Slowdown hits prevention work

High-profile concerns about youth crime and child protection may also divert funding from services.

Judith Smyth, the director of the Department for Children, Schools and Families' commissioning support programme for local authorities, claimed preventive services could be "starved of resources".

Speaking at the Children's Services Network conference, Every Child Matters Five Years On, she said: "We have to go back to common sense and say surely a stitch in time saves nine. Outcomes for children who do need high-level services are not that good, so we have to rethink preventive services."

Smyth also said she feared the aftermath of the Baby P case would divert funding from preventive services, due to a knee-jerk emphasis on emergency child protection.

Service providers are already encountering belt-tightening in local authorities. Dr Chris Hanvey, director of operations at Barnardo's, said: "Local authorities are keen to renew contracts for children's services, but they are not so keen on building in the inflationary increase."

He said cutting preventive services would be short-sighted but admitted there is uncertainty about funding in the current economic climate. "Preventive services are a bit like training budgets - easy to cut," he said.

Maggie Jones, chief executive of the National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations, said charity chief executives are concerned about whether or not councils will renew contracts for services. "There is quite a lot of worry about what happens when contracts run out because lots of services are based on one- or three-year contracts," she said.

However, she claimed the full effect of the economic downturn would not be felt until local authorities allocate spending for next financial year, which starts in April 2009.

Funding attached to preventive work in the Youth Crime Action Plan has also been called into question.

Of the £100m allocated to reducing youth crime, around £19m is yet to be earmarked and more than 80 local authorities are still in the dark about how much cash they will receive from the £22m allocated for preventive work.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that outstanding funding would be allocated shortly, but could not confirm a date.