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Ministers ‘don’t get’ increase in children’s services demand

THE government still “does not fully understand what is driving demand” for children’s social care services and why there is wide variation in costs between councils, the National Audit Office (NAO) says in a report published today.

The public spending watchdog stated more than two years ago that the Department for Education had made “poor progress” in improving early intervention and emergency care services.

It urges councils to demand that the government heed spiralling concerns that the services are at a “tipping point.”

The report, entitled Pressures on Social Care, concludes that the DfE has “not yet done the work to tie together available sources of information and therefore lacks a well-informed pathway to achieve its goal” of providing high-quality support to all vulnerable children by 2022.

Local authorities are estimated to have spent £8.8 billion on children’s services in 2017-18 for 655,630 referred children. This is 7 per cent rise — slightly above population growth for children up to the age of 17.

The NAO says that 91 per cent of local authorities overspent on their children’s social care in that period.

Anntoinette Bramble, who chairs the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, said the “most urgent and pressing issue” is that funding gap is set to widen to £3.1bn by 2025.

“This is forcing many to cut the early intervention services which can help children avoid needing more serious and costly care later on,” she warned.

Labour’s shadow minister for children and families Emma Lewell-Buck said: “It’s deeply concerning that the Department for Education has not bothered to work out why more children are being identified as being in need.”

She called on the government to end damaging and dangerous funding cuts to “ensure that these vital services are available for all who need them.”

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