Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Government has made of the potential merits of refocusing the care system on early intervention as recommended by the independent review of children's social care.

The department recognises how important early help and intervention is to transforming children’s lives. In April we announced a £1 billion package to support vulnerable families, including funding for Family Hubs, investment in the Holiday, Activity and Food programme, and funding so that the Supporting Families programme can work with up to 300,000 more families.

The department will closely consider the recommendations from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care’s final report and will set out an implementation strategy by the end of the year, which also takes into account the National Panel Review into the tragic deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s study into children’s social care placements.