Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with Essex County Council regarding the projected costs and other implications of children re-entering the care system.

The government is committed to delivering long-term, sustainable improvements to the children’s social care system. We are working to identify the sorts of interventions that really work to help prevent the need for children to become looked-after or re-enter the care system. This is a key focus for the Partners in Practice Programme, Innovation Programme and What Works Centre.

No representations have been received from county councils and local government organisations regarding increases in children re-entering the care system and no discussions have been had with Essex County Council on projected costs and other implications of children re-entering the care system.

However, we recognise that local councils are delivering children’s services in a challenging environment and need to make tough choices about priorities to achieve efficiencies. The government is supporting local councils to do this in a number of ways. The Department for Education (DfE) has invested £200m since 2014 in our Innovation Programme and Partners in Practice Programme. As part of this, we have committed £20m to provide additional support to local councils where the risk of service failure is highest. We are committed to working with partners to understand how DfE might further support improvement across the system.