Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reinstating the Commissioning Support Programme; and whether his Department plans to develop an improved programme to support children’s services commissioners.

The department currently has no plans to reinstate the Commissioning Support Programme.

We are providing funding through our £200 million Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme to test new commissioning arrangements so that children and young people are matched to the right care placements to meet their needs.

We are developing central commissioning arrangements for secure children’s homes placements and will be providing seed funding for fostering partnerships to introduce new or expanded collaborative approaches for commissioning, sufficiency planning and integrated models of care.

We have set up a Residential Care Leadership Board to drive forward improvements in commissioning and share learning and best practice across the sector.