CYP Now - Councils need bigger budgets, not handouts

The £600m of extra funding to ease the pressures facing local authorities is the latest example of the government being forced to bail out financially stricken councils.

Derren Hayes: 'Childcare funding, school standards and tackling violence resonate with the public at large and so will be higher up the agenda this year'

The announcement last month came after dozens of Conservative MPs wrote to the Prime Minister pleading for action amid warnings that several councils faced imminent insolvency due to the rising cost of delivering social care for children and adults.

One-off cash handouts from Whitehall should keep the wolf from the door in this election year – but it is nothing more than a sticking plaster when this ailing and neglected patient needs a long-term treatment plan that gets it back on its feet and fit to support children and families for the future.

Increasingly, policymakers are talking about long-term ambitions for children – for example, the government’s social care reforms set out three-year targets for changing how placements are commissioned and managed. And last month, Labour published a 10-year plan for improving children’s health.

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