Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 1July 2014, Official Report, columns 550-1W, on local government services: children, in which meetings of the Social Care Innovation Programme at which Ministers were present; how many such meetings involved people other than staff of his Department; and if he will list those people.

As the Minister with responsibility for the Children's Social Care Innovation Programme, I have attended the majority of meetings on the Innovation Programme at which Ministers have been present. These meetings have covered a wide range of issues in relation to the programme.

The first meeting about the Innovation Programme was held with my Rt hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Schools, in May 2013. The majority of meetings on the Innovation Programme since then have been the regular internal meetings I have with the programme team – to date, we have had over 10 such meetings.

Meetings about the Innovation Programme at which Ministers have been present which involved people other than staff of this Department include, for example, a workshop I held with senior officials from across Whitehall to make the best of their experience and encourage coherence in terms of government programmes; several meetings with Councillor David Simmonds, Chair of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People Board; a meeting between my Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and a meeting with young people and staff from Daybreak Family Group Conferences.

There have been a number of meetings on other topics at which I, and other ministers in this Department, have taken the opportunity to discuss the Innovation Programme.