Early intervention revival needs cross-party backing to succeed

It has been a tough few years for advocates of early intervention.

While the logical arguments in favour of intervening earlier in children's problems have been regularly repeated in reports and speeches, central government and local government actions have often seemed to move in the opposite direction. But now I can spot some signs of encouragement.

There is, of course, still plenty of bad news. The funding available to local authorities to support early intervention has reduced significantly in the last three years, and is set to reduce further. The numbers of children being received into care has increased, which in turn directs greater proportions of local authority funding towards picking up the pieces after things have gone wrong. Some local authorities now spend as much as 80 per cent of their shrinking children's budgets on children in care and child protection, leaving only 20 per cent for family support and prevention.

So why am I starting to feel a bit more optimistic? Well, first, the Cafcass figures for care applications this August showed a fall of 17 per cent on last year's figures. Over the last four months the figures have dropped by two per cent – a small drop, but the first time the trend has moved downwards since the Baby Peter case. The rate of care applications is still way above the rates from before 2009, but we just might be seeing glimpses of a time when care numbers stop rising.

Second, the new government agency Public Health England (PHE) seems to be finding its feet. One of its early priorities is to "give children and young people the best start in life" – not surprising, since Professor Michael Marmot's 2010 review on public health priorities so strongly recommended this, and argued persuasively for an increase in the proportion of government spending to be allocated towards funding support for children to tackle health inequalities for under-twos. PHE works through local authorities and their health and wellbeing boards, and even at a time of very tough budgets, we can hope for more targeting of attention and funding towards these very early years.

And third, a new cross-party group of MPs has produced a rather good report arguing for much more future attention to be paid to what they call The First 1001 Days – the days between conception and a child's second birthday. The group is genuinely cross-party, and discussions have taken place at the three major party conferences on how the next manifestos can contain some strong measures on very early intervention. Frank Field is leading for Labour – and shadow health secretary Andy Burnham is very supportive. Andrea Leadsom leads for the Conservatives, with strong commitment from Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. And Paul Burstow fronts the Liberal Democrat inputs, with public support from Treasury minister Danny Alexander. The report is backed by the chief medical officer Sally Davies, so if we add this to the Department for Education report Conception to Age Two, published earlier this year, we can also see signs that the relevant departments of state are laying down markers of future intent.

Reading signs of future direction in government policy is sometimes as reliable as studying chicken entrails. But here's why these signs could be positive.

We have always known that a decisive shift towards funding early intervention was going to be seriously difficult. For generations public services have tended to wait until things go wrong for a child, and only then intervene. It is devilishly hard to prove that early intervention services work. So we can normally only hope for an expansion of early intervention services at times of prosperity. That is why the greatest early intervention investments of the last century – Sure Start children's centres - was initiated at a time of growth.

It takes real courage for a local authority to shift funding from, say, child protection to preventative work. At a national or local level, shifts of resources like this require a genuine long-term perspective – an ability to look at the needs of a community over a 20-year period, and a readiness to take real risks. In our stop-start political system, we cannot really expect any leaders, national or local, to take that kind of risk on their own. It needs cross-party commitment, an understanding of the risks, a willingness to stick their neck above the parapet, to set aside political differences in the long-term interests of children.

And that is what we must now see. We could see all three political parties commit to supporting investment in the first 1001 days in their manifestos. More important, we could see them agree to include such commitments in any future coalition agreement. If the civil servants in the major departments support it, we could see some options brought forward for future governments of whatever colour to consider.

Sir Paul Ennals is a children's services consultant and former chief executive of the National Children's Bureau