Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant Determination 2025 to 2026
Published 14 May 2025
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2025
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Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant Determination (2025-26): 31/7833
The Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution (“the Minister”), in exercise of the powers conferred by section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, makes the following determination:
Citation
1. This determination may be cited as the Children’s Social Care Prevention (Revenue) Grant (2025/26): 31/7833.
Purpose of the grant
2. This grant is ringfenced for direct investment in additional prevention activity for children and families through the implementation of Family Help and Child Protection reforms. It will also fund local authorities to deliver against the planned new legislative duty to offer Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) meetings to all families at the pre-proceedings stage. This grant should be used alongside the Children and Families Grant, which will enable continuation of existing prevention services.
3. Funding should be used across the full breadth of preventative services, including early help, Family Help, Family Networks and child protection. These should support families to overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity, prevent escalation and effectively intervene with high-risk problems. Service delivery should be in line with the Children’s social care: national framework - GOV.UK and should support local areas to implement the government’s ambitions for national reform to prevention services, as described in the policy paper Keeping children safe, helping families thrive - GOV.UK.
4. The reforms build on the evidence from other government funded programmes, including Supporting Families Programme, Strengthening Families, Protecting Children and Families First for Children Pathfinder. An approach of whole-family working, supported by multi-agency teams, will mean families are offered a clear plan and support to prevent escalating needs. Family Help and Child Protection reforms will be underpinned by the best evidence from the children’s social care system as set out in guidance and the Department for Education (DfE) commissioned Practice Guides. Locally, the reforms will be delivered as a single integrated system that supports families to thrive and protects all children from significant harm, inside and outside of the home.
Determination
5. The Minister determines the authorities to which grant is to be paid and the amount of grant to be paid as set out in Annex A of this determination.
6. The grant will be paid in 12 monthly instalments.
Grant conditions
7. Pursuant to section 31(4) of the Local Government Act 2003, the Minister determines that the grant will be paid subject to the conditions in Annex B.
Treasury consent
8. Before making this determination in relation to local authorities in England, the Minister obtained the consent of the Treasury.
Signed by authority of the Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution.
Suzanne Kochanowski, Deputy Director Care, Reform and Grants
Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government
2 May 2025
Annex A: Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant allocations to local authorities 2025-26
Authorities to which grant is to be paid:
| Local Authority | Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant £ |
|---|---|
| Barking and Dagenham | £2,022,308 |
| Barnet | £952,024 |
| Barnsley | £1,831,792 |
| Bath and North East Somerset | £401,185 |
| Bedford | £476,635 |
| Bexley | £968,262 |
| Birmingham | £11,869,214 |
| Blackburn with Darwen | £1,127,945 |
| Blackpool | £1,809,380 |
| Bolton | £2,267,891 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | £1,046,406 |
| Bracknell Forest | £270,830 |
| Bradford | £4,462,516 |
| Brent | £1,400,990 |
| Brighton and Hove | £716,963 |
| Bristol | £2,717,465 |
| Bromley | £881,993 |
| Buckinghamshire Council | £1,137,535 |
| Bury | £851,498 |
| Calderdale | £1,130,738 |
| Cambridgeshire | £1,582,538 |
| Camden | £826,132 |
| Central Bedfordshire | £671,584 |
| Cheshire East | £905,253 |
| Cheshire West and Chester | £1,018,912 |
| City of London | £30,000 |
| Cornwall | £1,438,764 |
| Coventry | £2,184,854 |
| Croydon | £2,036,871 |
| Cumberland | £742,581 |
| Darlington | £617,376 |
| Derby | £2,217,792 |
| Derbyshire | £3,472,152 |
| Devon | £1,708,758 |
| Doncaster | £2,601,362 |
| Dorset Council | £839,342 |
| Dudley | £2,020,810 |
| Durham | £2,984,353 |
| Ealing | £1,467,133 |
| East Riding of Yorkshire | £769,395 |
| East Sussex | £1,608,494 |
| Enfield | £2,760,480 |
| Essex | £5,227,848 |
| Gateshead | £1,038,740 |
| Gloucestershire | £1,570,058 |
| Greenwich | £1,780,196 |
| Hackney | £2,588,557 |
| Halton | £1,410,295 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | £900,474 |
| Hampshire | £3,055,970 |
| Haringey | £1,435,946 |
| Harrow | £500,292 |
| Hartlepool | £932,725 |
| Havering | £1,026,319 |
| Herefordshire | £400,095 |
| Hertfordshire | £2,972,136 |
| Hillingdon | £1,318,214 |
| Hounslow | £1,212,332 |
| Isle of Wight | £390,632 |
| Isles of Scilly | £30,000 |
| Islington | £1,773,808 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | £345,983 |
| Kent | £6,759,810 |
| Kingston upon Hull | £3,452,723 |
| Kingston upon Thames | £345,054 |
| Kirklees | £1,976,180 |
| Knowsley | £2,199,178 |
| Lambeth | £1,987,922 |
| Lancashire | £5,047,815 |
| Leeds | £5,439,992 |
| Leicester | £2,786,877 |
| Leicestershire | £1,487,807 |
| Lewisham | £2,040,033 |
| Lincolnshire | £3,218,938 |
| Liverpool | £5,621,835 |
| Luton | £1,257,995 |
| Manchester | £6,081,741 |
| Medway | £1,792,509 |
| Merton | £723,190 |
| Middlesbrough | £2,122,720 |
| Milton Keynes | £1,218,266 |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | £2,609,363 |
| Newham | £2,493,654 |
| Norfolk | £2,850,758 |
| North East Lincolnshire | £1,663,554 |
| North Lincolnshire | £934,018 |
| North Northamptonshire | £2,178,364 |
| North Somerset | £508,911 |
| North Tyneside | £994,438 |
| North Yorkshire | £1,222,817 |
| Northumberland | £1,011,459 |
| Nottingham | £3,688,062 |
| Nottinghamshire | £3,153,874 |
| Oldham | £2,242,104 |
| Oxfordshire | £1,529,562 |
| Peterborough | £1,584,548 |
| Plymouth | £1,526,530 |
| Portsmouth | £1,718,969 |
| Reading | £554,021 |
| Redbridge | £650,152 |
| Redcar and Cleveland | £923,680 |
| Richmond upon Thames | £344,560 |
| Rochdale | £1,724,847 |
| Rotherham | £2,082,620 |
| Rutland | £56,093 |
| Salford | £2,217,611 |
| Sandwell | £3,554,632 |
| Sefton | £1,260,793 |
| Sheffield | £4,226,573 |
| Shropshire | £666,302 |
| Slough | £649,810 |
| Solihull | £1,119,662 |
| Somerset | £1,376,279 |
| South Gloucestershire | £605,551 |
| South Tyneside | £1,149,884 |
| Southampton | £1,693,987 |
| Southend-on-Sea | £1,098,493 |
| Southwark | £2,133,639 |
| St. Helens | £1,278,321 |
| Staffordshire | £2,618,188 |
| Stockport | £882,639 |
| Stockton-on-Tees | £1,172,098 |
| Stoke-on-Trent | £2,676,852 |
| Suffolk | £2,292,622 |
| Sunderland | £2,157,929 |
| Surrey | £2,357,421 |
| Sutton | £579,034 |
| Swindon | £999,327 |
| Tameside | £1,716,171 |
| Telford and Wrekin | £1,416,856 |
| Thurrock | £1,027,084 |
| Torbay | £658,340 |
| Tower Hamlets | £2,039,198 |
| Trafford | £578,751 |
| Wakefield | £2,318,402 |
| Walsall | £3,088,074 |
| Waltham Forest | £1,345,197 |
| Wandsworth | £1,640,416 |
| Warrington | £663,078 |
| Warwickshire | £1,515,541 |
| West Berkshire | £360,688 |
| Westmorland and Furness | £538,221 |
| West Northamptonshire | £1,168,894 |
| West Sussex | £1,858,063 |
| Westminster | £1,072,183 |
| Wigan | £2,117,311 |
| Wiltshire | £1,036,363 |
| Windsor and Maidenhead | £269,230 |
| Wirral | £2,418,650 |
| Wokingham | £250,244 |
| Wolverhampton | £3,007,626 |
| Worcestershire | £1,834,347 |
| York | £400,265 |
| England | £269,673,515 |
Allocations may not sum to exact totals due to rounding.
Annex B: Grant conditions
Definitions
In these grant conditions the following terms shall have the following meanings:
i. Co-design: engaging key groups including children and families, local partners, services and practitioners to design a new service model that is tailored to local context.
ii. Children’s Social Care National Framework hereafter CSC National Framework: statutory guidance, which brings together the purpose of local authority children’s social care, the principles by which children, young people and families should be supported, the enablers that should be in place so the system is effective, and the outcomes that should be achieved so that children and young people can grow up to thrive.
iii. Grant: the revenue amounts as listed in the Grant Determination Letters sent to the Recipient in accordance with the Local Government Finance Settlement.
iv. Grant Period: the period for which the Grant is awarded starting on the Commencement Date and ending on 31 March 2026.
v. Grant Recipient: The local authority that receives the grant funding.
vi. Programme Guidance: DfE guidance, due to be published before April 2025, which will set out delivery expectations for local authorities and their safeguarding partners.
vii. Practice Guides: DfE-commissioned guides that bring together the strongest available evidence for senior leaders in local areas about how best to achieve the objectives in the Children’s Social Care National Framework. The guides support effective practice and improve how services are commissioned, designed and delivered.
viii. Local partners: agencies and other organisations working together within a local area to deliver preventative services for children and families. At a minimum, this will include the local authority, local police force, integrated care board (ICB) and relevant NHS service providers, and education but may include third sector organisations, probation and housing.
ix. Multi-agency working: work across organisations to meet children’s needs including effective information sharing, joint decision-making and co-ordinated interventions.
x. Multi-disciplinary teams: a range of practitioners and professionals from different backgrounds working together in the same organisation to enable the best outcomes for children.
xi. Prevention services: targeted, whole family support to help children and families, which improves their resilience, helps them overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity and prevents high-risk problems from escalating. This may include early help, Family Help, Family Networks and Child Protection services.
Use of the grant
1. This grant is ringfenced for children’s social care prevention investment. The funding is an additive investment in prevention services for children and families. It should be used for: transformation, including evidence-based service design that builds on the Practice Guides and existing guidance, ahead of new or changed services being launched (paragraphs 19-26); and service delivery of both existing and new preventative services (paragraphs 27-28). This funding can also be used to support offers of Family Group Decision Making to all families at pre-proceedings.
2. This grant should be combined with the recipient’s allocation from the consolidated Children and Families Grant that was formerly Supporting Families Programme funding.
3. Recipient authorities must work with DfE and established sector-led regional networks to agree their local service models. Local authorities must also work with external partners identified to work on behalf of DfE, to support the objectives of the reforms, for example delivery partner(s) and an evaluator.
4. Grant recipients must identify a named lead, responsible for the day-to-day running of the programme who will coordinate local transformation, including service design, and delivery. This individual will also act as the lead point of contact for the DfE.
5. Grant recipients must assign a Senior Practice Lead responsible for design and implementation, including practice and culture, to support transformation and wider delivery. This may be a Service Manager.
6. Grant recipients must ensure they have a Data Transformation/Evaluation Lead to support effective transformation to fit-for-purpose digital and data systems.
7. The individuals listed in paragraphs 4-6 will not necessarily be new appointments by the grant recipient. They might be existing staff that are already responsible, or will be responsible, for key transformation and delivery activity – for example, those who oversee the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme.
8. Grant recipients are expected to produce local delivery plans which set out how they will work with their local partners to deliver new service models. These will be the product of a co-design period where key groups including children and families, local partners, services and practitioners are engaged to design a new service model that is tailored to local context. Service models must be based on best evidence (including Practice Guides) – further information can be found within Programme Guidance. Plans must reflect ‘collective responsibility to provide the right provision in their area’ (Working Together to Safeguard Children). Where possible, existing strategic partnership governance arrangements as set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children should be used to oversee the progress of the design and implementation of new/changed prevention services and to monitor impact locally.
9. The grant can be used to buy in dedicated resource from partners, such as secondment arrangements, to support the development of the delivery plan and ongoing transformation. Plans should also consider expenditure, including transformation spend and resourcing new/expanded teams.
10. All grant recipients are encouraged to build on existing regional structures, including Combined Authorities where applicable, when transforming, designing and delivering services. The ten local authorities in Greater Manchester are strongly encouraged to collaborate with each other and GMCA, building on the strengths of the previous regional approach developed through the Supporting Families programme. Partnerships will be essential to the delivery of the Families First Partnership Programme and the government considers that there will be advantages to GM local authorities working on a Greater Manchester footprint. Specifically, the Government is interested in further collaboration by GM authorities with a focus on service transformation (including around the national Families First reforms and alignment with Family Hubs and other programmes), data and insight, and the engagement of key strategic partners across the shared GM footprint.
Reporting
11. Based on the evidence that underpins the reforms (set out in Programme Guidance) and building on learning from the Supporting Families Programme, Strengthening Families Protecting Children and Families First for Children Pathfinder, it is anticipated that Grant Recipients will, in 25/26, see local progress against the short-term and medium-term objectives listed.
Short term objectives:
- Teams understand new roles and responsibilities of professionals and agencies and how to work together effectively
- Improved staff knowledge of, and confidence in providing, effective support for children and families
- Families have an improved understanding of services and support available to them
- Families feel more involved in the design of services
Medium-term objectives:
- Improved experience of children and families
- Improved relationships and trust between children and families and services
- Families receiving the right support at the right time
- Wider family networks involved earlier
- Services better meet the needs of children and families
- Improved decision making and case management
- Improved information and data sharing between professionals and agencies
12. Grant recipients must provide regular information to DfE, including local data, to provide assurance and support understanding of transformation and delivery progress against the objectives in paragraph 11. Where data already exists, DfE will draw on that to understand progress. Any new collection will be conducted quarterly, starting June 2025. More details will be published in guidance; however, reporting requirements will include the following:
a. Detail on the Family Help workforce, for example number of social work-qualified or alternatively qualified workers; LA or non-LA employed practitioners
b. Information on the children benefiting from Family Help and child protection services, for example, number of children receiving Family Help services
c. Number of FGDM meetings offered prior to/at the ‘letter before proceedings’ to parents/those with parental responsibility; number of meetings facilitated after the offer is made.
13. DfE will also expect a quarterly breakdown of expenditure, detailing costs across transformation activity, service design and service delivery.
14. The government recognises that every grant recipient, with their partners, are approaching these reforms from a different starting point and consequently, the proportion of transformation (including design) versus services spend in 25/26 will vary. However, grant recipients are expected to spend a proportion of the funding on transformation activity to establish the right conditions for effective and sustainable practice and service change. Based on pathfinder learning, this may be around 30% of the CSC Prevention Grant, with the remainder spent on service delivery, alongside the Children and Families Grant.
15. The Department for Education may request further information and narrative within financial returns to support understanding of transformation and services expenditure.
16. The grant recipient may also be sent questionnaires from DfE to understand progress against transformation, for example on co-design activity that has taken place, workforce recruitment and development or changes to case management systems to meet the aims for the reforms, and request local case studies, which demonstrate how changes are felt by children, families and practitioners.
17. In the longer term, the new/changed local services for children and families are expected to generate local impact. During 25/26 grant recipients should continue to observe and work towards the 10 headline outcomes in the former Supporting Families Programme, which are:
- getting a good education
- improved mental and physical health
- promoting recovery and reducing harm from substance misuse
- good early years development
- financial stability
- secure housing
- improved family relationships
- children safe from abuse and exploitation
- safe from Domestic Abuse
- crime prevention and tackling crime.
18. DfE will be working with grant recipients, and their partners, during 25/26 to develop a shared outcomes framework which will align with the CSC National Framework and Government’s Missions.
Expectations for transformation spend
19. Transformation costs are categorised as one-off and/or set up costs for the grant recipient to increase readiness for system change in the local area.
20. As grant recipients, with their local partners, prepare the conditions necessary for sustainable system reform. DfE expects funding to support transformational activity across the following core areas set out in the CSC National Framework enablers of good practice. The CSC National Framework sets out detailed expectations under these enablers:
a) leaders drive conditions for effective practice
b) multi-agency working is prioritised and effective
c) workforce is equipped and effective
21. In addition to the CSC National Framework enablers, the grant recipient should consider whether transformation activity is required to ensure sufficient data maturity to enable successful service design and delivery across local partners.
22. At the beginning of transformation, we expect the grant recipient to work with their safeguarding partners, education and other local partners to undertake analysis of their transformation needs as partner organisations. The grant recipient must dedicate appropriate time, resource and grant spend to address any areas of weakness across the National Framework enablers in paragraph 20.
23. The grant recipient is also expected to review its needs assessment(s) of the local area, ensuring needs of the community are fully understood, ahead of redesigning services that address these priorities.
Expectations for service design spend
24. Grant recipients will use best evidence (including Practice Guides) to inform their new service models. They will co-design services by engaging local partners and children and families, including those with lived experience of children’s prevention services.
25. Grant recipients should use their funding to enable engagement with other local partners, to co-design new services and strengthen multi-agency working, in particular when establishing multi-agency child protection teams and strengthening the role of education in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. This should include strategic representation from health, police and education, and meaningful engagement with other key partners including housing, probation and voluntary and community sector organisations, to ensure their views are input into new service models.
26. Children and families must be at the heart of transformation. Grant recipients should ensure a diverse range of service users and practitioners are engaged in the co-design process. DfE expect grant recipients to actively engage children and families, including those with lived experience to capture their views and allow them to shape service design based on their needs. The CSC National Framework describes further expectations for responding to the voices of children, young people and families.
Expectations for service delivery spend
27. Current preventative services should continue while grant recipients undertake design work with local partners to establish how existing services align with future delivery. This should ensure a continuation of targeted, whole family support to help children and families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
28. New service costs will include additional workforce and commissioned services to enable the grant recipient to offer new and updated services for families and children, which meet the policy principles set out in the Programme Guidance.
Breach of conditions and withholding future funding
29. If the recipient authority fails to comply with any of these conditions, or if any overpayment is made under this grant, or any amount is paid in error, or any unspent funding is not returned, the Secretary of State may reduce, suspend or withhold grant payments or require the repayment of the whole or any part of the grant monies paid, as may be determined by the Secretary of State and notified in writing to the recipient authority. Such sum as has been notified will immediately become repayable to the Secretary of State who may offset the sum against any future amount due to the recipient authority from central government.