Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report of the Children’s Society, Crumbling Futures, published in March 2018, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that 16 and 17 year olds referred to children’s services are receiving (a) a full assessment of their needs and (b) adequate support.

Our statutory guidance, ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’, is clear that every child, up to the age of 18, who has been referred into local authority children’s social care should have an individual assessment to respond to their needs. Assessments should be carried out in a timely manner reflecting the needs of the individual child.

Local authorities have a duty to ascertain the child’s wishes and feelings and take account of them when planning the provision of services. Any provision identified as being necessary through the assessment process should, if the local authority decides to provide such services, be provided without delay.