Number of children subject of protection plans up 87% in decade: ADCS
Contacts with children's social services have increased by 78% over the past decade and the number of children the subjects of protection plans by 87%.
Those figures come from the Association of Directors of Children’s Services' (ADCS') latest set of data from its Safeguarding Pressures research.
It has collected data in phases since 2007-08 and the latest had the best response rate, with 92% of top tier councils participating.
ADCS said an estimated 2.4m initial contacts were made to children’s social care in 2017-18, a 78% increase over the past decade, with referrals to children’s social care up by 22%.
Abuse and neglect continued to be the main reason for referrals and for children becoming looked after, with twice as many becoming subjects of a child protection plan due to neglect in 2017-18 compared to 10 years ago.
An estimated 644,430 ‘child in need’ assessments were completed in 2017-18, of which 170,000 included domestic abuse as a factor.
ADCS estimated that 75,480 children were in care in 2017-18 - an increase of 24% over 10 years.
There were 37 local authorities that in all spent £29.4m in 2017-18 to support 1,867 families with no recourse to public funds under the government’s immigration policy.
ADCS president Stuart Gallimore said: “This report adds to a growing body of evidence…illustrating the increasing challenges children and families are facing and the growing difficulties local authorities have in meeting the increasingly complex level of need now present in our communities.
“We will continue to work tirelessly to support children and families to thrive but government’s current approach to funding public services is simply not working, least of all for children.
“With Brexit taking up so much focus and energy there is a real risk that the serious issues highlighted here in Safeguarding Pressures will remain unaddressed. This cannot happen.”
Gallimore said the past decade of austerity had affected children and “our focus must be on tackling the root causes of these issues not simply the symptoms.
“Two-thirds of all children living in poverty live in working households, rising costs of living, poorly paid work and insecure and poor-quality housing as well as changes and delays to benefit payments, only add to the stresses and strains that families face.”
Earlier this month the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee launched a new inquiry into the funding and provision of local authorities’ children’s services.
Mark Smulian
