Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to respond to the Children’s Commissioner’s report, Protecting Children from Harm, published in November 2015.

Edward Timpson

The report captures the findings from the first part of the Children’s Commissioner’s inquiry into child sexual abuse in the family environment. The Government will give careful consideration to the findings of the full inquiry when it is completed in December 2016.

Tackling child abuse is a priority for this Government. This Government has set up the first ever cross-government Ministerial Child Protection Taskforce to overhaul the way police, schools, social services and others work together in tackling this abhorrent crime. The taskforce’s work will build on the Government’s wide-ranging reforms to create a care system that puts children’s needs first. This includes the appointment of a Chief Social Worker to champion reform in the profession, a £400 million investment in social work training, and cuts to bureaucracy to free up social workers to do what they do best.

We have also invested an extra £100m to support vulnerable children and we areproviding £7m for services supporting survivors of child abuse.

The Government is committed to driving forward fundamental reforms to protect the most vulnerable children in our society and give them the opportunity to succeed.