Julia Buckley

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the Government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country. We will be ensuring that AI is used to drive the government’s missions and priorities. We are committed to building an AI sector that can scale and win globally, through the AI Opportunities Action Plan which will be published this Autumn. It will outline an approach to delivering the opportunities AI can bring across the system, setting out our governments ambition.

Departmental officials are in regular contact with Shropshire Local Area Partnership to ensure children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families are provided with positive experiences and outcomes, helping to foster a shared sense of responsibility and accountability for inclusion.

This government is committed to taking a community-wide approach in collaboration with Local Area Partnerships, improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to those with the most complex needs.

Following the last Ofsted inspection, departmental officials have been working with Shropshire Council to closely monitor progress against the areas for improvement identified by inspectors. The department has appointed a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) advisor to support and work alongside Shropshire Council and the local area partnership.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with SEND or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. The department is committed to taking a community-wide approach in collaboration with local area partnerships, improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to those with the most complex needs.

The future of the Holiday Activities and Food programme beyond 31 March 2025, is subject to the next government Spending Review taking place this autumn. The department will communicate the outcome of that process in due course.

Protecting communities around the country from flooding and coastal erosion is one of the new Secretary of State’s five core priorities.

This Government will improve resilience and preparation across central government, local authorities, local communities and emergency services to better protect communities across the UK. We will launch a new Flood Resilience Taskforce to turbocharge the delivery of new flood defences, drainage systems and natural flood management schemes, which will ensure we’re prepared for the future and help grow our economy.

We will review the current 6-year capital programme (2021-2027) to ensure flood risk management is fit for the challenges we face now and in the future.

The programme is currently forecast to invest over £150 million across the English Severn and Wye Catchment, with almost £30 million of this to be invested in Shropshire, better protecting almost 450 homes and businesses there.

The Environment Agency also maintains existing flood risk management assets in Shrewsbury which better protect 154 properties from flooding, and provides a free Flood Warning Service to residents in the constituency.

The Department for Transport sets the legislation that governs the Blue Badge scheme and provides guidance for local authorities who are solely responsible for administering the scheme, including issuing the badges.

There are no timescales set for administering applications other than a suggested guideline that issuing authorities should aim to complete end to end applications within 12 weeks.

80% of citizens apply for a badge using the Blue Badge Digital Service (BBDS) operated by the Department for Transport. The Department has a programme of continuous improvement of the digital service with the aim of making online badge applications quicker and easier for applicants and local authorities.

As a general principle, Blue Badge eligibility is based on mobility. Reapplying for a badge every three years gives local authorities the opportunity to reassess badge holders when their badges expire, ensuring that they continue to meet the criteria which makes them eligible for a badge. It also serves the purpose of making sure that the details local authorities hold about the badge holder, and those that are displayed on the badge itself, remain correct.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service and the latest statistics are available up to March 2024. The next release covering the statistics to June 2024 is scheduled for Tuesday 24th September 2024 at 09:30am.

The total value of child maintenance that has not been paid and now needs to be collected through ‘Collect and Pay’ at the end of March 2024 was £634.9 million, as shown in Table 6 of the National tables.

The following information is a summary from the latest publication for data up to March 2024.

• In the 12 months up to March 2024 the child maintenance service arranged £1.4 billion child maintenance, an increase from £1.2 billion during the previous 12 months.
• 61% of all CMS arrangements use Direct Pay, with 37% using Collect and Pay and just over one billion pounds was arranged through the Direct Pay service in the last 12 months (we do not measure the compliance of Paying Parents on the Direct Pay service).
• Since March 2023, the percentage of parents paying something towards their maintenance through collect & pay has increased from 65% to 69%.
• In the period April 2023 to March 2024 £316.8 million was arranged through the Collect & Pay service:

o £224.9 million was paid

o £91.9 million was unpaid

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) always encourages paying parents to pay their maintenance on time, to avoid accrual of arrears. Where a paying parent fails to pay on time or in full, the CMS aims to take immediate action to recover the debt and re-establish compliance. The CMS will initially negotiate a payment that is feasible for the parent to pay. If this is unsuccessful and the paying parent is employed, the CMS will use a Deductions from Earnings Order (DEO) to take payment directly from their wages. The CMS has a range of strong enforcement powers that can be used against those who consistently refuse to meet their obligations to provide financial support to their children. These powers include the ability to deduct directly from the paying parent’s bank accounts, forcing the sale of property and disqualifications from holding or obtaining driving licenses and passports. We are committed to making the most effective use of these strong enforcement powers and have made a number of improvements to our enforcement process to make it quicker and more efficient.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) aims to provide a high-quality service to all its customers. The CMS treats parents equally as individuals based on their roles within the scheme and makes no reference to gender. The Department has a specific duty to assess the impact of proposed policies and services and any changes to them on equality to ensure the Department meets its Public Sector Equality Duty obligations.

A principle of child maintenance is to increase levels of cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide their children with financial support. Where a family-based child maintenance arrangement is not suitable the Child Maintenance Service offers a statutory scheme for those parents who need it.

The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement which includes liability orders. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.

The Department plans to bring forward changes to allow Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to make an administrative liability order against a person who has failed to pay child maintenance and is in arrears. The administrative liability order will replace the current requirement for the CMS to apply to the court for a liability order, which can take up to 22 weeks. We expect the new liability order process to take around six to eight weeks, meaning CMS can use its strong enforcement powers more quickly for those who seek to avoid their financial obligations to their children.

We will bring forward the legislation as soon as possible.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service and the latest statistics are available up to March 2024. The next release to June 2024 is scheduled for Tuesday 24th September 2024 at 09:30am.

The statistics for liability orders are shown in Table 7.1 of the National tables. The relevant data taken from that table, covering the period requested, is shown in the following table:

Liability Orders in process and money collected in Great Britain, and Liability Orders applied for and granted in England and Wales, July 2023 to March 2024

Source: Child Maintenance Service Administrative and Clerical Data

Notes:

1. This table includes actions taken to collect both maintenance arranged by the Child Maintenance Service, and Child Support Agency arrears that have been transitioned to Child Maintenance Service systems. This may include actions taken against parents for whom no ongoing maintenance has been arranged under the Child Maintenance Service.

2. Figures are rounded to the nearest 100 or £100,000.

3. "In Process" counts give the number of Paying Parents for which the relevant enforcement action was ongoing at the end of the quarter. "Ongoing" includes the period in which the action was being formally considered, in addition to the period during which the action was actively being progressed.

4. A Paying Parent can be taken to court over unpaid child maintenance. Courts can grant a Liability Order, which is a legal recognition that a debt is owed. This enables recovery of the debt through further Civil Enforcement Actions, e.g. referral to an enforcement agency.

5. Some Liability Order figures are restricted to England and Wales and exclude Scotland, this is indicated in the row title where relevant.

The Department plans to bring forward changes to allow the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to make an administrative liability order against a person who has failed to pay child maintenance and is in arrears. The administrative liability order will replace the current requirement for the CMS to apply to the court for a liability order, which is an outdated process and can take up to 22 weeks. We expect the new liability order process to take around six to eight weeks, meaning the CMS can use its strong enforcement powers more quickly to go after those who wilfully avoid their financial obligations to their children.

We will bring forward the legislation as soon as possible.

No assessment has been made by the Government. The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) oversees the work of the statutory bodies that regulate health professionals in the United Kingdom, including the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

On 30 August 2024, the PSA published its 2023/24 performance review of the HCPC. The HCPC met 16 out of 18 of the PSA’s Standards of Good Regulation. The HCPC met all four of the PSA’s standards on registration including Standard 11, that the regulator’s process for registration, including appeals, operates proportionately, fairly, and efficiently, with decisions clearly explained.

No assessment has been made by the Government. The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) oversees the work of the statutory bodies that regulate health professionals in the United Kingdom, including the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

On 30 August 2024, the PSA published its 2023/24 performance review of the HCPC. The HCPC met 16 out of 18 of the PSA’s Standards of Good Regulation. The HCPC met all four of the PSA’s standards on registration including Standard 11, that the regulator’s process for registration, including appeals, operates proportionately, fairly, and efficiently, with decisions clearly explained.

No specific assessment has been made. Shared care records are in place in all integrated care boards, allowing information from general practice and acute settings to be shared for direct care.

The Frontline Digitisation programme is working to improve the digital maturity of all providers so that they have adequate enabling hardware, robust connectivity, electronic patient record systems, and other core capabilities in place.

The Data Information and Smart Data Bill announced in the King's Speech will include the statutory power to require IT suppliers to adhere to information standards. This will help ensure there is a ‘common language’ for health and care software systems to talk to each other, across all health and care settings.

Under the GP Contracts, premises liabilities are the responsibility of the contractor. Overall contractual payments reflect this arrangement, with the National Health Service also reimbursing direct premises costs including rent, business rates, water, and clinical waste.

There are 8,842 practice premises across England, of these, 51% are leased premises. The NHS is not a formal party to the leases on these properties. If NHS England were to consider a formal underwriting of the leases, legal advice notes, that would constitute a commitment, which would require capitalisation under the International Financial Accounting Standard IFRS16, and limited NHS capital budgets would have to be diverted to offset this commitment, in addition to the payment of rents against the properties.

This would provide, in effect, a double payment of costs against the asset and would commit substantial capital funds to the exercise, limiting the ability of integrated care systems to invest in the primary care estate, address secondary and community care, mental health services, and critical and usual infrastructure maintenance requirements, significantly adversely affecting the overall investment plans for communities. As a result, NHS England considers that a formal underwriting of leases would not provide best use of public funds.

We want a society where every person receives high-quality, compassionate care, including at end of life. We understand that, financially, times are difficult for many voluntary and charitable organisations, including hospices, due to the increased cost of living. We want a society where these costs are manageable for both voluntary organisations, like hospices, and the people whom they serve.

The Government is going to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community, and we recognise that hospices will play a vital role. We will consider next steps, including funding, on palliative and end of life care more widely in the coming months.