Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to expand prevention services in relation to child maltreatment; and if she will make a statement.

The Government’s statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’, revised last year, is clear about the importance that we attach to preventative services. Providing help early, before issues and problems escalate, is more effective in promoting the welfare of children than reacting later.

The guidance sets out that local agencies should work together to put processes in place for the effective assessment of the needs of individual children who may benefit from early help services. Decisions about the provision of services, including preventative, early help services, are taken locally by agencies that are best placed to plan provision, taking account of local needs and circumstances.

The Government has also established an Early Intervention Foundation. The Foundation is funded by the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, and the Department for Communities and Local Government. It is intended to operate independently of central government, to support the needs of commissioners in implementing early intervention programmes and practice in their local areas. The Foundation was established as an independent charity on 4 July 2013.