{"value":{"id":1402011,"askingMemberId":4471,"askingMember":null,"house":"Commons","memberHasInterest":false,"dateTabled":"2022-01-11T00:00:00","dateForAnswer":"2022-01-13T00:00:00","uin":"101784","questionText":"To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support his Department is providing to ensure the efficient delivery of the pause programme throughout the UK.","answeringBodyId":60,"answeringBodyName":"Department for Education","isWithdrawn":false,"isNamedDay":false,"groupedQuestions":[],"answerIsHolding":false,"answerIsCorrection":false,"answeringMemberId":4423,"answeringMember":null,"correctingMemberId":null,"correctingMember":null,"dateAnswered":"2022-01-18T00:00:00","answerText":"<p>The November 2020 independent evaluation of the Department for Education funded Pause programme, reported a statistically significant reduction in rates of infants (under 12 months) entering care in local authorities with a Pause practice, compared to an increase in comparator sites over the same period. There were an estimated 215, or 30%, fewer children over 3 years and 5 sites compared to the comparator local authorities.</p><p>The estimated benefit to cost ratios associated with these effects are £4.50 per £1 spent on Pause over 4 years and £7.61 per £1 spent over 18 years. Wider observed impacts for female participants include:</p><p> </p><ul><li>improved emotional wellbeing and reductions in psychological distress;</li><li>housing and financial security, with significant reductions in rent arrears, and the number of women who were homeless or in unstable accommodation almost halved;</li><li>increased engagement in education, employment, and specialist services, including a 60% increase in the proportion of women in paid employment;</li><li>improvements in key relationships in women’s lives, including relationships with existing children and their carers, with a 25% increase in the proportion of women reporting face-to-face contact with children.</li></ul><p> </p><p>There are currently 17 local authorities delivering Pause projects with £3.6 million of funding from the department’s innovation fund. In 2021, we provided additional funding for 3 regions to scale and spread Pause projects under strand 3 of the Recovery and Build Back Better Fund.</p><p> </p>","originalAnswerText":"","comparableAnswerText":"","dateAnswerCorrected":null,"dateHoldingAnswer":null,"attachmentCount":0,"heading":"Children: Social Services","attachments":[],"groupedQuestionsDates":[]},"links":[{"rel":"self","href":"/Questions/1402011","method":"GET"}]}