Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what recent steps they have taken to improve the quality and accessibility of social care services for children across the UK.

Children’s social care is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department is taking forward a comprehensive programme of major reforms, including a focus on early help, family support and stronger safeguarding, as set out in the ‘Keeping children safe, helping families thrive’ statement and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Our measures will strengthen multi‑agency child protection, expand kinship and foster care support, and enhance Ofsted’s powers to tackle unregistered or substandard provision.

The department is also delivering the Families First Partnership programme to keep families together and reduce reliance on high-cost residential placements. Placement quality, financial transparency and workforce capacity are being improved through significant investment and new oversight measures.