Esther Rantzen: Charities will merge to survive

After the terrible case of Baby Peter Connelly, it is said that referrals of children at risk are up by 40 per cent. How do we look after these children, how can we support families on the brink, if we as a nation are running out of money fast? Given that it seems inevitable that the statutory sector must lose jobs and withdraw services, can charities step up to the plate, and do more of the job? Or will the public feel the pinch, stop donating money, and will the charities themselves, especially the smaller charities, go to the wall?

As chair of ChildLine for 20 years, I have been here before. It was especially tough for us in 2005. The year had started with the tsunami, then over the following months the world was shattered by crisis after crisis; the famine in Africa; the earthquake in Pakistan. It seemed that every news bulletin was filled with children facing starvation, or being carried out of crumbling buildings. And yet at ChildLine we knew from the phone calls we received (an average of 5,000 callers a day), that Britain's children needed us as urgently as ever. But as international tragedy followed tragedy, with the appeals for the victims of the tsunami, and campaigns including Live 8 and Make Poverty History, a domestic charity like ChildLine slipped out of the nation's list of priorities.