"There have been lots of pleas for a special grant but we are not thatsympathetic," said Colin Green, divisional manager for child protectionat the Department for Education and Skills, at the National SocialServices Conference last week. "If your local partners can't givepriority to safeguarding what are we saying about its importance?"
But Andrew Webb, the co-chair of the Association of Directors of SocialServices' children and families committee said: "I fundamentallydisagree with Colin on funding."
He added: "Why make it difficult to find 150,000 in every localauthority for safeguarding? We know the local government financesettlement will be poor. We know that most children's services spendmore than their budget. And police and primary care trust budgets areunder pressure. Even to switch a small amount of money to safeguardingmeans someone has to stop doing frontline services."
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