Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the publication MHCLG: spending over £25,000, January 2026, published on 25 February 2026, what the spending on transaction CFO & Corporate Coram (Thomas Coram Foundation), Ref: 5105609031, for £37,075 was for.

The Thomas Coram Foundation research contract was commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) as part of the Supporting Families programme in 2023. When the programme moved to the Department for Education (DfE) as part of a machinery of government change in 2024, the management of, and funding for, the research contract moved to DfE. The contract continues to be held in MHCLG for commercial reasons.

The research contract aims to test whether systemic practice is an effective way to work with families to achieve positive outcomes. It is a randomised control trial working with 12 local authorities. We expect to receive the findings later in the year.

Further information is available in the Supporting Families annual report which was published on 9 June 2025 and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-families-programme-annual-report-2024-to-2025.