Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support children's services in Devon.

The department has been working closely with Devon County Council since Ofsted’s inspection of children’s services in March 2020, in which services were found to be Inadequate overall and were placed in formal intervention under a Statutory Direction.

As part of the department’s intervention, it has put in place robust support for the local authority and partner agencies involved in the delivery of children’s services. This includes the appointment of a Children’s Services Commissioner, in addition to the appointment of both Hertfordshire and Essex local authorities through our Sector Led Improvement Programme. The Sector Led Improvement Programme enables the delivery of peer-to-peer support from the strongest performing local authorities to local authorities like Devon, who are working to improve their services.

The department also holds regular formal monitoring meetings with the local authority and partners as part of holding all parties to account for making the necessary improvements in services, and we will continue with our work with them and our support partners to ensure that all children and families receive the service they require and deserve.