The Department for Education will today (13 March) publish a tender document for the running of the EIF, which was one of the key recommendations of Graham Allen’s two reports into early intervention (see box, right).
The Department for Education will provide £3.5m to fund the foundation for a two-year period, after which it will become self-financing, and government funding will cease.
The move is part of the government’s Social Justice Strategy being launched by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.
The EIF will be independent, promote good practice in early intervention and advice councils, charities and the private sector on running and funding early intervention projects.
Consortium members include Anne Longfield, the chief executive of 4Children; Christine Davies, C4EO’s chief executive; Dame Claire Tickell, Action for Children’s chief executive; and Gavin Poole, the executive director for the Centre for Social Justice. The Local Government Association is also involved.
Graham Allen described the creation of the EIF as "the most important of the 60 recommendations from my two reports".
He also welcomed the involvement of a number of government departments in funding the EIF.
Allen said: "The fact that the funds have been contributed from the departments of health, local government, education and work and pensions, and with the approval of the Treasury and Cabinet Office indicate the cross-government awareness of the need for a culture change from expensive and often ineffective late intervention to much cheaper and effective early intervention."
The Social Justice Strategy paper, Social Justice: Transforming Lives, sets out the government’s plans to shift the focus of policy and funding towards early intervention.
A social justice cabinet committee has been set up to co-ordinate this policy shift across government, chaired by Duncan Smith. The strategy also has a strong focus on introducing payment by results structures to incentivise those involved in running early intervention projects.
4Children chief executive Anne Longfield said: "The current approach of dealing with the consequences of families in crisis after they have reached breaking point is simply unsustainable and hugely expensive. 4Children welcomes the establishment of the Early Intervention Foundation. It will bring together valuable and useful resources that will help local authorities identify where problems arise and provide effective solutions and examples of best practice to tackle locally identified needs. 4Children is delighted to be a member of Graham Allen’s Early Intervention Consortium and we look forward to submitting our proposals to the Department for Education."
