LSCBs in crisis due to funding shortfall, report reveals

Commissioned by the Local Government Association (LGA) and carried out by Research in Practice, the report details how councils are having to meet a shortfall in funding from other LSCB agencies such as schools, police forces and health trusts.

A third of 89 independent LSCB chairs surveyed said the funding arrangements are not working well, despite there being an obligation for agencies to share running costs.

Budget freezes are also in place due to a lack of funding from non-council partners – two LSCBs looked at in the report had not increased their budgets for nine and five years respectively.

In addition, LSCB chairs are having to work for free, with a third reporting they spent double the amount of time working for the board than they were paid for.

Three-quarters of chairs are calling for a nationally defined funding formula to be developed that members have to adhere to. Many of the remaining quarter wanted to see LSCBs directly funded from central government. One LSCB member interviewed said annual funding negotiations were like “taking a begging bowl around the agencies”.

The report is also critical of health and criminal justice members for failing to turn up to meetings.

All boards examined for the report had council representation, but one-fifth said no NHS England representative ever attended. The same proportion of boards reported that NHS England representation was “irregular or sporadic”.

Probation services attendance was also reported to be poor by 15 per cent of LSCB chairs.

Academies are also under represented. While council-run schools are represented at a senior level on three-quarters of LSCBs, just one-fifth reported attendance by a senior level representative from local academies.

One LSCB chair quoted in the report said: “In effect, there’s no such thing as an education system and we are getting close to that with health... the concept of partnership has been strained beyond breaking point, so maybe we don’t have an appropriate model to achieve what we need.”

In a joint statement, the LGA, Association of Directors of Children’s Services and council chief executives group Solace said they are concerned the funding problems come as LSCBs face increasing pressures to support local agencies to tackle child sexual exploitation, gang violence and radicalisation of young people.

“With councils often paying the vast majority of LSCB costs despite clear government guidance that partners should contribute fairly, it is clear that society and the government’s expectations of LSCBs will remain hard to fulfil,” the statement said.

Chair of the Association of Independent LSCB Chairs David Jones urged all local agencies with a responsibility to protect children to improve their support and involvement in the boards.

He added: “If LSCBs are to continue to support improvements in the delivery of child protection and safeguarding practice, they must be resourced to do the job, and to build and sustain the confidence of local people in the reliability of safeguarding children services.”