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GREATER demand for emergency social care for children is leaving gaps in preventative services for millions of others, the Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield warns.
Half of the £8.4 billion children’s services budget last year was spent by English councils on the most serious cases, assisting 73,000 “looked after children” (LAC) in foster or residential care.
The other half was spent on services for 11.7 million children, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies report commissioned by Ms Longfield and published today.
Between 2009 and 2017, spending on LACs rose by 22 per cent, according to the report titled Public Spending on Children in England: 2000 to 2020.
Spending on preventative services such as Sure Start fell by about 60 per cent over the same period because of council obligations to LACs amid central government funding cuts.
Ms Longfield warned that the economic and social cost of this was “unsustainable” and called for the government to make changes in 2019’s spending review.
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner called the report a “damning verdict” on Tory cuts and vowed Labour would invest in Sure Start and other children’s services.
