Children: Social Services

(asked on 4th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference page 36 of the NAO report entitled Pressures on children's social care, published on 23 January 2019, what progress his Department has made on the effect of deprivation on (a) demand for and (b) activity within children's social care.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 7th February 2019

The department publishes information on the average weekly spend per residential care place for a child, by local authority, in the local authority interactive tool (LAIT). This can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-interactive-tool-lait.

This shows a number of unit cost calculations relating to the children in need population, including total outturn spend on residential care divided by total number of residential care days provided per week by local authority.

There are a range of factors that will lead to variation in the amount of money spent per child, including the needs and circumstances of the children supported and accommodated. These factors will influence the services provided to children and the cost of their accommodation.

The ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ guidance (2018) can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2.

This guidance is clear that local safeguarding partners should publish a threshold document, which sets out the local criteria for action in a way that is transparent, accessible and easily understood. This should include criteria, including the level of need, for statutory social care services. There are a range of factors that will lead to variation, including the needs and circumstances of children and families in a local authority area. Whether thresholds are set appropriately and well understood, is inspected by Ofsted and factored into their independent judgements on the quality of services locally.

Demand for children’s services is associated with a number of factors including deprivation. The most deprived local authorities have more looked after children (per 10,000 0-17 year olds), and these rates have grown faster, than the least deprived local authorities.

In preparation for the Spending Review, to help ensure decisions are based on the best available evidence, the government is working with the sector to develop a sharper and more granular picture of demand for children’s services.

We are also working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government as part of the government’s review of relative needs and resources, where new, up-to-date formulas are being developed to ensure funding distribution to councils is based on the best available evidence.

We welcome the contributions from the sector in this area including 'Newton Europe’s Making Sense' (2018) report and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services continuing research reports, 'Safeguarding Pressures' (2018).

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