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Leeds City Council’s children’s services has been selected to be a national “Partner in Practice” to share its expertise with other local authorities.

The Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed that Leeds has been successful in its bid for innovation funding and will be awarded £9.59 million over the next three years.

This is the largest amount awarded to any of the department’s “Partners in Practice” and the council says this is a reflection of the confidence the DfE has in Leeds City Council’s children services, the city’s restorative approach to working with children and families – and the city’s work in supporting other local authorities to be innovative.

Leeds is the second largest local authority in the country, with a population of 180,000 children and young people – one in five young people in Leeds are growing up in poverty.

A total of 67% of children living in poverty in Leeds live in a family where at least one adult is in work.

The council says the innovative work Leeds has undertaken has seen successes in spite of the increasing challenges – this includes safely reducing the number of children in care by 15.5% in the last six years, compared to the national increase of 8.6%.

This is the second successful bid for innovation funding for children’s services in Leeds, which was appointed as a “Partner in Practice” in 2016, in recognition of work in the city with children and families and the council’s ambition to make Leeds the best city in the UK for children and young people to live and grow up in as a “child friendly” city.

The Partners in Practice programme is a partnership between national and local government to understand, capture and spread excellence.

Executive Member for children and families, Councillor Lisa Mulherin, said:

“We have made bold decisions in Leeds to continue to invest in children’s services in our city, despite tightening local government finances. We have retained all of our children’s centres in the city – and kept a youth service and a school improvement service. Investing in children saves money for taxpayers later in life."

"We welcome this new funding, which will enable us to take forward the successful work that we have been championing with children and families in the city over the past five years. Our approach has been key in improving outcomes for families – and safely reducing the number of children in the city that are taken into care, bucking the national trend.”

Director of Leeds City Council children’s services, Steve Walker, added:

“Innovation funding is awarded to local authorities in order to help develop good practice – and the DfE has asked us to explore how we can effectively disseminate our learning with others. We have already welcomed more than one-third of all the local authorities in the country to Leeds to share our journey of improvement – and this award will enable us to take this work still further."

“Much of our success has been the result of strong partnership working with schools, GPs and third sector organisations in clusters.Children live in families and communities – and this funding will help us to strengthen our resources and the support available in local areas, to ensure that families get the support they need at the earliest possible time.”

Duncan Lewis Family Solicitors

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