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Funding: Children's services face a big shortfall

1 min read
The Government has been told it must find an extra 312m for children's centres and an extra 117m for extended schools if both initiatives are to be sustainable in the long term.

Les Lawrence, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, unveiled the new calculations in his opening speech to the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Brighton last week.

Lawrence, a Conservative councillor in Birmingham, said: "Children's services are experiencing high pressure on budgets. On children's centres, research has indicated that there may be a national shortfall of 312m. On extended schools, there is a shortfall of 117m."

Lawrence told Children Now the calculations had been made by the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Social Services to inform Government spending plans. He said one of the factors contributing to the 312m shortfall in children's centres was an inability to carry revenue funding from one year to the next. He said the shortfall of 117m in extended schools was partly due to a lack of flexibility in the extended schools grant.

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