Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 October 2024 to Question 6377 on Children in Care, whether her Department plans to collect data on the number of children removed from a family who have previously had a child removed from their care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the need to improve the data available about children’s social care, including making it more relevant to the experience of children, young people and families. A core part of this work includes understanding the data needs of the children’s social care sector as a whole and scoping ways in which data gaps may be addressed over time.
Existing statutory data is captured about the child and does not capture the complex nature of families such as those where siblings do not live in the same family home. Addressing data gaps in children’s social care will be a long-term endeavour due to the need to agree data definitions and standards, as well as to redesign local authority and departmental systems before rolling out nationally.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the (a) voices and (b) experiences of birth parents who have experienced the removal of children from their care are included in (i) policymaking and (ii) service provision in the children's social care system.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to engaging widely with those with lived experience of children’s social care, as well as all interested stakeholders, to help us drive the right change and scale up good practice in children’s social care across the country.
Hearing the views of those with lived experience of children’s social care and responding to their recommendations is an important part of national and local children’s social care policy development and delivery. At a national level, the department has parents, including birth parents, and carers who sit on strategic advisory boards and policy reference groups covering different aspects of children’s social care reform policy. We have also engaged parents and families on consultations on children’s social care reform. The Supporting Families programme and the Families First for Children Pathfinder also ensure children and families’ voices inform service design and delivery.
The department recognises there is more to do, and we continue to explore ways to grow and develop our ongoing engagement with those with lived experience of children’s social care, including parents and families.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential (a) merits and (b) financial savings of increasing investment in support for parents following the removal of a child from their care to prevent repeat removals.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to whole-system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve. We recognise that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention and whole family working to support families with multiple issues before they reach crisis point, to stay together and thrive. This is at the heart of our reform agenda to rebalance the children’s social care system toward earlier intervention, which is aimed at improving families’ lives today, their outcomes in the future, and reducing costs to public services.
Central to this ambition is testing a new model of Family Help which builds on best practice from well-evidenced programmes such as Supporting Families and Pause, which feature whole-family working and lead practitioners providing dedicated support to prevent re-referrals.
The independent evaluation of the Supporting Families programme showed improved outcomes and positive returns on investment where every £1 spent on the programme delivered £2.28 of benefits. It also found a reduction of one third in the likelihood of children going into care two years after joining the programme, as well as reduced youth and adult crime, reduced domestic abuse, reduced benefits claims, reduced substance misuse, improved mental health, improved school attendance and reduced exclusions (evaluated between 2015 and 2020).
Through the Families First for Children Pathfinder and Family network pilot the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole-family support in 10 pathfinder local authorities, where multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks, involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage, and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home. The pathfinder is being independently evaluated. Early evaluation findings are expected in spring 2025.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that parents receive appropriate support after children are removed from their care to prevent recurrence.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to whole-system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve. We recognise that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention and whole family working to support families with multiple issues before they reach crisis point, to stay together and thrive. This is at the heart of our reform agenda to rebalance the children’s social care system toward earlier intervention, which is aimed at improving families’ lives today, their outcomes in the future, and reducing costs to public services.
Central to this ambition is testing a new model of Family Help which builds on best practice from well-evidenced programmes such as Supporting Families and Pause, which feature whole-family working and lead practitioners providing dedicated support to prevent re-referrals.
The independent evaluation of the Supporting Families programme showed improved outcomes and positive returns on investment where every £1 spent on the programme delivered £2.28 of benefits. It also found a reduction of one third in the likelihood of children going into care two years after joining the programme, as well as reduced youth and adult crime, reduced domestic abuse, reduced benefits claims, reduced substance misuse, improved mental health, improved school attendance and reduced exclusions (evaluated between 2015 and 2020).
Through the Families First for Children Pathfinder and Family network pilot the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole-family support in 10 pathfinder local authorities, where multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks, involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage, and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home. The pathfinder is being independently evaluated. Early evaluation findings are expected in spring 2025.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to prevent the recurrence of child removals from the same families.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to whole-system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve. We recognise that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention and whole family working to support families with multiple issues before they reach crisis point, to stay together and thrive. This is at the heart of our reform agenda to rebalance the children’s social care system toward earlier intervention, which is aimed at improving families’ lives today, their outcomes in the future, and reducing costs to public services.
Central to this ambition is testing a new model of Family Help which builds on best practice from well-evidenced programmes such as Supporting Families and Pause, which feature whole-family working and lead practitioners providing dedicated support to prevent re-referrals.
The independent evaluation of the Supporting Families programme showed improved outcomes and positive returns on investment where every £1 spent on the programme delivered £2.28 of benefits. It also found a reduction of one third in the likelihood of children going into care two years after joining the programme, as well as reduced youth and adult crime, reduced domestic abuse, reduced benefits claims, reduced substance misuse, improved mental health, improved school attendance and reduced exclusions (evaluated between 2015 and 2020).
Through the Families First for Children Pathfinder and Family network pilot the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole-family support in 10 pathfinder local authorities, where multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks, involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage, and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home. The pathfinder is being independently evaluated. Early evaluation findings are expected in spring 2025.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children entering care each year are from a family who have previously had a child removed from their care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is unable to answer the question. We only collect data on individual children and do not collect data on families.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Children’s Wellbeing Bill will include provisions to tackle repeat removals of children from the same families.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children’s Wellbeing Bill will ensure our education and children’s social care systems transform life chances for millions of children and young people in England. The department will deliver our manifesto commitments on children’s social care to ensure that all children can thrive in safe, loving homes. More information will be shared about the Bill in due course.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information his Department holds on the rate of remuneration for (a) cleaners, (b) security guards and (c) catering staff in his Department in (i) Greater London and (ii) outside Greater London.
Answered by Anne Milton
The department does not employ cleaners, security guards and catering staff.
Cleaning, security duties and catering services in buildings managed by the department are outsourced under facilities management contracts. Suppliers are responsible for setting rates of pay for their staff and rates vary dependent on the age and location of staff and market rates. All suppliers are required to pay, as a minimum, either the National Minimum Wage or the National Living Wage. The rates set by the government for the National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage will rise in April 2019.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much was paid in (a) tuition fee loans and (b) maintenance loans with respect to students undertaking undergraduate midwifery courses (a) in total and (b) on average per student midwife in each academic year since 2016-17; and what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of such loans that will be repaid by people who received them.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Information on the loans paid to students on higher education courses is published annually by the Student Loans Company in the statistics publication Student Support for Higher Education in England.
https://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx.
A breakdown of these statistics by subject of study is not available.
Information on the proportion of student loans not expected to be repaid is published annually by the department in the statistics publication Student Loan Forecasts, England.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/student-loan-forecasts-england-2017-to-2018.
A breakdown of these statistics by subject of study is not available.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff in his Department that work (a) inside and (b) outside Greater London are paid at a rate below the Real Living Wage.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Department for Education and its executive agencies staff, including all those inside and outside of Greater London are all paid at least the Real Living Wage.
All staff based inside Greater London are paid at least the London Living Wage. There are 103 staff based outside Greater London that are paid below the London Living Wage but are all paid the Real Living Wage.