Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether local authority social care services are funded and equipped to meet the needs of the 621,880 children referred to them in 2024.

The Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS) for the 2025/26 financial year will grant councils in England access to over £69 billion in funding, which is a 6.8% cash terms increase on the 2024/25 financial year. Decisions on allocation of funding for all local authority-delivered services, including children’s social care, are for local authorities to take based on local need, priorities and statutory duties.

In recognition of the need to ensure local authorities have the resources needed to deliver good quality children’s social care services, the LGFS for 2025/26 provides two new grants for children and family services. A new Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant is set to be introduced, which will provide £270 million of new funding for investment in additional prevention activity through the implementation of Family Help and child protection reforms. The Children and Families Grant, worth £414 million, will also be available. This will consolidate several previous departmental children’s social care grants, including £253.5 million from the former Supporting Families Programme.

The government’s investment in 2025/26 is a significant step in our ambition to rebalance the children’s social care system and will enable local authorities to move towards financial sustainability and deliver improved outcomes for children and families.

Funding for future years will be subject to phase two of the spending review.