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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential effects on children of not using the children’s services relative needs formula to distribute the social care support grant announced in Budget 2018.

At Autumn Budget 2019, the Chancellor made available £410 million in 2019/20 for social care services in local authorities – both adult and children’s social care. We proposed in the provisional local government finance settlement to distribute these resources based on the existing Adult Social Care relative needs formula, as the best available method. Consultation responses overwhelmingly supported this approach which was confirmed in the final settlement. Local authorities have welcomed the additional funding and the discretion to spend in a way which best fits their community’s needs.