The government has allocated an extra £18m to help councils transform early help and statutory social work services this year in line with its children's social care reform agenda.
The money tops up £523.5m - £270m of which is new money - already provided to help councils and their partners develop multidisciplinary family help services, multi-agency child protection teams and the provision of family group decision making meetings.
Key children's social care reforms explained
Under the Families First Partnership programme, councils are expected to develop the following provision over the coming years, starting in 2025-26:- Multidisciplinary family help services: these are responsible for supporting families across targeted early help, child in need and child protection, through the provision of a consistent lead practitioner and a team around the family, with the objective of keeping families intact where safe to do so.
- Multi-agency child protection teams: these are designed to improve the quality of safeguarding practice by bringing together skilled social workers, police officers, health practitioners and education professionals into single teams, an approach that will be put into law through the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
- Family group decision making meetings: these involve giving extended families the opportunity to hold meetings and develop plans to safeguard and promote the welfare of children involved with early help or social care; under the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, councils will be required to offer such meetings to families at the pre-proceedings stage, to enable them to develop alternatives to children going into care.
Extra funding for children's social care reform
The new fund, known as the families first partnership programme transformation (revenue) grant, is part of a £555m package allocated to reform children's social care from 2025-28 in the government's spending review, published in June this year.The £18m will be split between 143 of the 153 English local authorities, with none received by the 10 pathfinder authorities*, who were funded by the Department for Education (DfE) to test out the reforms from 2023-25. The government said that this was on the grounds that they were further ahead in the implementation of the changes.
Most recipient authorities are receiving a flat lump-sum payment of £127,742, with less given to the smallest three councils: the City of London, the Isles of Scilly and Rutland.
This is in contrast to the £270m children's social care prevention grant and the £253.5m allocated for reform via the separate children and families grant, both of those have been distributed based on assessments of each area's relative need.
How money should be spent
The government said the new grant should be ring-fenced for delivering on the Families First Partnership programme (see box above) and spent on "transformation activities" - those designed to enable areas to successfully deliver on reform - as specified in the children's social care prevention grant.These include meeting the expectations of the national framework for children's social care - the 2023 statutory guidance for councils setting out the purpose of children's social care - in relation to the three "enablers" of good practice:
- Multi-agency working is prioritised and effective: this involves councils having the full co-operation of their safeguarding partners (health and police) and other key agencies in delivering on the objectives of the framework.
- Leaders drive conditions for effective practice: this includes leaders being visible, approachable and having the knowledge and experience for their role, using evidence of what works to improve practice and having clear processes for listening to the workforce.
- The workforce is equipped and effective: this includes councils investing in practitioner training, development, and wellbeing, providing regular, consistent and reflective supervision and being mindful of workloads.
