Cuts spell the end of early intervention as we know it

Now that the dust has settled over the proposal, buried in a summertime business rates consultation, councils know there will be no money dedicated to early intervention. Money for such work – which includes Sure Start children’s centres, short breaks for disabled children, mental health support in schools, targeted youth support and sexual health programmes – will from April not only be reduced, but will have to come out of councils’ mainstream budgets.

But local authorities still have hundreds of wide-ranging statutory duties to meet, which is likely to further relegate support for such work. The government’s obfuscation over the issue has cut the time for councils to react, perpetuating the hand-to-mouth existence and financial uncertainty for so many good service providers. It would have been better if it had been upfront about its intentions from the outset.

Evidence demonstrating the impact of early intervention programmes is growing. They are crucial to improving the educational outcomes of children. As the head of commissioning at charity Place2Be puts it: “If [mental health] services like ours aren’t there to provide support to the children who need it, this affects the whole school population”.

Thanks in part to the admirably bloody-minded persistence of MP Graham Allen in trying to alert government to the shortcomings of its decision, the issue is not going away. The Early Intervention Grant has enabled local authorities to back work that is actually proven to work and prevent the need for more expensive interventions later on; it has allowed them to invest in order to save. Instead the government has chosen to cut now, and pay later.

Childcare recommendations are deeply flawed

It is early days, but the views of the new early years minister Elizabeth Truss since she joined the government remain largely unknown. But she did come to office with some baggage.

As a backbencher in the spring, she issued a paper for the think-tank Centre Forum recommending deregulation of the childcare sector modelled on the system used in the Netherlands; decreased staff-to-children ratios; and a new army of childminders, all in order to make childcare in England more affordable. However, a survey of Pre-school Learning Alliance members out this week shows overwhelmingly that providers believe such changes would compromise the safety and quality of childcare.

What is more, Hilary Penn, professor of early childhood at East London University, revealed at the Conservative Party Conference last week that the Dutch system of deregulation introduced in 2005 resulted in an “enormous drop in quality”. Providers have no desire for these plans and the evidence shows they do not work. It might be time to think again.

Ravi Chandiramani, editor, Children & Young People Now