Increased investment in programmes including Supporting Families, the Turing Scheme and reforms to unregulated children’s social care have also been announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the first CSR since 2015.
Organisations across the sector have called for children and young people to be at the “centre” of spending until 2024/25, including investment to support recommendations put forward by the Care Review.
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Spending Review: Key asks for children and young people
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We can absolutely afford to invest in our young people
CYP Now outlines plans put in place to support services for children and young people:
Social care
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Real terms increase of three per cent rise in core spending power for local authorities.
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£1.6bn of new grant funding in each of the next three years for English councils to include increased investment in supporting vulnerable children.
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£104m by 2024/25 for reforms to unregulated children’s social care.
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£7m by 2024/25 to improve access to services and support for adopted children and their families through the implementation of the Department for Education’s adoption strategy, Achieving Excellence Everywhere.
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£259m to “maintain capacity and expand provision” in both open and secure children’s homes (see youth justice).
Family support
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The taper rate for universal credit will be reduced from 63 per cent to 55 per cent by 1 December, meaning claimants will be able to keep an additional 8p for every £1 of net income they earn.
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Work allowance for parents on universal credit reduced by £500 per year.
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£200m for family help services in half of the council areas across England through the Supporting Families programme (previously Troubled Families).
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£200m per year to continue the Holiday Activities and Food Programme.
Early years
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£300m over the next three years for Andrea Leadsom’s Start for Life programme which will include family hubs, Start for Life services, perinatal mental health support, breastfeeding services and parenting programmes.
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Public Health Grant maintained in real terms, enabling local authorities across the country to continue delivering frontline services like child health visits.
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Trials of “innovative workforce models for health visitors” will also be funded in a smaller number of council areas to test approaches to improve the support available to new parents.
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£170m until 2024/25 to increase hourly pay for early years providers.
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£150m until 2024/25 for training of early years staff to support children’s learning and development, as part of the £1.4bn announced in June 2021.
Education
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A new package of £1.8bn over three years to support education recovery in schools and colleges.
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£2.6bn for 30,000 new school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England.
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£4.7bn by 2024/25 for core schools funding in England.
Youth work
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Funding for the continuation of the Turing Scheme for the next three years, including £110m for the academic year 2022/23.
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£560m in youth services in England, including through the Youth Investment Fund and National Citizen Service to provide up to 300 youth facilities.
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£205m investment in up to 8,000 state-of-the-art community football pitches and £22m to refurbish more than 4,500 public tennis courts.
Jobs, training and skills
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£60m over the next three years to help 16- to 24-year-old jobseekers gain new skills, build confidence and find lasting work through the extension of the Youth Offer to 2025.
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Funding to extend the Kickstart scheme to March 2022.
Youth justice
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£259m to support children in both open and secure children’s homes (see social care).
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£200m a year by 2024/25 to improve prison leavers’ access to accommodation, employment support and substance misuse treatment and introduce further measures for early intervention to tackle youth offending.
