Inquiry will identify solutions to stresses in children's services
Anna Feuchtwang
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Never move house, change jobs or get divorced (or married) in the same year.
So says the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, invented in the 1960s, which lists 43 stressful life events that can contribute to illness. Now consider the stressful events happening in children's social care - rise in demand and higher caseloads, cuts in funding, new legislation to implement, a tougher inspection framework and high-profile failing services. Each of these alone would be hard to cope with. Together, they could create the perfect storm, with vulnerable children caught in the vortex.
Many local authorities are adapting and understand the barriers that need to be overcome to provide children with good care and protection, but many more might fail. Understanding the difference could provide vital evidence about what works for all to learn from. MPs and peers who make up the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for children have launched an inquiry into how children's social care is being delivered in England and what can be done to better navigate these treacherous waters.
Increasing demand set against dwindling resources is probably the toughest challenge facing local authorities. Last year, the number of children taken into care or placed on a child protection plan rose for the fifth year in a row.
The needs of children, young people and families are changing too. Councils have to act to prevent child sexual exploitation, radicalisation and respond to other trends. Kent County Council has seen the number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum rise to 900, with the government pledging to accept more from the highest risk groups in refugee camps. Although there are plans to share the burden across councils, this inevitably adds to the pressure on services.
At the same time, the overall pot of money for children and young people's services is shrinking. Early intervention funding to local government fell by 55 per cent between 2010/11 and 2015/16. This is despite the rhetoric that spending "upstream" saves money in the long term. Many councils have been able to protect their spending on child protection and children in care relative to other services, but central government has questioned the link between levels of spending and the quality of services. In a response to the education select committee, the Department for Education said that "in the last parliament, child protection was prioritised in spending terms by local authorities and there was no significant correlation between spend and effectiveness". With December's Spending Review indicating a further squeeze on finances, what does this mean for future funding decisions?
With more children to look after and less money to do it with, local authorities face two further pressures. Changes to legislation have brought in new ways of supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities, reforms to adoption processes and improvements to social work practices.
And the tougher inspection framework designed to put a quick stop to poor practice could see services with an inadequate rating given just six months to improve or face being taken over. On top of this are the new inspections of safeguarding arrangements and the response of agencies to all forms of child abuse and neglect.
These changes promise improvement in the quality of care with services designed around the individual child. But without adequate resource and implementation, they could fail, leaving yet another trail of broken promises behind.
The messages we give young people about their value to society are at best mixed and at worst deeply negative. We continue to prioritise adult social care over children's - as shown by the recent Spending Review's measures to protect pensions and to allow councils to raise extra money for adult services. The Intergenerational Foundation found a 10 per cent decline since 2010 in young people's prospects across housing, education, health, income and debt.
The lifelines of youth clubs, educational support, teenage pregnancy services, and drug and alcohol recovery services have seen significant reductions. Overall spending on early intervention services such as children's centres and family support services fell from £3bn in 2010/11 to £2.3bn in 2014/15.
And yet, many local authorities are still able to provide quality services to children and families who need it. The APPG for children inquiry will explore how councils can replicate others' innovative practices and examine the overall impact on those not getting what they need.
Holmes and Rahe designed a stress scale for children too. It included family break-up, disability, failure at school, drug and alcohol involvement, and all of the other factors social care was designed to support. Fifty years on, this inquiry will show how councils are responding to the stresses children face, and also how councils are facing up to their own burdens and responsibilities during a time of great change.
To find out more about giving evidence to the inquiry, visit www.ncb.org.uk/appgc2016
Anna Feuchtwang is chief executive of the National Children's Bureau