Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of targeting the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant at (a) Halton Council and (b) other areas that are high on the deprivation index.

The Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant will be distributed using an interim needs-based formula, which allocates funding according to estimated need for children’s social care services. The department knows that deprivation is an important driver of need in children’s social care. The interim formula analyses socio-economic deprivation level data, as measured by the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI), along with a range of other child-level and neighbourhood-level characteristics. This assessment of need is based on analysis of the most significant drivers of activity for children’s services which the department holds robust data.

Full details of the 4-step process to distributing this funding have been made available through an updated explanatory note: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67a0ed761f9e7f7dcc7b4002/Final_CSC_PG_Explanatory_Note.pdf#:~:text=This%20explanatory%20note%20describes%20the%20basis%20of%20the,from%20%C2%A3250%20million%20announced%20at%20the%20provisional%20settlement.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government recently consulted on the approach to determining new funding allocations for local authorities, including seeking feedback on the child-level and neighbourhood-level characteristics on which the assessment of need for children’s services is based. Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/local-authority-funding-reform-objectives-and-principles/local-authority-funding-reform-objectives-and-principles. Following analysis of feedback, the department plans to set out further detail on the distribution methodology of this grant and the development of a new relative needs formula for children and family services.