Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of local authorities’ ability to (a) identify (i) current and (ii) future demand for children’s services and (b) supply the services demanded.

As set out in the Children Act 1989, local authorities are responsible for delivering children’s social care services. Ofsted is responsible for the Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) and these inspections provide a robust assessment of the quality and outcomes of local services. The department publishes a range of statistics on activity rates, timeliness and costs of children’s services and these data are available to all local authorities to help benchmark their services. The department has no current plans to develop a national outcomes framework for children’s services.