Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to publish the final part of his review of the support for children in need.

The department launched its review of children in need (CIN) of help and protection in March 2018.

In December 2018, we published interim findings, summarising what makes a difference to and what is needed to improve these children’s educational outcomes, alongside new data giving more insight into their experiences. Leaders and practitioners working with CIN can use the evidence in the report from now.

For the final stage of the review, we are:

• working to bridge the gap between what is needed to improve outcomes for CIN and the current reality, including policy change where the evidence shows this is what is needed;
• building more robust evidence of what interventions work to improve the educational outcomes of CIN;
• continuing to develop our data and analysis of what influences the educational outcomes of CIN.

We currently expect to have finished this work by the end of spring and will publish thereafter.

Through the review, we are also undertaking ongoing work to build on existing cross-government action to improve outcomes for vulnerable children – including to tackle domestic abuse which is the primary need for children requiring support from children’s social care, and to improve mental health support for all children and young people.