- News & Comment
-
Online Shop
Online Services
Looseleafs
Law Reports
Books and eBooks
- CPD & Events
- Authors
- About Family Law
- Contact
New analysis by the Children’s Services Funding Alliance revealed soaring costs for children’s social care.
The Children’s Services Funding Alliance comprises Action for Children, Barnardo’s, National Children’s Bureau, NSPCC and The Children’s Society. Together, these five children’s charities work to ensure that ambitious and sustainable long-term investment is made in local authority children’s services and support for vulnerable children and young people across England to improve their lives and those of future generations
The report states: "Providing appropriate care, support, and opportunities to children and young people so that they get the best possible start in life, whatever their circumstances, is essential. Across the country, multiple agencies, charities, layers of government and public services are involved in trying to achieve this. But the funding landscape for this work has been subject to considerable change over the past 12 years.
During that period, spending on children’s services by local authorities in England can be roughly divided into three distinct phases. The first phase occurred between 2010-11 and 2016-17. In response to significant funding cuts from central government, councils reduced spending on children’s services by almost £1 billion, a fall of 9% in real terms. Small increases in local authority revenues led to a second phase. Average annual growth rates of around 2% meant that, between 2016-17 and 2020-21, expenditure grew by almost £660 million. In 2021-22, local authorities in England entered a third distinct phase in their spending on children’s services. In that year, spending increased by more than £800 million, an 8% rise on the previous year.
In this respect, the third phase represents a break from the past, but in other ways there is continuity with recent history. Over the past 12 years, the nature of spending has transformed. With demand and costs intensifying, children’s services have consumed a growing proportion of local government budgets over time. As a result of financial pressures intersecting with the need to fulfil statutory duties, councils have radically changed the kind of services that they fund. Combined spending on early intervention services, such as Sure Start children’s centres, family support services and services for young people, has fallen by 46%, while total expenditure on late interventions, like youth justice, safeguarding and child protection, and children in care, has risen by almost half (47%).
In 2021-22, children’s services funding was typified by this approach, with more than £4 in every £5 of the additional £800 million going into late intervention services."
Chris Munday, Chair of the ADCS Resources and Strategy Policy Committee, said: “This report shows that local authorities are spending more on children’s services, but that this is skewed towards late intervention. We are having to make increasingly counterintuitive decisions to manage rising demand whilst having to balance our budgets. These pressures are exacerbated by the exorbitant costs of some types of placements which are driven by the huge profits made by private providers backed by hedge funds. Local authorities must fund statutory child protection where need exists, but we must also balance our budgets. There is simply not enough money in the system to meet the level and complexity of need now evident in our communities, whilst also investing in earlier support to prevent children and families from reaching crisis point. When budgets are under pressure sadly non statutory parts of the system, the very services that can limit future demand, are often the first to be cut, it’s a vicious cycle. Local authorities want to support children and their families at the earliest possible opportunity because this is the right thing to do, but we need government’s support to do this.
Care can be the right option for some children, but where we can keep families together safely, we should. The earlier we work with children and families to tackle the root causes of the problems they face, the less impact these challenges will have on their lives and on society. However, our preventative duties have never been sufficiently funded by government to enable us to work with families in this way, addressing needs as and when they arise. This is not good economic policy and it will have huge social and human costs. There are important messages here for the Treasury and for the Department for Education, as the current financial situation has significant implications for children and the Department’s children’s social care reform programme.”
You can read the analysis here.
