Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Thornton (Labour). It was answered on Thursday, 20 July 2023.

Reducing Parental Conflict

Question: My Lords, for this programme, the DWP developed a national offer of parental relationship support. In 2015 it piloted a local family offer in local areas, in 2019 it invited top-tier authorities to apply for strategic leadership support funding and developed a practitioner training offer, in 2021 the DWP offered workforce development grants, and last month it announced £2.8 million funding for eight projects to reduce parental conflict. The Government have just now committed £33 million to be spent on this programme between 2022 and 2025. Will the Minister tell the House where the £33 million is going and the outcome of all these activities?

Answer: It certainly remains work in progress. As the noble Baroness said, the reducing parental conflict programme was initiated in 2017 in response to two key pieces of evidence, one of which was the number of children who live in coupled families reporting conflict, which in 2020 was as much as 12%. We have three further evaluation reports coming out. They are enormous—I have seen them. This granular detail will be coming out shortly. It shows, for example, that 90% of those parents who have gone through it have a satisfaction rate, meaning that there is already some valuable information about its success.

Secondary information

Type: Oral question
Reference: 831 c2450
Session: 2022-23
Oral question type: Supplementary
Chamber / Committee: House of Lords chamber
Related items: Deposited Paper DEP2023-0674
Monday, 7 August 2023
Deposited papers
House of Lords
Subjects: Disadvantaged Finance Families
Link: View this Oral question on hansard.parliament.uk