EDITORIAL: Broken promises and the Children's Fund

So it is disturbing to learn that her officials have, as quietly as possible, been taking the axe to one of the best things to come out of the pre-green paper era.

When people asked what the Children and Young People's Unit actually did, it could point to the Children's Fund as something to be proud of. But now that the unit has bitten the dust and, from an organisational point of view, nobody "owns" the Children's Fund, it seems to have become fair game.

Details of the cuts to local programmes have been trickling out since mid-December, no thanks to the Department for Education and Skills. What we do know is entirely thanks to local Children's Fund chairs and programme managers. The best explanation they have been able to get out of the department is that the original budgets had been "overprofiled" in the expectation that local schemes would underspend. In other words, generous allocations were made so ministers could gain political points for the money they were putting into preventative services, while nobody at the top expected or wanted the cash to be spent.