ADCS backs early intervention drive for next government
Neil Puffett
Friday, March 6, 2015
The next government must take action to ensure savings from early intervention work is ploughed back into children's services, the Association of Directors of Children's services (ADCS) has said.
The call forms one of a number of “quick actions” for the next government to feature in three policy position papers published by the organisation on leadership, education and early years.
The ADCS says that current national policy and funding approaches “do not support investment in creative ways in early intervention”.
It points to children’s services spending nationally being skewed towards late, or later, intervention and reactive services.
“ADCS urges the government, the Early Intervention Foundation and others to work with the sector to establish realistic business cases for investment of public money in early years and in older-age early intervention,” the paper states.
“We must recognise and then overcome the challenges of unpicking the benefits accrued to different agencies of early intervention.
“Government needs to consider mechanisms that will reinvest savings into early years services from all parts of the system including criminal justice and welfare.”
According to most recent government data, spending by councils on early intervention services is continuing to fall as local authorities try to cope with cuts in central government funding and increasing demand for crisis point services.
Department for Education figures for how much local authorities spent on different areas of children and young people’s services in 2013/14 reveal that councils spent £1.05bn on children’s centres - a reduction of £139.7m on the 2012/13 figure of £1.19bn.
Conversely local authorities spent £3.7bn on services for looked-after children in 2013/14, compared with £3.5bn the previous year.
Councils also increased their spending on safeguarding services from £1.9bn in 2012/13 to £2.02bn in 2013/14.
The ADCS is also calling on government to look again at accountability arrangements for the local school system to ensure a coherent approach to the provision of sufficient good-quality places.
"Approaching a million children will enter the school system in the next decade," the paper states.
"We must have sufficient places for them. We also face a problem with teacher supply, especially for core subjects."
In addition, it wants to see improvements in early years provision, with a focus on “quality and not places alone”, as well as greater investment in parenting and wider family support alongside the free childcare offer, and for the level of the early years pupil premium to be increased.
And it also wants clarity over responsibility and accountability for systems for child protection and safeguarding, dealing with child sexual exploitation and schooling, stating that current arrangements are "confused and confusing".
"We need clarity at central government level and a clear calibration of responsibility between it and local government," the paper states.
"Only in this way can we ensure accountability and effective governance for the services our children thrive by.
"We believe this is best achieved by having a leader who is the single point of accountability for children covering all areas of service."
