Children’s social care ‘at breaking point’

Children’s social care is being pushed to breaking point, council leaders have warned.

In 2015/16 councils surpassed their children’s social care budgets by £605 million in order to protect children at immediate risk of harm, the Local Government Association (LGA) has found.

There has been a surge in demand for children’s social care support over recent years, with more than 170,000 children subject to child protection enquiries in 2015/16 compared to 71,800 in 2005/06 - a 140 per cent increase in 10 years alone.

The number of children on child protection plans increased by almost 24,000 over the same period, while ongoing cuts to local authority budgets are pushing many areas to make difficult decisions about how to allocate scarce resources.

LGA analysis predicts a £2 billion funding gap by 2020, and shows that government funding for the Early Intervention Grant has been cut by almost £500 million since 2013 and is predicted to drop by a further £183 million by 2020. Without this funding, councils are struggling to invest in the early help services that can prevent children from entering the social care system.

The huge financial pressures councils are under, coupled with the spike in demand for child protection support, means that the pressures facing children’s services are becoming unsustainable, and that the limited money councils have is increasingly being taken up with the provision of urgent help for children and families already at crisis point, leaving very little to invest in early intervention.

Richard Watts, chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said: “The fact that the majority of councils are recording high levels of children’s services overspend in their local areas shows the sheer scale of the funding crisis we face in children’s social care, both now and in the near future.

“Councils have done everything they can to respond to the growing financial crisis in children’s social care, including reducing costs where they can and finding new ways of working. However, they are at the point where there are very few savings left to find without having a real and lasting impact upon crucial services that many children and families across the country desperately rely on.

“With councils facing a £2 billion funding gap for children’s services in just three years’ time it is more important than ever that the government prioritises spending in this area.

“There is no question that early intervention can help to limit the need for children to enter the social care system, lay the groundwork for improved performance at school and even help to ease future pressure on adult social care by reducing the pressure on services for vulnerable adults.

“However, cuts to the Early Intervention Grant have exacerbated a difficult situation where councils cannot afford to withdraw services for children in immediate need of protection to invest in early help instead.

“The reality is that services for the care and protection of vulnerable children are now, in many areas, being pushed to breaking point. Government must commit to the life chances of children and young people by acting urgently to address the growing funding gap.”