Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that personal budgets for looked after children, those at risk of entering care, adopted children, and care leavers, are spent on evidence-based interventions and not on the replication of services offered by universal provision.

Personal health budgets and the Adoption Support Fund (ASF) are generally used for interventions that are not universally offered or commissioned locally, offering access to support that would not ordinarily be available to meet the child’s needs.

The use of personal health budgets for looked after children and young people is being piloted and independently evaluated. The evaluation includes assessment of the benefits of personal health budgets, including impact on mental health outcomes. Regular reviews also take place at an individual level to ensure the support provided continues to meet the child’s needs.

An independent evaluation of the ASF was published in August 2017, which can be found attached. The government gave a commitment, in ‘Adoption: a vision for change’, also attached, to strengthen the evidence base of ‘what works’ in terms of preventative and therapeutic adoption support. The department is currently exploring ways to achieve this, including through use of the findings of a new independent evaluation of the ASF, monitoring the impact of the fund for children, families, local authorities and providers.