Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to meet the pressures on local authority children's services and adult social care identified by the Office for Budget Responsibility in its November 2017 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

The Department for Education (DfE) has responsibility for local authority children’s services.

The Spending Review 2015 made available more than £200 billion to councils for local services (including children’s services) up to 2019-20. Local authorities (LAs) increased spending on children and young people’s services to around £9.2 billion in 2016-17.

To help the children’s social care sector innovate and re-design service delivery to achieve high quality and value for money, DfE has invested £200 million since 2014 in its Innovation Programme and Partners in Practice Programme. As part of this, DfE have committed £20 million to provide additional support to LAs where the risk of service failure is highest.

At the 2017 spring budget the Chancellor announced an additional £2 billion will be given to councils over the next three years for adult social care. This meant that, by the start of this financial year, the Government had given councils access to £9.25 billion more dedicated funding for adult social care over the next three years.

The 2017 autumn Budget has provided an additional £42 million for the Disabled Facilities Grant for the rest of the 2017-18 financial year, taking funding for this year to £473 million.