Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to provide additional funding to schools that temporarily enrol children who are temporarily residing in domestic abuse refuge accommodation.

The National Funding Formula (NFF) is used by the department to distribute funding fairly, based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics. Through the NFF, schools are funded on a lagged system, based on their pupil numbers in the previous October census. The department does not adjust school funding in-year based on the arrival or departure of individual pupils. This helps to give schools more certainty over funding levels and aids their financial planning.

Under the Children Act 1989, local authorities are required to provide services for children in need for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting their welfare. It is important that every local authority have clear criteria for taking action and providing help across the full continuum of need. The Local Safeguarding Children Partnership should agree with the local authority and their partners what services are to be commissioned and delivered so that the right help is given to children at the right time.

In addition to the role played by the police in investigating and intervening, the following agencies have a duty to assist local authorities in their enquiries by providing relevant information and advice if called upon to do so (unless it would be unreasonable, given all the circumstances of the case):

• Any local authority;
• Any local housing authority; and,
• Any local health board, special health authority, integrated care board, NHS trust.

The statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ (2018) is also clear that effective sharing of information between professionals and local agencies is essential for effective identification, assessment and service provision. In the case where a parent may deny the existence of a partner, the social worker should use probing, challenging questions and work closely with other agencies, for example, the police.