Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for children's services in light of the finding of the report published by Barnardo's, the Children's Society, Action for Children, the NSPCC and the National Children's Bureau that there has been a £2.2 billion decline in available funding for children's services over the last decade.

The government announced at the Local Government Finance Settlement that English councils' core spending power is rising by over £2.9 billion this financial year. This includes £1 billion of new grant funding that can be used flexibly by local authorities to deliver adult and children’s social care services. Further to this, the government has provided over £3.2 billion of additional funding to support local authorities in meeting COVID-19 related pressures including on children’s services. We will keep this under very close review over the coming weeks and months.

Longer term funding decisions are for this year’s Spending Review.