Spending cuts threaten the best of children's services

Following an assessment of children’s services departments in England in 2009, Ofsted has recently reported  that one of the defining features of the ten local authorities who were awarded an ‘excellent’ rating – the highest of the four ratings available - was their focus on early intervention and prevention; ‘emerging concerns are identified at an early stage, leading to properly targeted support from a range of services.  This emphasis is deeply ingrained in the thinking of managers and staff and consistently and genuinely shapes policy, practice and funding, leading to improved outcomes’.

However, this emphasis on early intervention and prevention in the delivery of children’s services sits at odds with the Coalition Government’s focus on public sector spending cuts, which includes a reduction in the budgets of local authorities - which could potentially result in less funding for the work of children’s services.  And a fixation on spending cuts runs the risk of a false economy with a potential race to the bottom rather than a race to the top in terms of the quality of provision that is provided to children and young people.

 When we get the focus of children’s service provision right, investment of public money will bring substantial returns, both in terms of a reduction in the occurrence of social problems and in terms of savings to the state.  nef’s report Backing the Future, which was produced in partnership with Action for Children, demonstrates that by investing early in children’s social and psychological well-being we can address some of the current pressing social problems – crime, mental ill health, family breakdown, drug abuse and obesity – and we can build the foundations for a more equitable and well-functioning society over the medium and longer term.  It showed that this approach makes economic sense, with potential savings to the UK economy totalling £486 billion over 20 years if we moved towards a model of service provision that emphasises prevention.

Moreover, the Ofsted report highlighted that those children’s departments which secured an ‘excellent’ rating demonstrated that ‘there is clear evidence of targeting resources to early intervention and to assessment of its impact and value for money’ which shows how a focus on early intervention and prevention can also pay economic dividends at the local level.  Children’s departments can invest now – like the ten ‘excellent’ departments which are highlighted in the Ofsted report – in a preventative model which focuses on achieving real value for money.

Even in the current economic climate, a focus on short-termism means we all lose out – children and young people, their families and friends, the wider community, and society as a whole – as the cost is paid in terms of greater social problems, which will need to be addressed with more funding in the long-term, and less children being able to enjoy a future where they feel happy, safe and valued.