Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the value is of private sector contracts for Children's Social Care in England.

The department does not hold information on the value of private sector contracts for children’s social care. Local authority expenditure data on private provision on children’s social care are published annually in the statistical first releases available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-local-authority-school-finance-data.

Private provision is defined as expenditure on services provided/managed by private sector entities such as profit-making companies.

The department does not hold information on the number of contracts with private sector companies to provide children’s social care services.

In 2014 the government made regulations that prevent local authorities contracting out child protection functions to organisations carried on for profit.