Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) guidance and (b) regulations have been produced on how social workers are able to spend devolved budgets in relation to What Works Centre change projects in (a) Darlington Borough Council, (b) Hillingdon Borough Council and (c) Wigan Council.

Darlington, Hillingdon and Wigan each have a contract in place with Cardiff University setting out that the devolved budgets are to be used by social workers to support families under Section 17 of the Children Act (1989). Each local authority is required to use appropriate procedures for governance and reporting of expenditure as a condition of receiving funding.