Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many family hubs will be established in England; and what proportion of those hubs will be situated in the North West.

The government is committed to championing the Family Hub model. Between 2019 and 2021 we announced £39.5 million in support of this commitment, including:

• In the North West region, funding Bolton, Salford, Stockport, and Warrington to progress work on family hubs, through the Children’s Social Care COVID-19 Regional Recovery and Building Back Better Fund, which runs to the end of the 2021/22 financial year.

• A £12 million Family Hubs Transformation Fund which will support at least 12 local authorities in England to transform to a family hub model of service delivery. Local authorities were invited to apply for up to £1 million to pay for the change process through both programme and capital funding. The deadline to apply has now passed, and we are currently reviewing applications.

At the Budget on 21 November 2021, the government announced a further £82 million to create a network of family hubs. This is part of a wider £300 million package to transform services for parents, carers, babies, and children in half of council areas across England.

The Department for Education and Department for Health and Social Care are working to determine the best approach for selecting local authorities and distributing the funding. We will set out more detail on this programme in due course.