Child and Family Support Service (Hansard, 2 May 2002)

§ Mr. Wray
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what funding has gone into the Child and Family Support Service since 1997. [45485]

§ Jacqui Smith
Between 1996–97 and 2002–03 resources for personal social services in England increased by over 20 per cent. in real terms. Councils determine what proportion of their overall resources, including this increase, is to be spent on children and family support services.
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§ Mr. Wray
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Child and Family Support Service; and what plans he has to increase cooperation with local authorities and improve access to services. [45487]

§ Jacqui Smith
Local authorities provide a wide range of services to support children and their families. The Social Services Inspectorate systematically assesses the performance of all local councils with social services responsibilities, evaluating the quality of services experienced by users and carers and monitoring the implementation of Government policy for social services.
In 1999 we published an overview report of the inspection programme of family support services in eight authorities. The report was entitled "Getting Family Support Right" and showed that 80 per cent. of families expressed satisfaction with the family support services they had received. At the same time we published a six-page pamphlet for front line staff called "Key messages for practitioners and first-line managers", which summarised the key findings of inspection assessments and disseminated examples of good practice.
Multi-agency working is a key element of the Government's five year £885 million quality protects programme which is improving the management and delivery of children's social services. The Government have set national objectives to improve outcomes for children and young people in need and local authorities are expected to show steady improvement towards the achievement of these in their annual quality protects management action plans.
The three cross Government programmes to tackle the social exclusion of children: Sure Start; The Children's Fund; and Connexions; all involve co-operation and multi-agency partnership working by a range of statutory and voluntary sector agencies, to ensure that children and family support services are accessible and effective.