Children's services in the dark over final budgets
Lauren Higgs
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The government is yet to inform local authorities of next year's full children's services budget, despite publishing the Local Government Finance Settlement last week.
This has prompted fears that councils' plans to commission services for next year will be hampered.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) last week confirmed the majority of grant allocations for children's services. But it failed to earmark cash for 10 funding streams, marking the grants as "to be confirmed".
Grants affected include ContactPoint, the Disabled Children's Access to Childcare Pilots, the Parenting Support Strategy Grant and the Fair Play Playbuilder - for investing in play areas.
Ralph Michell, policy advocate at the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, warned that uncertainty over grants could encourage local authorities to stop using the voluntary sector in favour of keeping services in-house.
He said: "Third sector organisations provide critical services on the basis of DCSF grants. It is the users of those services who will ultimately lose out if uncertainty over funding leads to cuts, particularly during a recession, when organisations face rising costs and falling income. Loss of funding could have a significant negative impact."
Christine Lenehan, board member at Every Disabled Child Matters and director of the Council for Disabled Children, warned that local authorities would be unable to plan services without specific funding details.
She said: "We want to see all local authorities taking part in the Disabled Children's Access to Childcare Pilots to be clear what their grant allocation is, which will ensure services can be delivered effectively."
But Caroline Abrahams, programme director for children and young people at the Local Government Association, said there was nothing to suggest the DCSF would cut grants because the government has pledged to stick to its local authority funding plan. "The DCSF may just not have done the sums yet," she said.
The DCSF was unable to comment as CYP Now went to press.