Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for its policies of the report by Action for Children, Too Little Too Late, published in March 2022.

The ‘Too Little, Too Late’ report recommends an increase in funding for a range of early intervention services.

In the Budget and Spending Review 2021, we announced a £500 million package for families. This includes £300 million to transform ‘Start for Life’ services and create a network of family hubs in half of the council areas in England, and a £200 million uplift to the Supporting Families Programme.

The additional Supporting Families funding represents around a 40% real-terms uplift for the programme by the 2024/25 financial year, taking total planned investment across the next 3 years to £695 million. This funding will help up to 300,000 more families facing multiple, interconnected issues to access effective support and improve their life outcomes. It will also begin to reduce the pressure on reactive, statutory services as the system starts to rebalance away from intervening at crisis point.

The report’s recommendations on a legal duty for Early Help, and additional data collection on Early Help, will be considered as part of our response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.