Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that local councils have sufficient funds for children in care.

The Spending Review 2015 made available more than £200 billion to local councils for local services up to 2019-20.

Funding for children’s services is an un-ring-fenced part of the wider local government finance settlement. It is for local councils to determine how to spend their non-ring fenced income on the services they provide, including services for children in care. Local councils increased spending on children and young people’s services to over £9 billion in 2015-16.

To help local councils redesign their children’s services to achieve higher quality and better value for money, we have invested £200 million since 2014 in our Innovation and Partners in Practice Programmes.