Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken with local authorities to improve children services.

The department is committed to children’s social care reform to ensure opportunity for all children. Our policy statement ‘Keeping children safe, helping families thrive’, outlines our vision and core legislative proposals. We have subsequently introduced several measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, a key step towards delivering the government’s Opportunity Mission.

Specifically, we have confirmed the national rollout of Family Help, multi-agency child protection and Family Group Decision Making reforms. These reforms are being delivered through the Families First Partnership (FFP) programme, a national government programme to support Safeguarding Partners, including local authorities, to implement the reforms. In 2025/26 the reforms are backed by £541 million of funding, more than doubling direct investment in preventative services.

Through the FFP programme, the government is giving families and children access to better local support services to break the cycle of late intervention and help more children and families to stay safely together.