Sector ‘disappointed’ over Spending Review’s failure to do more for disadvantaged children
Fiona Simpson
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Sector leaders have expressed “disappointment” over a lack of investment to support the most vulnerable children and young people following the announcement of Rishi Sunak’s Spending Review.
The Chancellor today announced details of the Treasury’s one-year Spending Review aimed solely at helping the UK’s recovery from the impact of Covid-19.
Sunak was urged to “put children at the heart of the review” by hundreds of young people and professionals across the sector including children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield.
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Others criticised plans to reduce the review to one-year, branding it a “sticking plaster” for issues facing local authorities, early years providers and the youth work sector.
The Chancellor pledged support for services including £300m for local authority social care departments, £16.5m for a youth Covid-19 Support Fund and £44m to increase the hourly rate paid to childcare providers but many have questioned if enough has been done to protect vulnerable children as the economy shrunk at a faster rate than at any time in the last 300 years.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) said it “welcomes new funding for children's services - schools, Further Education, childcare, SEND school places, Troubled Families, secure children's homes and more in 2021/22”.
However, The Children’s Society raised concerns over whether a pot of £300m for local authorities to be split between adult and children’s social care and £3bn to support councils through the challenges of Covid-19 is enough to mitigate the £2.2bn shortfall facing children’s social care departments alone.
Mark Russell, chief executive at The Children’s Society, said: “This isn’t a long-term solution to help a system that was already struggling and has faced £2.2bn in cuts to children’s social care funding alone over the last decade.
“The Chancellor rightly spoke of how the individual, the family and the community must become stronger, healthier and happier, but today’s announcement did not provide the strategy needed to genuinely improve the lives of the most vulnerable children in the long-run. The government must do more to level-up and build a brighter future for generations to come.”
Councillor James Jamieson, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “It is good that the Chancellor has provided further funding for councils to manage the cost pressures they face as a result of the pandemic. New funding for adult and children’s social care will also help address some - but not all - of the pressures these services face next year. Councils will still have to find savings to already stretched budgets in order to plug funding gaps and meet their legal duty to set a balanced budget next year.”
The National Children’s Bureau (NCB) added that there were “persistent blind spots” in the Spending Review and said the government “had not grasped” the size of the child poverty crisis.
Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the NCB, said: “The chancellor has rightly directed some of the spending in the next 12 months toward children and families. In particular, measures to improve schools, colleges and apprenticeships may enable young people to look to the future with a little more hope.
“There are persistent blind spots too. The wider social catastrophe that the pandemic could leave in its wake can only be averted by properly levelling up council budgets so that children’s services can reach out to children, young people, and families before their problems become emergencies.
“Similarly, the government still seems unable to grasp that child poverty is out of control. There are over four million children in the UK growing up in families who can barely afford the basic necessities and working families are far from immune.”
The End Child Poverty Coalition said it was “deeply disappointed” at the government’s decision not to uplift Universal Credit by £20 or extend it to those on legacy benefits during the health crisis.
The Education Policy Institute (EPI) welcomed a £2.2bn investment for schools but said “it is disappointing that no additional funding is available to continue to provide catch up support for pupils who have had their education disrupted as a result of the pandemic”.
"The most disadvantaged pupils in particular, who often do not have adequate resources at home, such as laptops, and who will have lost the most learning time, will continue to need additional support at school. The adverse effects of Covid-19 on pupils’ education is likely to continue long after next year,” Natalie Perera, executive director of the EPI added.
Meanwhile, Early Years providers said a £44m investment boost “won’t help providers meet all the rising costs of delivering the government’s childcare policy while also responding to the pressures of the current pandemic”.
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said: “Childcare places will be essential in any economic recovery, but this won’t be possible if those who deliver these places are put into financial hardship.
“Nurseries are facing a double whammy of reduced income and maintaining measures to keep settings as Covid-secure as possible. Now they will also have to factor in the increases in National Living Wage and Minimum Wage rates in April.
“Employers will have also been looking to the Job Retention Bonus to tide them over to the end of the financial year. This is another reason why an early years recovery fund is needed urgently for ensuring the sector’s sustainability.”
Youth work leaders also questioned whether funding promised to the sector in the form of a £16.5 million youth Covid-19 Support Fund and £100 million to deliver the National Citizen Service was enough to keep struggling providers afloat.
Leigh Middleton, National Youth Agency chief executive, said: “Youth work transforms young people’s lives. The Covid-19 Support Fund provides a short-term fix ensuring the youth sector can continue to operate, however the sector vitally needs the delayed £500m Youth Investment Fund to innovate and grow the capacity of the youth sector to support young people.”
Cat Smith MP, Labour’s shadow minister for young people, said: “This insufficient funding fails to deliver on the Conservatives’ Manifesto pledge of £500m to the youth sector, leaving youth organisations on the brink of collapse.
“With one in four youth organisations facing closure before Christmas, this sum is a kick in the teeth to a sector already on its knees and to the young people who rely on the support of youth services.”