Children: Social Services

(asked on 15th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the economic merits of the level of funding for early intervention services provided by local authority children’s services.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 25th March 2019

The government has funded the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) since 2013, including providing almost £2 million of funding in 2018-20, to assess, evaluate and disseminate evidence of what works. The EIF has assessed the benefits of a wide range of specific early intervention programmes and suggested that, whilst producing robust estimates is challenging, there is a compelling argument that intervening early is likely to bring economic benefits to society. In particular, the EIF has highlighted that the long-term economic benefits are considerable where early intervention leads to labour market gains, such as improvements in employment and earnings. However, the EIF is clear that this is not a quick fix and is unlikely to reduce pressure on the social care system in the short term.

The value of early intervention is reflected in the statutory guidance “Working Together to Safeguard Children (2018)”, which is clear that providing early help is more effective in promoting children’s welfare than reacting later and that it plays an important part in supporting children and young people to achieve better outcomes. The guidance is clear that local areas should have a comprehensive range of effective, evidence-based services in place to address assessed needs early. It is right that local authorities are free to decide how to use their children’s social care budget to manage local priorities and deliver the best services for children.

The government has also committed £920 million to the Troubled Families Programme, an early intervention approach which aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for families in difficult circumstances.

Reticulating Splines