The Conservative Manifesto includes a promise to back adoption. Will it be delivered on?

After this disruptive start in life, many young people drift into an adulthood of crime and prison.

David Simmonds: Standards for children in care are improving

Our task is to improve a system that is already very effective, albeit far from perfect.

The quiet progress of the Troubled Families programme

Fewer children are going into care. Crime is reduced. The taxpayer is saving money. The Government was right to defy the critics of this initiative.

Edward Davies: The next Conservative leader must make social justice their top priority

Government should be passionate about self-reliance, but we must also recognise the transformative power of an enabling state.

Nadhim Zahawi: How we can do more to support care leavers at university

Our new Covenant establishes a set of principles to guide private, public, and third-sector organisations who want to help.

The growing number of children in care is a national tragedy

Thousands more are spending Christmas denied the chance that adoption would offer them of a permanent, loving home.

Michael Tomlinson: What Ministers should do to help strengthen families

Each Secretary of State in every department should examine the impact of their department’s policies on families’ lives.

East Sussex and Northamptonshire – very different cases

It is true that financial pressures will increase. But the scope for reform and innovation remains huge. Services do not need to be cut.

Norfolk County Council has shown how boarding school can transform the prospects for vulnerable children

Yet the efforts of other local authorities to provide such opportunities have been derisory. Ministers give speeches but the Government has failed to act.

Kevin Davis: Don’t let Kingston return to the dark days of Lib Dem rule

Previously the parks were neglected and the roads full of potholes. The Conservatives have started to turn the borough around.

Peter Golds: Tower Hamlets Council is still failing the residents of the borough

£750,000 is allocated for “mother tongue teaching”. Yet there is almost no budget for English as a spoken language for non-English-speaking parents.

What Zahawi does in the daytime

Well, at least more people than previously now know he is Minister for Children and Families. What should be in his in-tray?

Greater use of the private and charitable sectors can improve the standard of foster care

There is plenty of innovation taking place. There should not be an ideological veto preventing it from flourishing.

Robert Halfon: Our schools are the best ever – now let’s build on that success, and deliver more social justice

High educational standards are essential, but the most disadvantaged children also need help with workplace skills and social capital.

Ideas for the Budget 3) Fiona Bruce: It should start to reduce the huge costs of family breakdown

The Chancellor should commit to a Family Services Transformation Fund of £100 million over four years to help relationship support and post-separation support.