Answers to a Parliamentary Question by Emma Lewell-Buck MP  Dec 2017

There are currently two independent trusts established with support from this department: the Doncaster Children’s Service Trust (established in October 2014) and Slough Children’s Services Trust (established in September 2015). The department paid £2.9 million and £3.3 million towards set up costs for Doncaster and Slough respectively.

Sunderland County Council established a community interest company, Together for Children, in April 2017. The department’s contribution to the set up costs for this company was £2.5 million.

‘Achieving for Children’ (AfC) is also a community interest company that was established in 2014 to provide services for Richmond and Kingston. It was established independently from the department and we did not contribute to its set up. AfC receive money through the Partners In Practice programme and has recently expanded into a third local authority (Windsor and Maidenhead).

The department does not hold information on the value of private sector contracts for children’s social care. Local authority expenditure data on private provision on children’s social care are published annually in the statistical first releases available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-local-authority-school-finance-data.

Private provision is defined as expenditure on services provided/managed by private sector entities such as profit-making companies.

The department does not hold information on the number of contracts with private sector companies to provide children’s social care services.

The government has spent £3.66 million in consulting on and preparing for the introduction of the National Assessment and Accreditation System for children and family social workers.

The government has allocated for phase 1 and phase 2 of the National Accreditation and Assessment System: £2.7 million for the preparation of local authorities and social workers; and £4.86 million for the introduction, operational delivery and evaluation of the assessment.

This total is split £2.7 million for local authorities and £8.52 million for private companies

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