Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to outsource child safeguarding functions from local authorities; and if she will make a statement.

Where a local authority is judged to be failing in its provision and delivery of children’s services, the Secretary of State has a discretionary power to intervene under the Education Act 1996, as applied by section 50 of the Children Act 2004. This may include directing the local authority to review its children’s services operations and commissioning procedures, and this may include the delivery of specified functions by another body.

The powers under part 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 and associated regulations are quite different and provide for local authorities to be able to delegate children’s social care functions, including safeguarding functions, to third parties on a voluntary basis. The Department for Education has no plans to instruct any local authorities to delegate their functions under these provisions.