More funding will not reduce care numbers… Children’s minister
Providing more money to councils will not help to reduce record numbers of children being taken into care, children’s minister Nadhim Zahawi has said. Figures published last September show that the number of children in care is rising at its fastest rate in five years. There were 72,670 children in care in the 12 months to the end of March 2017, compared with 70,440 the year before and 69,480 in 2015.
He said that the £20m What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care which is expected to launch in 2020 and is tasked with promoting evidence-based practice, will be central to the government’s approach. “What we are doing is seeing what works, which is why we have set up the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care and the Innovation Programme and spreading it. That’s the best way,” he said.
