Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what actions her Department is taking to promote a joined-up approach within and across Government departments to maintain and improve safeguarding for disabled children.

At the heart of the government’s agenda for all children, including those with disabilities, is how to safeguard and protect their wellbeing and help develop their resilience in preparation for modern life. An important part of this will be the work of the cross-government ministerial taskforce, chaired by the Secretary of State for Education, to take forward work on child protection.

The taskforce will look at how we get the best people to deliver the right outcomes for all children. In particular through social work reform and improving leadership; through improving systems and practice – building a better performing, more innovative social care sector; and through accountability and governance, looking at how arrangements locally and nationally help to drive a strong and improving system.

Through the Innovation Programme, the Department for Education is funding the Council for Disabled Children to lead a partnership of five local authorities for a one year project. They are testing new approaches to Social Work Assessment and aiming to determine accurate thresholds for service provision for disabled children which combine child and family centred services.

The newly-developed education, health and care (EHC) plan system is for children and young people aged up to 25 who need more support than is available through special educational needs support. EHC plans identify educational, health and social needs, setting out the additional support required to meet those needs, and many disabled children will benefit.