Children: Social Services

(asked on 8th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Local Government Association's projection that the cost of children’s social care will increase by an estimated £600 million each year until 2024-25, whether his Department plans to allocate additional funding to local authorities in response to that projection.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 16th March 2022

In recent years, the government has boosted real-terms funding to local authorities, including creating the social care grant which has increased significantly from £410 million in 2019 to £1.7 billion this current financial year. In total, local authorities will have access to £54.1 billion for the financial year 2022/23, an increase of up to £3.7 billion in 2021/22.

My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that the government is providing councils with £4.8 billion of new grant funding over the Spending Review period to 2025. This will enable the sector to maintain vital frontline services, including children’s social care. This means for the next financial year (2022/23), the government is providing over £630 million additional funding into the social care grant, bringing the grant total to over £2.3 billion. The government is also providing a one-off Services Grant in the financial year 2022/23 which is worth over £800 million that can be used for all services, including children’s social care.

Further, the government has provided an additional £200 million for Supporting Families announced at the Budget and Spending Round 2021. This represents around a 40% real-terms uplift in funding for the programme by the financial year 2024/25, taking total planned investment across the next three years to £695 million.

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