Twenty-Seventh Report - Evaluating innovation projects in children’s social care

Select Committee
Public Accounts Committee HC 38 23 November 2022
Report Status Response document linked Recorded deadline: 23 Jan 2023

Missing links do not establish that no response was published. A linked document does not verify responses to individual findings.

Conclusions & Recommendations 19 items (5 recs)
Source View on Parliament website

No response data available yet.

Government response
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty seventh report from Session 2022-23 · published 24 Feb 2023
Read the government response ↗ Response on the tracker

Recommendations & Conclusions

19 results
2 Recommendation
We are not yet convinced the Department’s dissemination of learning from the programme is delivering...
Recommendation
We are not yet convinced the Department’s dissemination of learning from the programme is delivering widespread improvement. The Innovation Programme and its successor schemes have spread practice from six promising innovations across 57 further local authorities. There is some evidence … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
3 Recommendation
The Department does not yet have the data it needs to understand the impact of...
Recommendation
The Department does not yet have the data it needs to understand the impact of the innovation programme. Systems that provide high quality information to everyone involved can contribute to a culture of evaluation and an understanding of 6 Evaluating … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
4 Recommendation
Potential innovation risks being hampered by inflexibility in the wider system of children’s social care.
Recommendation
Potential innovation risks being hampered by inflexibility in the wider system of children’s social care. The Department intended the Innovation Programme to both improve outcomes for children in the social care system and produce savings. Residential care in children’s homes … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
5 Recommendation
A challenging funding environment requires that government maintains its commitment to evaluation, and applies its...
Recommendation
A challenging funding environment requires that government maintains its commitment to evaluation, and applies its learning to secure better outcomes. As the Innovation Programme and its successor schemes move towards the end of 14 years of funding by 2027, the … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
1 Conclusion
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence...
Conclusion
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Department for Education (the Department), including its Chief Social Worker for Children and Families, about the Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme (the Innovation … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
6 Recommendation
The Department believes the impact of the Innovation Programme on the sector has been ‘transformational’.
Recommendation
The Department believes the impact of the Innovation Programme on the sector has been ‘transformational’. It describes the demand stimulated by the programme, having received over 200 applications for the first funding round of a programme where evaluation was a … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
7 Conclusion
The Department concedes there is further to go to embed the culture of evaluation it...
Conclusion
The Department concedes there is further to go to embed the culture of evaluation it wants to see in children’s social care. The Department and the sector have learned that quality evaluation is expensive and can take a long time … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
8 Conclusion
The Department intended the Innovation Programme to achieve replication of successful new approaches, better life...
Conclusion
The Department intended the Innovation Programme to achieve replication of successful new approaches, better life chances for children receiving help from the social care system and better value for money across children’s social care. The Department funded 94 projects through … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
9 Conclusion
We agree with successor programme evaluator Coram, that the key measure of success for the...
Conclusion
We agree with successor programme evaluator Coram, that the key measure of success for the Department’s Innovation Programme must be what has changed for children as a result.25 The Department told us that it cannot yet report any ‘perfectly causal … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
10 Conclusion
The Care Review, while recognising the role the Innovation Programme has played in creating stronger...
Conclusion
The Care Review, while recognising the role the Innovation Programme has played in creating stronger practice, asserts that the impact of its scale and spread approach is limited in the absence of more fundamental change. The Care Review considers the … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
11 Conclusion
The lack of high-quality data was one of the significant challenges and common limitations identified...
Conclusion
The lack of high-quality data was one of the significant challenges and common limitations identified in the Department for Education’s (the Department’s) independent assessments of evaluations of Innovation Programme projects.31 We share the Department’s view that systems that give better … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
12 Conclusion
There are particular data challenges where evaluations of small-scale innovations make it statistically difficult to...
Conclusion
There are particular data challenges where evaluations of small-scale innovations make it statistically difficult to understand the impact of schemes on particular population groups. We received evidence from the Traveller Movement, a population disproportionately represented in children’s social care, highlighting … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
13 Conclusion
The Department could point to examples in other work where it has used technology to...
Conclusion
The Department could point to examples in other work where it has used technology to reduce the burdens of data collection, and shared data back with front line organisations in ways that incentivise local use.35 The Independent Review of Children’s … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
14 Conclusion
The Innovation Programme was intended to both improve outcomes for children in the social care...
Conclusion
The Innovation Programme was intended to both improve outcomes for children in the social care system and produce savings. The Department accepts that residential care in children’s homes can be expensive and it is often a last resort where they … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
15 Conclusion
We have seen many cases of the potential for better outcomes and potential savings being...
Conclusion
We have seen many cases of the potential for better outcomes and potential savings being blocked by inflexibility in the care system. These typically involve the costs of the space required to provide kinship or foster care, or support with … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
16 Conclusion
The Department told us it wants the care system to be more flexible, and accepts...
Conclusion
The Department told us it wants the care system to be more flexible, and accepts the system is currently not very good at adapting to innovative or usual requests. The result is that the child will often end up in … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
17 Conclusion
Having started out in 2014–15, the delivery phases of the Innovation Programme and its successor...
Conclusion
Having started out in 2014–15, the delivery phases of the Innovation Programme and its successor schemes are approaching their end. Programme funding is expected to finish in March 2024, with the remaining evaluations reporting by 2027.46 The Department stresses that … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
18 Conclusion
The phasing out of dedicated funding for evaluation comes at a time the Department accepts...
Conclusion
The phasing out of dedicated funding for evaluation comes at a time the Department accepts is challenging for local authority budgets.50 The Department described how the Innovation Programme has helped both the Department and the wider sector understand that quality … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details
19 Conclusion
We would not want to see financial pressures making it harder for local authorities to...
Conclusion
We would not want to see financial pressures making it harder for local authorities to make the case for building evaluation and learning into their future ways of working.53 The Local Government Association stresses the need to build on the … Read more
HM Treasury
View Details