Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy in the levels of funding for local authorities Children’s Services.

Local authorities set their own children’s services budget from their core spending power, based on local need, priorities and their statutory responsibilities.

In the 2022/23 financial year, local authorities have access to £54.1 billion core spending power to deliver their services, including for children and young people. This is £3.7 billion more than in the 2021/22 financial year.

As part of this, the government has boosted the social care grant, increasing it by £636 million, and bringing it to a total of around £2.35 billion in the 2022/23 financial year. Local authorities will have access to a one-off Services Grant in 2022/23, which is worth over £800 million and can be used for all services, including children’s social care.