Children: Protection
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of Best Start Family Hubs on the proportion of children who are subsequently re-registered on the child protection register.
Answered by Josh MacAlister
Ensuring every child has the best start in life, the chance to achieve and to thrive, are the foundation stones of the government’s Opportunity Mission.
Best Start Family Hubs will provide support for families that need it. They will improve the join up of vital services in an area and making it easier for children and families to access a range of help at the right time, irrespective of their needs. This includes the roll out of Family Help, which is showing positive early impact. We will continue to monitor outcomes for children through our published children in need statistics.
The Families First for Children Pathfinder has also tested radical reforms in local areas, across family help, child protection, family networks and safeguarding partners.
The pathfinder draws on evidence and existing good practice, including from the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme and the ten participating areas are reporting positive early impacts.
The department commissioned Ecorys and consortium to carry out process, impact and value-for-money evaluation of the Family Hubs transformation, home learning environment and parenting support programme elements of the Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme which is ongoing. Findings should be available in early 2026.
Monitoring and evaluation will be a crucial component of the new Best Start Family Hubs. Planning is ongoing but we expect to include continue robust monitoring and evaluation, particularly looking at impact including on the impact on children from different backgrounds.
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