Urgent cash needed as children’s services come under pressure
CHILDREN’S SERVICES have reached ‘tipping point’ with record numbers now in care, council representatives have warned, calling for urgent investment to ensure support is available.
Across the country, 90 children a day entered the care system last year, the latest Government figures show, with nine a day in Yorkshire alone.
Now, as the Local Government Association (LGA) warns stretched services are facing increasing pressures, it has called on the Chancellor to address it in his Autumn statement.
Children’s services, they say, face a £2bn funding gap by 2020.
“Children’s services are at a tipping point with growing demand for support combining with ongoing council funding pressures to become unsustainable,” said Coun Richard Watts, chairman of the LGA’s children and young people board.
“Last year saw the biggest rise in the number of children in care for seven years. With 90 children coming into care every day, our calls for urgent funding to support these children and invest in children and their families are becoming increasingly urgent.
“Children’s services face a £2bn funding gap by 2020. If nothing is done to address this funding gap crucial services that many children and families across the country desperately rely on will be put at risk.”
The LGA is also calling on Ministers to invest in improving children’s services by devolving a proportion of the Department for Education’s £300m budget for centrally-run improvement and innovation programmes to councils.
The latest Government figures, released at the end of September, show the number of children in care in Yorkshire rose six per cent in the year to March, from 7,250 to 7,720.
The total number of lookedafter children in England reached a new high of 72,670 in 2016/17 – up from 70,440 the year before.