Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of funding for (a) children's and (b) youth services provided by his Department to Oxfordshire County Council in each of the last five years.

Funding for children’s and youth services is generally not ring-fenced and is part of either the wider Local Government Finance Settlement or the Dedicated Schools Grant in the case of education-related funding. It is for local authorities to determine how to spend their non-ring-fenced income, taking account of their statutory responsibilities, local need and their priorities.

This year’s Local Government Finance Settlement increased Social Care Grant by £300 million, taking the total Social Care Grant to £1.7 billion for 2021/22.

Core Spending Power in England will rise by up to 4.6% in cash terms, from £49 billion in 2020-21 to up to £51.3 billion in 2021-22. This real-terms increase builds on the largest year-on-year increase in spending power in a decade last year and recognises the resources councils need to meet their pressures and maintain children’s and youth services.

Additionally, we have continued to support councils throughout the pandemic, demonstrated by the fact we have provided over £4.6 billion in un-ringfenced funding to councils this year. In Oxfordshire, this amounted to £2.47 million in 2020/21.