Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of children who have been supported by the SAFE Taskforce since 2021; and if she will make an assessment of the impact of those Taskforces on (a) pupils’ attendance, (b) exclusion rates and (c) pupils' attitudes to education.

Since commencing, in December 2021, the SAFE (‘Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed’) taskforces have established a local partnership led by schools, completed a comprehensive strategic needs assessment and begun delivery including interventions to support secondary school transition.

The department does not yet hold data on the number of young people who have been supported by the SAFE taskforces, but the taskforces will be collecting data on the pupils receiving support on a termly basis, as part of the independent evaluation.

RAND Europe, in consortium with FFT Datalab and University of Westminster, have been commissioned by the Youth Endowment Fund to conduct the evaluation of the SAFE programme. The programme evaluation, due to be completed by summer 2026, will include an impact evaluation element, along with a process and cost evaluation strand. The department expects the impact assessment to consider the impact of the programme on pupils’ post-16 outcomes, school attendance and behaviour, and involvement in serious youth violence.