Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that Family Hubs are delivering against minimum expectations laid out in guidance for working with local partners to deliver youth justice services.

The government is committed to ensuring that families can access joined-up support through Best Start Family Hubs (BSFH). The department’s guidance sets out minimum expectations for BSFH staff to identify risk factors that contribute to potential offending behaviour, to be aware of child criminal exploitation and relevant support programmes and services, and to work with serious violence prevention programmes.

Local authorities are responsible for shaping delivery to reflect local needs and for determining how they deliver against these wider services expectations.

All local authorities have published a Best Start in Life local plan, setting out how services will be integrated to support a cohesive multi-agency approach for children and young people. They have also developed BSFH delivery plans explaining how programme funding will be used to deliver against programme expectations.

The department supports and monitors BSFH delivery through these plans, local-authority data returns and regular engagement with local authorities.