafficked and (b) at risk children in their care.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The latest information on episodes of need where trafficking was identified as a factor at the end of assessment is included in the department’s ‘Characteristics of children in need: 2018 to 2019’ statistical publication, available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need-2018-to-2019.
Table C3 of this publication shows that, at a national level, trafficking was identified as a factor at the end of assessment in 2,490 (0.5%) of the 498,870 episodes with assessment factor information in the year ending 31 March 2019.
Information on looked-after children is collected from local authorities in the annual looked-after children census, but does not include information on whether the child is specifically considered to be at risk of being trafficked.
The latest information on looked-after children is published in the ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2018 to 2019’ statistical release, available at the following link:
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 February 2020 to Question 11622, on Pupils: Mental Health, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of standardising the tools such as surveys used by schools to monitor their pupils’ wellbeing.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools and colleges have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils by providing support and activities tailored to their particular needs. It is up to schools to decide what support to offer pupils and what measurement tools to use to inform those decisions.
The Department is working on guidance which will build upon the toolkit[1] issued by Public Health England. It will set out how schools can use existing measurement tools to inform different aspects of their provision. The Department will consider the use and suitability of existing tools, and decide whether to take any further action to support schools in the context of that work.
[1] https://www.annafreud.org/media/4612/mwb-toolki-final-draft-4.pdf.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department's policy is to support foster carers to maintain contact with children that they have fostered.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Maintaining contact is consistently one of the most important issues raised by children and young people. Many children value the relationships that they have, not only with family, but also with previous carers. Children should be supported and encouraged to maintain positive and constructive contact with all those who are important to them and this should include previous foster parents unless this is not consistent with the child’s best interest.
The department is currently talking to the sector to find ways that foster parents can be supported with all aspects of contact, including contact with children that they have previously fostered.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that fostering services are paying (a) at or (b) above the national minimum allowance level to foster carers.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The National Minimum Standards for fostering services are clear that every foster parent should receive an allowance that covers the full cost of caring for a child. Whilst local authorities determine the allowance paid to foster parents in their area, the National Minimum Allowance (NMA) serves as a baseline to the minimum amount that foster parents can expect to receive per week to cover the cost of a child living in their home.
The NMA rates for 2020-21 were published on 6 February. We have notified Directors of Children’s Services and reiterated that whilst it is not mandatory in regulations, we expect all fostering services to pay at least this amount.