The forthcoming Budget, on 30 October, presents the Chancellor with an opportunity to invest, properly and sustainably, in the future of this country – our children and young people. This investment not only benefits individual children and families via increased earning potential, less reliance on, and costs to, the state and sustained progress on social injustices, it is sound economic policy.
The Prime Minister’s recent speech warned of a ‘painful’ Budget as a result of a £22 billion blackhole in public finances. This has led to much speculation about what we might expect on Budget day and there won’t be a DCS or Section 151 Officer in the country who isn’t holding their nerve. Although very little has been said about funding for local government and children’s services, the announcement of a Children’s Wellbeing Bill, the new government’s commitment to developing an ambitious child poverty strategy and the missions-based approach to working gives me reason for optimism about how this government will approach many of the challenges impacting the lives and life chances of our children as well as the spending commitments the government might make.
We are at a pivotal moment in the nation’s relationship with children and young people. Too many children are living in poverty, have poor mental health or are living in cold, overcrowded or temporary housing. Multiple studies show that children’s life chances are stalling or even deteriorating in terms of education, mental or physical health. To begin to address this, we need to come together to invest in children, young people and their families, as well as the public services they rely on so that they can thrive, not just survive.
My sense of optimism should not distract from the sheer scale of the financial challenges local authorities now face. Most directors of children’s services, in my experience, are cautious optimists, but it would be far easier to be pessimistic given the perilous state of local government funding. The Local Government Association recently revised the expected funding gap over the next two years from £4 billion to £6.2 billion. That is change, but not in the direction we need.
Multiple studies have shown children’s services is now arguably the largest cost pressure in many local authorities and counter-productive decisions are having to be made because of the current financial context. This includes, scaling back vital and valued services that prevent future demand. This is the wrong approach, both in terms of the human and financial impact, but our hands are tied because there is not enough funding in the system to ensure the right help is available to children and families at the earliest opportunity. We need a sufficient long term funding settlement for local government and for children to enable us to shift the dial to ensure the services children and families rely on are available when they need them. Without this the vicious cycle of spend on late intervention over prevention will continue to cause future damage, misery and harm to children’s lives and life chances. Furthermore, an increasing number of local authorities have declared or are on the brink of effective bankruptcy. Many more will face this reality if nothing changes.
So, what would I like to see from the Budget and Spending Review? I hope to see national spending commitments to signal a shift in how we invest and prioritise children and families. If local authorities are to play a key role in reforms, sufficient investment is needed to stabilise and build capacity across the system and to address the hollowing out that has taken place during the austerity years. A comprehensive cross government vision and plan for childhood accompanied by a long term, sustainable funding settlement is also needed which plays specific attention to understanding, mitigating and removing income, health, racial, geographical and educational inequalities. Local authorities stand ready to play our part, but we need financial backing from central government to set us on a path towards financial sustainability that improves children’s lives.
Andy Smith is a president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) and director of children and adult services at Derby City Council. This blog was first published on the ADCS website.
