Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much Start for Life funding her Department budgeted for distribution to participating local authorities in the 2022-23 financial year; and how much and what proportion of that funding was received by those local authorities as of 31 January 2023.

The department budgeted the following to spend on grants for the 75 local authorities on the Family Hubs Start for Life Programme in 2022/23:

• Family Hubs Transformation Fund Grant: £17,480,000 (Revenue and Capital)
• Family Hubs Parenting Support Grant: £9,800,000
• Home Learning Environment Grant: £12,900,000

The remainder of the grants paid to local authorities for the Family Hubs Start for Life Programme in 2022-23 are grants from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). These grants cover perinatal mental health, including parent and infant relationships, infant feeding, parent and carer panels, Start for Life publishing, and workforce trials.

As of 31 January 2023, all local authorities had been paid their first of two grants for 2022/23. The Department have paid the following in grants to local authorities up to and including 31 January 2023:

• Family Hubs Transformation Fund Grant: £8,740,000(Revenue and Capital)
• Family Hubs Parenting Support Grant: £4,873,851
• Home Learning Environment Grant: £6,403,518

Local authorities will receive their second and final grant payment for 2022/23 in March 2023, with the majority receiving this by 13 March 2023.