Asked by: Edward Timpson (Conservative - Eddisbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the report from Coram entitled, Charter for Children: A Call for Change for the next generation, published December 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department welcomes Coram’s ‘Charter for Children’, and is grateful for Coram’s work supporting children, young people and families. The government is committed to prioritising the needs of children, ensuring that their best interests are at the centre of policy and decision making. Responsibility for the recommendations covers several government departments. The department will consider the Charter’s recommendations as part of the up-coming Spending Review.
Asked by: Edward Timpson (Conservative - Eddisbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the CMA's report entitled Children’s social care market study final report, published on 10 March 2022, whether the children’s social care dashboard will identify (a) placement capacity constraints in specific geographical areas and (b) the frequency with which placements do not meet children's needs due to such constraints.
Answered by David Johnston
The department is continuing to develop the indicators chosen to measure the outcomes and enablers identified in the National Framework.
The Children’s Social Care National Framework and Dashboard consultation response included a long list of indicators that are continuing to be tested, to measure feasibility and reliability for use, including placement measures.
The response is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1185764/Children_s_social_care_national_framework_and_dashboard_consultation_response.pdf.
The department anticipates publishing an update on the target scope for the first version of the dashboard in the near future.
Asked by: Edward Timpson (Conservative - Eddisbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress she has made on implementing the children's social care national framework and dashboard.
Answered by David Johnston
The Children’s Social Care National Framework (National Framework), along with proposed Children’s Social Care Dashboard (Dashboard) indicators, were published for consultation at the same time as the government’s strategy for children’s social care, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, in February 2023. The National Framework describes the outcomes that children’s social care should achieve when supporting children, young people and families. The Dashboard will serve as a learning tool for local and central government. It will have a national set of indicators, to help understand progress towards the children’s social care outcomes, and to support learning and improvement at a local, regional, and national level.
The consultation took place over 14 weeks and gathered a range of views from the online consultation and over 30 engagement events that involved around 500 people from local authorities, education, health, and police, as well as members of the public. The government response to the consultation was published in September 2023 and committed to iterating the National Framework, giving more prominence to the important role of practice supervisors, as well as adding a new chapter on how multi-agency working enables good outcomes.
The National Framework will be issued as statutory guidance by the end of the year. Local authorities will have a one-year implementation period, and government has committed to provide advice to local authorities on embedding the National Framework. A phased roll-out of the Dashboard will begin in 2024 so that the department can test, evaluate and iterate the Dashboard.