Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when children's social care services in Doncaster were transferred to a trust; what were the costs, including legal fees, of making the transfer; how long the transfer took to implement once the decision in principle was made; what Ofsted inspections have taken place in Doncaster since the trust's establishment; and what was the Ofsted rating of the services in any such reports.

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council was issued with a Statutory Direction in August 2013, which required the Council to cooperate in setting up a Trust. The Trust became operational on 30 September 2014. The Department for Education met the costs of setting up the trust, which came to £2.9 million.

Ofsted inspected children’s services in Doncaster in September 2015. The judgement was inadequate overall. However, the inspection found improvement since the previous inspection in 2012, when all sub-judgements were inadequate. In 2015 all sub-judgements were requires improvement, save for children in need of help and protection, which was inadequate; and adoption performance, which was good.