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Parents: Advisory Services

Volume 505: debated on Wednesday 3 February 2010

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) how many telephone calls have been (a) received and (b) answered by the Parent Know How helplines in each month since such helplines were established; (309519)

(2) how much has been spent on creating and maintaining the Parent Know How online directory and website;

(3) how many unique visitors have been received by the Parent Know How online directory in each month since its creation;

(4) how much has been spent on the Parent Know How (a) publications, (b) video and audio content and (c) social networking and virtual offices in each year since the inception of that service;

(5) how much has been paid to external consultants and advisers for work relating to the Parent Know How service in each month since the inception of that service.

Under our Parent Know How programme we are funding seven third sector organisations to provide helpline support for parents in England.

Management data, including the number of telephone calls received and answered by the helplines, were collected on a quarterly basis in the first year (1 April 2008-31 March 2009). In the current year, we are now collecting those data on a monthly basis. The following table shows a breakdown of the number of recorded calls received and answered by each helpline between 1 April 2008 and 30 November 2009.

2008-09 Recorded calls received

Helpline

Advisory Centre for Education

Contact a Family

Children's Legal Centre

Family Rights Group

Gingerbread

Parentline Plus

Young Minds

Q1

33,395

4,361

4,978

6,498

2,544

47,033

2,502

Q2

10,669

6,598

6,752

5,560

2,923

40,140

2,018

Q3

15,249

4,575

7,070

4,211

2,434

39,266

2,437

Q4

21,298

5,815

9,008

6,957

3,095

39,430

2,868

Totals

80,611

21,349

27,808

23,226

10,996

165,869

9,825

Overall total

339,684

2009-10: Recorded calls received to 30 November

Helpline

Advisory Centre for Education

Contact a Family

Children's Legal Centre

Family Rights Group

Gingerbread

Parentline Plus

Young Minds

April

7,476

1,427

2,043

1,861

847

12,322

599

May

7,637

1,329

1,819

2,087

724

13,511

678

June

6,359

1,336

1,938

2,219

363

11,970

778

July

4,202

1,165

2,420

1,857

920

13,169

904

August

1,023

1,361

1,188

1,145

857

11,420

526

September

3,578

1,428

2,066

41,562

1,019

12,768

795

October

4,006

1,418

2,342

1,057

1,030

12.064

914

November

3,918

1,572

1,915

1,292

970

11,466

823

Totals

38,199

11,036

15,731

13,0806

730

98,690

6,017

Overall total

189,483

2008-09: calls answered

Helpline

Advisory Centre for Education

Contact a Family

Children's Legal Centre

Family Rights Group

Gingerbread

Parentline Plus

Young Minds

Q1

1,903

2,051

1,291

875

1,376

26,967

1,206

Q2

1,521

3,182

1,501

906

1,317

23,086

1,123

Q3

1,741

2,401

1,554

996

1,094

21,738

1,380

Q4

2,798

2,421

1,740

1,412

1,395

21,914

1,626

Totals

7,963

10,055

6,086

4,189

5,182

93,705

5,335

Overall total

132,515

2009-10: Calls answered by 30 November

Helpline

Advisory Centre for Education

Contact a Family

Children's Legal Centre

Family Rights Group

Gingerbread

Parentline Plus

Young Minds

April

700

709

551

396

350

6,806

339

May

760

755

722

364

295

7,342

309

June

1,063

972

945

337

115

7,056

392

July

897

713

628

309

409

7,226

452

August

360

710

751

227

335

7,124

256

September

1,186

734

906

362

617

6,703

442

October

938

728

806

382

573

6,965

440

November

1,069

712

725

344

660

6,799

460

Totals

6,973

6,033

6,034

2,721

3,354

56,021

3,090

Overall total

84,226

We do not have details on the number of unique visitors using the Parent Know How Directory since it does not have its own website. The Directory is published on various websites that are used by parents, including Directgov, DadTalk and Parentline Plus. The number of hits on the system that feeds data to all the sites that publish the Parent Know How Directory currently averages 52,000 each day. In the last financial year (2008-09) £6,627,000 was spent on the Directory—which includes £5.65 millon in grants to local authorities to enable them to develop their own local databases of family service information. In this financial year (2009-10) we anticipate spending £1,500,000.

A range of organisations are funded under the Parent Know How programme to deliver different services to support parents.

At any time these individual organisations may be delivering that support via (a) publications, (b) video and audio content or (c) social networking—as well as telephone helplines and websites. We do not hold the information to accurately disaggregate the spending on each of these activities from the overall funding for each of these organisations. But the table below sets out the costs for these activities, for each year from April 2008 where this can be clearly identified from the information held.

2008-09

£

Publications

60,824

Video and audio content

46,616

Social networking and virtual offices

4,155,298

2009-10: (1 April-14 December 2009)

£

Publications

93,349

Video and audio content

159,933

Social networking and virtual offices

3,877,881

The table as follows sets out how much has been paid to external consultants and advisers each month since the Parent Know How programme started in 2008:

£

April 2008

408,384

May 2008

433,334

June 2008

530,748

July 2008

408,478

August 2008

495,923

September 2008

428,055

October 2008

340,361

November 2008

154,646

December 2008

119,266

January 2009

143,440

February 2009

151,894

March 2009

199,822

April 2009

196,782

May 2009

161,776

June 2009

189,816

July 2009

172,173

August 2009

162,932

September 2009

142,853

October 2009

135,585

November 2009

123,740

Total

5,100,008