Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what penalty clauses are in place in the Dart Charge operator’s contract in relation to penalty charges not issued on a timely basis.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The DFFC (Dartford Free Flow Charging) contract includes a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) which measures timely issuance of enforcement documentation. This KPI covers the issuance of the following documentation: Penalty Charges; Charge Certificates; Order for Recovery and Warrant of Execution. Enforcement documentation which does not meet set times can attract service points which equate to a financial penalty to the operator
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of annual write-offs have related to penalty charges not issued on a timely basis since the introduction of the Dart Charge in November 2014.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Since 2015/16, Highways England (HE) have been required to record estimated revenue loss in respect of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) not issued when they should have been. These figures are included within the annual accounts and are tabled below. In respect of 2018/19, this information will be available once the accounts are published in January 2020.
2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 |
£8.8m | £2.0m-£4.0m | £0.4m-£3.0m |
Source: Dartford & Thurrock River Crossing Accounts 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the level of annual Dart Charge (a) road user charge and (b) enforcement write-offs in respect of the Dartford-Thurrock river crossing since the introduction of the Dart Charge in November 2014.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The table below sets out the annual position as published within the Dartford-Thurrock River Crossing annual accounts, as well as the cumulative total. It should be noted that no Penalty Charge Notice cases were formally written off in 2014/15 - the write-off would have materialised in 2015/16. In respect of 2018/19, this information will be available once the annual accounts are published in January 2020.
£m | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | Total |
a. RUC | 0.0 | 0.5 | 6.2 | 4.5 | 11.1 |
b. PCN’s | 0.0 | 10.3 | 42.4 | 38.5 | 91.2 |
Total | 0.0 | 10.7 | 48.7 | 43.0 | 102.4 |
Source: Dartford & Thurrock River Crossing Accounts 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the correlation between funding for children’s services between 2010-11 and 2017-18 and the number of (a) referrals to children’s services, (b) referrals to children's services within 12 months, (c) children in need, (d) child protection enquiries, (e) child protection plans and (f) looked after children over that period.
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, including the move for local authorities to retain locally raised business rates. Therefore, wider spending power measures are not directly comparable over this period.
Over the 5 year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20, councils have access, through the LGFS, to over £200 billion to deliver local services, including children’s services. Core spending power 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.
Due to discontinuity in methods used for some of the data collected, we only look at trends in these numbers from 2013. The department’s data shows that since 2013, the number of referrals, children in need, child protection enquiries, children on child protection plans and looked after children at 31 March have risen by 10.5%, 7.1%, 50.9%, 24.5% and 10.7% respectively.
The most common factors recorded in children’s social care assessments are domestic abuse and mental health. These have been consistently the top 2 factors for the years during which we have collected this data and have risen in line with trends in demand.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the relationship between reductions in funding for children’s services and associated costs for (a) schools, (b) the police and (c) the NHS.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Local authorities have access to over £200bn to deliver services, including children’s services, between 2015 and 2020. Local government core spending power will increase in real terms next year.
At Budget 2018 we announced an additional £410m next year for adults and children’s social care, and £84m to support local authorities to expand programmes for children and families that have shown reduced costs to the police and the NHS.
We expect local authorities to continue to work closely with partner agencies to support and protect children in their area.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what the timetable is for the publication of the Government's response to the Gender Recognition Act consultation.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
From 3 July to 22 October 2018, the Government ran a public consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in order to make the gender recognition process less bureaucratic and intrusive for the people that use it.
We received over 100,000 responses to the consultation and we are now working to analyse these. We will publish the Government’s response in due course.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the long-term economic benefits of early intervention services for children and young people.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government has funded the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) since 2013, including almost £2 million in 2018-2020, to assess, evaluate and disseminate evidence of what works. The EIF has assessed the benefits of a wide range of specific early intervention programmes, and suggested that whilst producing robust estimates is challenging, there is a compelling argument that the costs of intervening early are likely to pay off to society in economic terms. In particular, they highlight that the long-term economic benefits are considerable where early intervention leads to labour market gains, such as improvements in employment and earnings.
The value of early intervention is reflected in statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ (2018), which is clear that providing early help is more effective in promoting children’s welfare than reacting later - playing an important part in supporting children and young people to achieve better outcomes. The government has also committed £920 million to the troubled families programme, an early intervention approach which aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for families with multiple, high-cost problems.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of central Government funding for children’s services in the most recent 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Funding for children’s services is made available through the Local Government Finance Settlement which gives local authorities flexibility to target spending according to local needs and to fulfil their statutory responsibilities, including children’s services. Through the Settlement, the government has made available over £200 billion across this five-year spending period. Local authorities used this flexibility to spend around £9.4 billion on children and young people’s services in 2017-18.
The government has listened to the sector which requested additional funding for social care. That is why we have provided flexibility of £410 million in grant funding for social care in 2019-20 to be directed according to what local authorities consider their top social care priorities, including children’s services.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children were referred to children’s social care for an assessment of need in (a) Greenwich and (b) Bexley in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and what funding was provided for children’s services in (i) Greenwich and (ii) Bexley in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The number of children referred to children’s social care is published in the annual ‘Characteristics of Children in need’ publication. The most recent publication is available on the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need-2017-to-2018/ and a table summarising the last five years for Greenwich and Bexley is attached.
As children’s services are delivered through local government, the vast majority of their funding comes through the Local Government Finance Settlement. However, as the responsibilities, structure and makeup of local authorities and the Department for Education have changed a great deal since 2009, central funding [department spend] to local government and wider spending power measures therefore are not directly comparable over this period.
Over the 5 year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20, councils have access, through the Settlement, to over £200 billion to deliver local services. For Bexley and Greenwich this means core spending power of:
(Available figures)
| 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 |
Bexley | £155,154,372 | £157,014,982 | £159,902,295 | £162,024,253 |
Greenwich | £219,920,182 | £226,780,981 | £231,040,760 | £233,211,791 |
This core spending power is un-ring fenced and it is for local authorities (LAs) to determine spend across different areas according to local priorities, including children’s services.
In addition to this the Autumn Budget announced a further £410 million in 2019-20 for LAs to invest in adult and children’s social care services. It also announced £84 million of extra funding, over the next five years, to support LAs to invest in initiatives that improve social work practice and decision making.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the causes of the recent increase in the number of looked after children in England.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
At 31 March 2018, there were 75,420 looked-after children in England, 4% up on the previous year, following a small fall in the number entering care, but also a decrease in the number leaving.
When a child is assessed by children’s services, their primary need is recorded. 47,530 children were identified as having a primary need of ‘abuse or neglect’ - the most common reason identified. 11,270 were in need due to ‘family dysfunction’ and 5,980 were due to the ‘family being in acute stress’. 4,860 were identified as in need due to ‘absent parenting’, almost all of whom are unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. These have been the four highest categories each year since 2014 and have each individually seen an upward trend.
This data is available in the report ‘Children looked after in England including adoption in 2017 to 2018’ and in Table A1 of the accompanying supporting data at: