Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department’s consultation entitled Guide for children and young people: Stable Homes, Built on Love, published on 2 February 2023, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allocating funding under the Families First for Children Pathfinder to York.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The Families First for Children pathfinder will work with up to 12 local areas to co-design and deliver end-to-end service reform, implementing new Family Help services, child protection arrangements and support for kinship care. In September 2023, the department will launch the first wave of Pathfinders. These areas have not yet been selected. Further information on the selection of the local areas will be available shortly.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of how many children are in kinship care in Ashfield and Eastwood.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department does not hold information centrally on the number of children in kinship care, therefore we are unable to provide the information requested.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to confirm which local areas have been selected for the families first for children pathfinder scheme.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The Families First for Children pathfinder will work with up to 12 local areas to co-design and deliver end to end service reform, implementing new Family Help services, child protection arrangements and support for kinship care. This will deliver the department’s future vision for how we want to work with children and families in a select number of areas
The department will start to work with early adopters in spring 2023. In September 2023, we will launch the first wave of Pathfinders, working with three local areas and up to nine more local areas in the second year. Further information on the selection of the local areas will be available shortly.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to audit the progress of pathfinder local authorities for the Stable Homes, Built on Love programme.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The Families First for Children pathfinder will work with up to 12 local areas to co-design and deliver end-to-end service reform, implementing new Family Help services, child protection arrangements and support for kinship care.
The areas for the pathfinder have not yet been selected. The department will operate the pathfinder on a ‘test and learn’ approach, with ongoing evaluation and the support of a delivery partner. This will ensure that the pathfinders are able to iterate and that the system is able to support families, safeguard children and inform us on what national guidance and legislation is needed over time to ensure successful delivery on the ground. The delivery partner will support pathfinders to identify any delivery challenges and report these, along with recommended mitigations, to the department. The partner will also design a live learning strategy, to collate emerging best practice and share this learning with pathfinder areas and across relevant sectors.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Departments publication entitled Stable Homes, Built on Love: Implementation Strategy and Consultation published February 2023, what steps she is taking to help implement the strategy in local authorities who are not designated as pathfinder areas over the next two years.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department has a clear ambition to improve all children’s services across England, as set out in the publication ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love'.
Many of the actions set out in our strategy will impact all local authorities. This includes the implementation of our National Framework for Children’s Social Care as well as providing support and training to kinship carers. The department is also supporting local authorities with the recruitment and retention of social workers by taking measures, such as increasing the number of social worker apprenticeships and consulting on the use of agency staff.
In the delivery chapter of ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, we have set out the actions that local authorities can take now to create the future system we want to see. This includes creating working conditions that allow workforces to thrive, reviewing the services they commission and provide to make sure they reflect the best evidence, reviewing existing support offers for kinship carers, and reviewing all available opportunities to support children in care and care leavers to build relationships.
The department has also outlined where we will be taking a ’test and learn’ approach to establish how to introduce some of the most complex and far-reaching reforms. This includes the Families First for Children Pathfinders, and Regional Care Cooperative Pathfinders. The department will build in opportunities for feedback to ensure learning from the pathfinders is shared across all local authorities.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's report Stable Homes, Built on Love: Implementation Strategy and Consultation published February 2023, what steps her Department plans to take to deliver Family Help services in the 12 identified Pathfinder areas.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The government has pledged £45 million to deliver the Families First for Children Pathfinders in up to 12 local areas over the next two years. The department will test the following elements of Family Help services within the identified Pathfinder areas:
The department will provide local areas with support and funding to deliver the reforms. We will co-design these new services by working with children and families, the local authority, schools, police, health and other key partners within the area, including the third sector. All pathfinder areas will test reforms across Family Help, child protection and kinship care.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason she has decided to introduce twelve pilots for the planned reforms to children's social care.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department’s strategy sets out our vision for the future of the children’s social care system and how we will achieve transformational change. Over the next two years, the department plans to address urgent issues facing children and families, laying the foundations for whole system reform. Following this, we will scale up tested and developed approaches and aim to bring forward legislation.
Through Pathfinders, the department will work closely with local areas to test and learn how we deliver complex operational changes effectively, including a new integrated model of Family Help. The necessary reform needs to be balanced with the need to scale evidence-based interventions safely and effectively. The department’s approach addresses both needs.
The department has a clear ambition to improve all children’s services across England. Reforms over the next two years will impact all local authorities, including the national framework, providing support and training to kinship carers, and supporting social workers with training.
On the day of publication, the department wrote to all local authorities to outline our approach for reform and highlight actions to consider taking now in preparation for wider reform.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of children moved between care placements in each local authority in 2021-22; and how many children were moved more than once per authority.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Information on the number of looked-after children who stayed in one placement during 2021/22 and the number who moved at least once can be found in the attached table.
Figures on the number of looked-after children who changed placements three or more times during a one year period can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/53b32118-528e-4015-777b-08dab100bfc2. This data is for the year ending 31 March 2018 to the year ending 31 March 2022.
All placement decisions are subject to the duty in Section 22 of the Children’s Act 1989 that the placement is the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. The department needs a range of options for care placements and support that reflects the diverse needs of children in care and care leavers.
Around 70% of looked-after children are placed with foster carers. For many children who cannot live with their birth parents, foster care offers them the opportunity to experience a stable environment. Looked-after children whose first placement in 2021/22 was with foster carers or placed for adoption were least likely to have more than two placement moves during the year compared with those in other settings.
Recognising the urgency of action in placement sufficiency, the department will prioritise working with local authorities to recruit more foster carers. This will include pathfinder local recruitment campaigns that build towards a national programme, to help ensure children have access to the right placements at the right time. As the Care Review recommends, the department will focus on providing more support throughout the application process to improve the conversion rate from expressions of interest to approved foster carers.
Kinship carers are a vital part of our society and play an important role in supporting a child’s development. Councils can offer discretionary financial support to kinship carers. Councils can offer discretionary financial support to kinship carers. We are rapidly working up an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy in response to the reviews and will publish early this year.
In recognition of rising costs, the government is also providing over £37 billion to help families, targeted to support the most vulnerable.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to take steps to equalise (a) allowances given to foster and kinship families, (b) leave entitlements for foster and kinship families, (c) support available for children in kinship care and children in care and (d) access to training and support for kinship carers and foster carers.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Where a child cannot live with their birth family, local authorities have a legal duty to first consider family and friend carers. This may not always the best placement for the child, and the child may therefore be placed in the care of the local authority.
Statutory guidance on family and friends care, issued to local authorities in England, makes clear that children and young people should receive the support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare. There is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide. All local authorities should have in place clear eligibility criteria in relation to the provision of support services for family and friend carers.
Foster carers, whether connected persons or unrelated, are entitled to an allowance to cover the costs of caring for a child. The ’Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards,’ set out the expectations that are placed on foster carers and their agencies in England. The national minimum standards set out that all foster carers should receive at least the national minimum allowance plus any agreed expenses to cover the full cost of caring for each child placed with them. These standards can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/192705/NMS_Fostering_Services.pdf.
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care made a set of bold and ambitious recommendations which seek to improve the financial and practical support kinship carers receive. These include recommendations on a financial allowance, a leave entitlement, and support and training for kinship carers.
The department is due to respond to these recommendations in early 2023.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made a recent assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the adequacy of Government support for kinship families for (a) household bills and (b) other areas.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department recognises the important role that kinship carers play in looking after children through kinship arrangements, and are aware that many kinship carers make great sacrifices to fulfil this role.
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care made a set of bold and ambitious recommendations which seek to improve the financial and practical support kinship carers receive, and the department is due to respond to those recommendations early in early 2023.
Statutory guidance issued to local authorities already makes it clear that children and young people should receive the sufficient support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare. There is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide. All local authorities should have in place clear eligibility criteria in relation to the provision of support services.