Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which local authorities children's services departments are exempt from statutory guidance; what those exemptions are; and what steps his Department takes to monitor and review those exemptions.

Six local authorities are currently exempt from statutory guidance. These are:

• Hackney;
• Hammersmith & Fulham;
• Hartlepool;
• Kensington & Chelsea;
• Wandsworth; and
• Westminster.

These local authorities are testing a more flexible assessment process with the aim of delivering improved outcomes and focussed interventions for children and families. Each local authority is subject to conditions including if any concerns arise about the safety of children, the flexibility may be withdrawn. These exemptions relate to the following timescales from ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ statutory guidance:

• 45 working days for completion of social work assessments;
• 15 working days between the strategy discussion and the initial child protection conference; and
• 10 working days from the initial child protection conference to the first core group meeting if a child becomes the subject of a child protection plan.

Exemption from these timescales allow for local authority innovation in service delivery and empower social workers and their managers to determine the complex balance between ‘thoroughness and depth’ and the ‘timeliness and proportionality’ of each assessment.

These trials were instigated post the 2011 Munro Review of Child Protection.

All local authorities are monitored through regular Ofsted inspection regimes.