Children: Social Services

(asked on 26th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of trends in the level of demand for children’s social care services on the adequacy of funding allocated to local authorities to provide those services.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 1st April 2019

We monitor the number of children looked-after, the number of children with child protection plans, and children in need on an ongoing basis.

Local authority level data since 2013 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-interactive-tool-lait.

National level children in need and service use since 2010 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-children-in-need, and: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children.

The most common factors recorded in children’s social care assessments are domestic abuse and mental health. These have been consistently the top 2 factors for the years during which we have collected this data and have risen in line with trends in demand.

Over the 5-year period to 2019-20, councils have access, through the local government finance settlement (LGFS), to over £200 billion to deliver local services, including children’s services. Core spending power has increased from £45.1 billion in 2018-19 to £46.4 billion in 2019-20.

In addition to this the Autumn Budget announced a further £410 million in 2019-20 for local authorities to invest in adult and children’s social care services. It also announced £84 million of extra funding, over the next 5 years, to support local authorities to invest in initiatives that improve social work practice and decision making.

The Department for Education are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the review of relative needs and resources to develop a robust, up-to-date approach to funding distribution for children's services at LGFSs.

The government will continue to work closely with the sector to consider long-term children’s services funding as part of the upcoming Spending Review.

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