£18 million for children's social care reforms

£18 million has been set aside to roll out early intervention child protection reforms to councils in England.

The reforms include the roll out of Family Group Decision Making, an approach which involves extended family members in helping keep children at home rather than in care. There will also be thousands more family help workers to provide earlier support for families experiencing challenges, such as substance misuse or poor mental health.

Plans are also in place to test the NHS number as a unique identifier to help piece data together across frontline health, schools and police services to detect concerns about children before they escalate.

A pilot involving Wigan Council and NHS England is already live and testing linking their systems to use the NHS number as the unique identifier.

Children and families minister Janet Daby said: "Time and again we’re told how failing to share information and intervene early enough means vulnerable children fall through the cracks.

"These deep-rooted problems are symptomatic of a children’s social care system that has clearly been stretched to breaking point.

"We’re putting an end to sticking plaster solutions through our Plan for Change by investing even more focus and funding into preventative services and information sharing.

Minister of state for local government and English devolution Jim McMahon OBE said: "Through our Plan for Change we are getting councils back on their feet, working with local leaders to fix the foundations and rebuild the sector to deliver the vital public services local people rely on.  

"A key part of this involves reforming children’s social care to tackle problems at their root and give every child the best start in life.

"In addition to the £523 million we are providing this year to the Families First Partnership Programme, this new £18 million from the Transformation Fund will further support local authorities and safeguarding partners to help us achieve this."