Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to audit the progress of pathfinder local authorities for the Stable Homes, Built on Love programme.

The Families First for Children pathfinder will work with up to 12 local areas to co-design and deliver end-to-end service reform, implementing new Family Help services, child protection arrangements and support for kinship care.

The areas for the pathfinder have not yet been selected. The department will operate the pathfinder on a ‘test and learn’ approach, with ongoing evaluation and the support of a delivery partner. This will ensure that the pathfinders are able to iterate and that the system is able to support families, safeguard children and inform us on what national guidance and legislation is needed over time to ensure successful delivery on the ground. The delivery partner will support pathfinders to identify any delivery challenges and report these, along with recommended mitigations, to the department. The partner will also design a live learning strategy, to collate emerging best practice and share this learning with pathfinder areas and across relevant sectors.