Delivering the 2018 budget earlier this week Chancellor Philip Hammond said £84m would be provided over the next five years to expand successful children's social care programmes to 20 further councils with "high or rising" numbers of children in care.
Children's minister Nadhim Zahawi revealed in a tweet that the expansion will focus on projects currently running in three local authorities - Hertfordshire, Leeds, and North Yorkshire.
Each of the three councils have been running projects as part of the Department for Education's Social Care Innovation Programme that have led to local reductions in the number of children being taken into care.
Department for Education figures show that the number of children in care is rising at its fastest rate in five years. There were 72,670 children in care in the 12 months to the end of March 2017, compared with 70,440 the year before and 69,480 in 2015. The latest figures, as of March 2018, are due to be published this month.
Zahawi's tweet (below) has since been deleted.
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