Children's commissioner calls for review of children's services cuts
Jess Brown
Thursday, January 7, 2016
There is an urgent need to review how funding cuts to children's services are affecting children, the children's commissioner for England has told MPs.
Appearing before the education select committee, Anne Longfield said it is necessary to gauge the impact of "immense changes" in the sector in recent years.
"There is an urgent need to look at sharing best practice in innovation, but also seriously look at how changing children's services are impacting on children. I think there is a need for a stocktake on children's services and the impact on children," Longfield said.
During the past five years funding for councils has dropped significantly, while the number of children in need of support has been on the rise.
In 2008, there were 39,100 children subject to a child protection plan, but the figure now stands at 49,700.
Longfield said there is a need to look at how these changes are affecting children. The requirement for councils to change the way they deliver services in order to cope with government cuts is a “step into the unknown” for many of them, she added.
"There is an immense change going on in children's services. It's a change in the nature of those services but also being done at a time when there's immense pressure, limitations on budgets and an increase in demand too," she said.
She also called for how local authorities can better share best practice in innovation to be examined.
Last month the government announced the launch of its partners in practice programme, where six best performing local authorities would work with those who are struggling. However, Longfield said this doesn’t involve enough local authorities.
Longfield also spoke out about government plans to change the measure of child poverty from median income to factors such as workless households and educational attainment.
While Longfield said she approved of using wider measures to test poverty, she said an income measurement had to be a part of the test.
“If you don’t measure the fundamental issue of lacking money, we’re missing the core point,” she said.
On Longfield’s call for a review of children’s services impact on children, Roy Perry, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board said it is vital councils have the resources to deal with increased demand.
“High-profile crimes of abuse and neglect means that there are rightly thousands more children on the radar of social services now.
“Across the country, social workers are striving to improve the lives of vulnerable children and work closely together to maximise expertise and knowledge. In a period of significant change to the way services are delivered, learning from within the sector from the best councils is paramount.
Alison O’Sullivan, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said council budgets have been reduced by 40 per cent in some areas, adding that with further reductions non-statutory and frontline services are seriously at risk.
"Our members and their local authorities have worked hard to minimise the impact of plummeting council budgets and increased demand for services on the communities that we serve," she said.
"If these pressures continue to grow our ability to protect the most vulnerable will be undermined and this is of great concern.”