Children’s Services: Funding

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Laming

Thursday 10th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has very helpfully agreed that local authorities have been squeezed and are being squeezed. Does he agree that in many authorities this is resulting in a reduction in preventive and family support work, and therefore local authorities are not intervening until such time as a crisis occurs? Could that be one of the reasons why more children are being admitted into public care?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord has had a lifetime of distinguished career in social care. He may have been in the House yesterday, when my noble friend Lord Agnew referred to the troubled families programme, which indicated that the number of children defined as children in need declined by 14% after they had been involved in that programme. That, of course, reduced the demands that those children and families made on more expensive children’s care services. On top of that, last year the DfE invested nearly £5 million as part of an innovation programme to test the most effective ways to provide targeted support to reduce the need for most intensive forms of intervention—precisely the point the noble Lord has made—and thereby, it is hoped, reducing the pressure on children’s services departments.