Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of Ofsted’s reviews of local authority children’s services departments.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Ofsted has a crucial role to play in upholding standards in children’s social care and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services through inspection. In 2024 Ofsted conducted the Big Listen, the biggest consultation in Ofsted’s history. The consultation identified the need to revise how Ofsted inspects, grades and reflects the realities of children’s lives through inspection.
The department is working closely with Ofsted to update its children’s social care inspection frameworks in line with the wider reform agenda, including embedding a focus on family help and the continuum of need, so that children and families are getting the right help at the right time. Ofsted introduced initial revisions in April 2026 and will consult in summer 2026 on further reforms for 2027.
We are also working with Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission as they revise the Area SEND inspection framework to reflect clarified statutory roles for local authorities and integrated care boards, and wider SEND reform.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her department has made of the potential merits of the creation of a cross-department ministerial role to ensure data is properly shared across the public sector, in the context of the cases of Sara Sharif and Maya Chappell.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government prioritises keeping children safe. For too long, poor information sharing has been a contributing factor to serious child safeguarding incidents. We are determined to address this challenge head-on. The tragic cases of Sara Sharif and Maya Chappell underline the vital importance of agencies and practitioners working together and sharing information to keep children safe.
We have announced the biggest overhaul to children’s social care in a generation to ensure opportunity for all children. This includes increased investment and landmark legislation through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act to improve multi-agency working measures to establish new multi-agency child protection teams in every local authority area, improve information sharing between agencies, and automatically include education and childcare settings in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.
We will commence the new Information Sharing Duty in autumn 2026, consulting on associated statutory guidance by summer 2026 to support practitioners in discharging this duty. We are piloting the NHS number as the Consistent Identifier, as set out in ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’ and the NHS 10-year plan.
To deliver these commitments, Ministers work closely across government departments and directly with statutory safeguarding agencies with governance in place to escalate and tackle emerging issues.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to review the implementation of the multi-agency assessments introduced in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The implementation of multi-agency child protection teams and wider reforms to children’s social care is underpinned by ongoing evaluation. Further interim implementation and process findings are expected this summer, and an impact evaluation report will be released in April 2027, ahead of the multi-agency child protection team regulations coming into force. Findings will consider early impacts on children and families and test underlying assumptions behind our reforms.
Every local area in England is also subject to reporting requirements in line with Families First Partnership programme guidance and grant conditions. This includes data on the set up and delivery of multi-agency child protection teams.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to include Pathological Demand Avoidance in reforms to SEND provision.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government consultation 'SEND reform: putting children and young people first’ has now closed. We are reviewing consultation responses alongside feedback from over 200 engagement events held over 12 weeks.
We will create a new offer for children who need additional support called Targeted and Targeted Plus layers. Children in early years settings, mainstream schools and colleges can benefit from support from education and health professionals without long waits for assessments. For children and young people with complex needs, we are developing new Specialist Provision Packages, designed with experts and tested with parents, to set out exactly what support and resources are required for specific needs.
Access to support should not be dependent on a child or young person having a diagnosis. We are developing National Inclusion Standards that set out evidence-informed tools, strategies and approaches for educators across the 0 to 25 system, to draw on to identify and support children and young people with additional needs, including autistic children and young people and those with profiles of need such as pathological demand avoidance.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she will include Pathological Demand Avoidance in the proposed reforms to SEND provision.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with local authorities in Surrey on delivering Best Start Family Hubs in the area.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The government has committed to provide funding for all local authorities to deliver Best Start Family Hubs, backed by over £900 million. In October 2025, the department paid a £351,991 development grant to Surrey local authority, the start of the investment to be provided to rebuild family services. Surrey local authority has a funding allocation of £7,709,100.00 to deliver Best Start Family Hubs from 2026/29 and they now have two Best Start Family Hubs open in Guildford and Reigate.
The department works closely with local authorities to monitor implementation and ensure they are meeting programme expectations. Each local authority has a named contact responsible for overseeing delivery, and the department intends to work in close partnership with local authorities to review progress, share effective practice, and ensure areas are appropriately supported to drive improvements for children and families. Guidance for Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies was provided to local authorities on delivery expectations for April 2026 to March 2029 and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/best-start-family-hubs-and-healthy-babies-guidance-for-local-authorities.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has considered expanding statutory guidance for schools on supporting children and young people with medical conditions to all school types.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The statutory guidance, ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’, is issued under section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014. This requires local authority-maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions, and to have regard to statutory guidance.
As part of the department’s consultation on revised statutory guidance on medical conditions at school, we are inviting views on whether we should seek to extend the section 100 duty to cover independent schools, non-maintained special schools and post-16 institutions. This would ensure the guidance is statutory guidance for all types of school.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she will review the statutory guidance on school attendance to allow exemptions for term-time holidays for children in foster care with complex needs and SEND when travel during peak holiday periods is not feasible.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
There are currently no plans to review our approach to term-time holidays. Schools may grant a leave of absence for exceptional circumstances at their discretion by judging each application on the specific facts. However, generally a holiday would not constitute an exceptional circumstance. The school year is structured so that there are opportunities for holidays outside of term-time. Schools and local authorities also have considerable flexibility to plan term dates themselves and hold INSET days and other occasional days at quieter times of the year, allowing parents and carers to plan breaks at times that suit them.
This government recognises there can be considerable additional pressures on some pupils and their parents and carers, including for children in foster care with complex needs. However, all children have a right to a full-time education and we do not believe the solution is to endorse additional time away from school.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps is she taking to ensure school buildings are adequately maintained for future use.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government has published its education estates strategy backed by a 10 year plan to deliver a decade of renewal to transform schools and colleges in England. It is supported by unprecedented long-term funding through to 2034/35. We are investing almost £3 billion per year by 2034/35 in capital maintenance for schools and colleges, rising from £2.4 billion in 2025/26.
We are also launching a new Renewal and Retrofit Programme, backed by over £700 million to 2029/30, to improve the condition of school and college buildings, increase resilience to climate change and protect schools from flooding so buildings can last for decades to come and are net zero ready. The Programme will start with schools in the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber and the South East, and will be expanded from 2027 to other regions in England. We will set out further details in due course on how schools and colleges join the programme from 2027.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has she made of the adequacy of school buildings in Surrey.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department supports local authorities, academy trusts and other bodies responsible for keeping school buildings safe and operational by providing condition funding, guidance and advice.
The Education Estates Strategy sets out our 10-year plan to deliver a decade of renewal to transform schools and colleges, supported by £38 billion investment in education capital to 2029/30 and unprecedented long-term funding, with £3 billion per year by 2034/35 into capital maintenance in addition to almost £20 billion in the School Rebuilding Programme. There are over 500 schools already in the programme, including 6 in Surrey.
The department collects consistent data on the condition of the school and college estate, which helps inform capital policy and programmes. The full data from the Condition Data Collection (CDC1) programme from 2017 to 2019 is presented at regional level in the House of Commons library here: https://depositedpapers.parliament.uk/depositedpaper/2285521/files.
A summary of the data can be accessed in the CDC1 key findings report here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/condition-data-collection-2-cdc2-programme. The successor programme, Condition Data Collection 2 (CDC2), will provide an update on the condition of the government funded school buildings.