Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will list the local authorities that have requested exemption from powers under social care legislation; and which powers in such legislation those authorities have requested to be exempted from.

No requests to use the power to test different ways of working can be made until the Children and Social Work Bill receives Royal Assent in 2017. We have had initial conversations with our ‘Partners in Practice’ local authorities about areas they would be interested in exploring. Case studies with further details about these ideas are available in an existing policy statement, which can be found at: http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/files/DEP2016-0760/Power_to_innovate_-_policy_statement.pdf