Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential cost savings generated by funding additional early intervention support for disabled children and families.

At the Budget, the government announced a significant £500 million package to improve support for families. This includes an additional £200 million - a 40% real-terms uplift by the 2024-25 financial year – for the Supporting Families Programme to enable local authorities and their partners to provide help earlier and secure better outcomes for up to 300,000 families across all aspects of their lives.

The Supporting Families programme works with the most vulnerable children and families, around a third of whom have physical and/or learning disabilities, and this investment will provide local authorities with additional funding to assist this group.

The Supporting Families programme evaluation shows that the programme offers indirect savings to the public sector of £1.51 for every £1 spent and wider economic benefits of £2.28 for every £1 spent, including a reduction in the number of children coming into care, children and youth offending and Jobseekers Allowances claims.

The Supporting Families evaluation cost benefit analysis does not focus on individual groups supported by the Programme, so we cannot disaggregate the savings for specific groups such as children and families with disabilities.