Baton passes to local councillors

There are some key messages to absorb. First, the double whammy: a 12 per cent Department for Education cut in non-schools services, coupled with a 28 per cent cut to council grants. That will hurt services for young people, children in care, family support and a range of preventative programmes. Next, a glimmer of hope: Sure Start is protected in "cash terms" (a real terms cut but not the wholesale dismantlement feared), and there is a £2bn early intervention grant for local authorities. And now for the dose of caution: next to nothing is protected any more. Ringfencing is removed apart from grants for schools and public health. What's more, obligations to report on a huge number of national indicators are gone. So there is nothing to stop councils spending part of that early intervention grant on potholes or rubbish collection.

But the period for influencing central government is more or less behind us. The focus now swings firmly from the national to the local. Councils and councillors have an immense responsibility to take the right decisions that will make their communities vibrant, safe and at ease with themselves.

The removal of ringfencing brings flexibility for decision makers and risks for local citizens, prompting fears of a "postcode lottery" for vulnerable families. Smart councils will grasp the opportunity to reconfigure their services to be efficient and effective, to collaborate on the frontline and in the back office, and crucially, to protect what they know works. Poor councils will regard the decisions ahead as just a mammoth cost-cutting exercise. They will slash and burn and eschew the challenge to forge an intelligent long-term strategy.

"Early intervention" and "prevention" might be just jargon to many local councillors. But to dispense with good services will be a false economy. The principal message is the need to invest to save - in the children's centre, the youth centre, the after-school club, the sexual health service, the mental health project, the play scheme, the mentoring programme. Where these are effective, they will reduce the number of young people without a job or training, they will alleviate the strain on the care and justice systems, and they will help create adults and parents of the future who have a sense of optimism and responsibility for their own children.

These are important times. Councillors up and down the land - your country needs you.

Ravi Chandiramani, editor, Children & Young People Now