LGA urges extra funding as child protection plans show biggest rise in four years

The Local Government Association has called on the government to provide greater funding for children’s services in Monday’s Budget, after Department for Education figures showed that the number of children supported through a child protection plan increased by more than 2,700 over the past year.

The LGA said this was the biggest annual increase in four years, with 53,790 (up 5.31) now supported this way.

The numbers also represented an 84% increase in the number of children on plans over the past decade, it added.

Child protection plans are started by councils to support families and keep children safe when it is thought they are at risk of significant harm. This is a different arrangement to taking a child into care.

The plans can be initiated for a range of reasons, including neglect, physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said: “It is absolutely vital that councils are able to support families and help children who are at risk of significant harm, but it is also important that help is available before problems escalate to that point.

“But this is being put at risk by the huge and increasing financial pressures children’s services are now under, with many councils being pushed to the brink by unprecedented demand.”

Cllr Bramble added: “Councils have done all they can to protect spending on children’s services by cutting services elsewhere and diverting money, but despite this, they have been forced to reduce or stop the very services which are designed to help children and families before problems begin or escalate to the point where a child might need to come into care.

“We are absolutely clear that unless new funding is found in the Autumn Budget, then these vital services, which keep children safe from harm and the worst abuses of society, will reach a tipping point.”