North west councils urge Hammond to tackle children's services 'funding crisis'
Joe Lepper
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Politicians from 20 local authorities across the north west of England have joined forces to urge Chancellor Philip Hammond to provide extra money to tackle a "funding crisis" within children's services.
In a letter to Hammond, lead members for children's services from the councils told the Chancellor that additional funding is urgently required to meet an increase in the number of children in care.
They say that rising demand, coupled with a fall in council budgets, means they are having to reduce early intervention work, which is vital to ensuring families can stay together and avoid the need for care.
The looked-after children population across the North West is at a 20-year high of 13,000 and is higher than any other region in England, the letter states.
Since 2013 the children in care population has grown by 13 per cent, more than double the England-wide increase of six per cent. Over the last year councils in the area have faced a £45m increase in their residential children's care bill, adds the letter.
In 2016/17 the 20 councils in the region dealt with 90,930 children's service referrals, up two per cent on the previous year.
"As the cabinet leads for children's services in the North West we are writing to request that you allocate the additional funds that we need to address the growing crisis in children's social care," the letter states.
"The demand and the complexity of cases is increasing, creating overspends in our children's services budgets, at the same time that our council budgets are being reduced. This is an unsustainable financial demand for each of our councils."
The politicians who have signed the letter represent: Blackpool, Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen, Bury, Cheshire West and Chester Council, Cumbria, Halton, Knowsley, Lancashire, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Sefton, St Helens, Stockport, Tameside, Warrington and Wirral.
"There is a growing crisis in children's social care in the North West and councils are struggling to cope," said Barry Kushner, Liverpool's lead member for children's social care and lead member for the north west on the Children's Services Network of the Association of Directors of Children's Services.
"We know that the sustainable solution to reducing children's social care is early intervention and stopping problems becoming crises. But the increasing costs of children's social care is driving our limited resources away from funding early help.
"This is not good for families because we can only intervene when a situation has escalated out of control, or for society as we often end up taking children into care, which is far more costly and damages their life chances. "
Earlier this month shadow chancellor John McDonnell also called on the government to address a growing "crisis" in children's services with additional funding.
The Local Government Association estimates that over the next three years annual spending by councils on children's services will be nearly £2bn more than this year, due to rising demand and falling grants from central government.
