Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will set out a timeline for completing and publishing the Department for Education's work with the National Workload Action Group to consider "drivers of unnecessary workload" for social workers; and if so, when.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)

The National Workload Action Group will provide its final report to the department no later than January 2025, with insights and considerations for reducing unnecessary workload for social workers. Ministers will then consider the best way to take forward findings from the report and next steps.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the £90 million of funding announced in the Autumn Budget for children’s homes is new funding; how many places will be funded; and where those places will be located.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)

The Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2024 represented HM Government’s decisions on future spending in the context of the unfunded pressures, across both capital and resource spend, which the new government inherited in July and which my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, set out.

The government has decided to invest further in supporting the development of children’s social care. £86 million of the £90 million funding announced in the Autumn Budget for 2025/26 represents the decision to invest in the Children’s Homes capital programme to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure and open residential children’s homes. The remaining £4 million will support smaller capital initiatives linked to the new government’s wider ambition to reform of children’s social care.

The programme will support the provision of up to 550 open children’s home placements nationwide, including a new bidding round launched to increase provision for children with complex needs.

The programme is intending to support the provision of around 80 additional secure children’s home placements nationwide. Currently, this includes the building of new or replacement homes in Lincolnshire, Devon, Hampshire, and in London and West Midlands regions. There will be improvement works undertaken at other existing homes nationwide that may expand provision.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish the results from the Market Interventions Advisory Group on the children’s social care market; and if so, when.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)

The Markets Interventions Advisory Group was established to advise the department on options for addressing the systemic issues in the children's social care placement market, as identified by the Competition and Market Authority in their 2022 report and the independent review of children’s social care, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-childrens-social-care-final-report.

The work of the group, the reports set out above and engagement with a range of stakeholders fed into our policy paper ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’, which was published on 18 November 2024. It sets out the government’s ambitious plans to fix the dysfunctional care market and crackdown on the excessive and exploitative profits made by some private providers.

Found: BARONESS MONCKTON OF DALLINGTON FOREST BARONESS NEVILLE-ROLFE BARONESS BARRAN 14_ Clause 1, page 1

Found: At the very start of FY2024-25, SLC welcomed Baroness Barran MBE, Minister for the School System and