Allen's intervention could be too late

The remit of the review — to identify and support models of best practice and to find innovative funding mechanisms - is also right on the money. The only problem is that the Labour MP is not due to report on these two matters until next January and May respectively. By then, the cuts heralded by October's comprehensive spending review will have started to sting.

While there is cross-party consensus over the need to "invest to save" early in services to avert more costly, intensive interventions years later, this message won't necessarily be transmitted in town halls across the land. Children's centres, parenting support, drug and alcohol awareness projects, teenage mentoring work - just the sorts of programmes highlighted in a seminal joint report between Allen and Iain Duncan Smith two years ago, are far from safe as councils strive to make big savings.