Government's failure to understand surge in demand for children's services will see more exposed to neglect and abuse, report finds

More vulnerable children are set to be exposed to neglect and abuse because the government is failing to act on a surge in demand for children's services, a damming report has warned.

Almost every local council in England overspent on children's social care last year, with the number of youngsters going into care or onto child protection plans far outstripping population growth – prompting concerns that the situation is at a “tipping point”.

But the National Audit Office (NAO) said the government “lacked a well-informed pathway” to improve the situation, warning that it would be a "tall order" for it to achieve its aim of ensuring all vulnerable children have access to high-quality support by 2022.

Children’s charities warned that the life chances of hundreds of thousands of children were in danger as the lack of funding mean issues are able to arise and escalate.

Government figures published in September showed spending on children at risk of neglect or abuse had fallen by 26 per cent in five years, with spending on children’s centres such as Sure Start and other family services dropping by 42 per cent.

The NAO report reveals that while there has been no change in the number of children referred to local authorities, there has been a 77 per cent surge in child protection assessments being carried out since 2010-11 – yet the reasons for this disproportionate increase are unknown.

There has also been a 15 per cent jump in the number of the most expensive and serious cases of children being taken into care, with the figure almost tripling the rate of population growth.

But the report warns that the government does not fully understand what is causing increases in demand and activity in children’s social care, leaving children in need of help or protection exposed to neglect and abuse.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: “Over two years ago we reported that the DfE’s progress in improving children’s services was not up to scratch. Since then the department has adopted the target of giving all vulnerable children access to high quality support, no matter where they live, by 2022.

"The department has started to build its understanding of variations in services, but it should know more than it does. Even with this understanding, the department faces a tall order to achieve its goal within three years.”

Lewis Roberts, a social worker in north east England, told The Independent a combination of children’s services becoming increasingly stretched and a decline in community services inevitably meant more youngsters were being put into care.

“We haven’t got a lot of support services in the community anymore. A lot of early help services have gone with the closure of SureStart centres and so on. These are what used to hold families together – the referrals didn’t used to come into children’s services," he said.

“If children are living in risky situations, and if we can’t have the time ourselves to go in and visit families regularly and we haven’t got community services to do that for us, sometimes the safest decision is to take a child into care or look for alternative accommodation for them.”

Mr Roberts urged the government to listen more to social workers and the children and families affected in order to understand what’s driving these changes and shape the policy around them.

“If we’re not putting the highest quality service into vulnerable children, when they transition into adulthood, they’re going to become homeless, they’re going to enter the criminal justice system,” he added.

Maris Stratulis, British Association of Social Workers (BASW)'s England National Director, said: "We urgently need to understand different causal factors for demand of services and urgently plan how we fund children’s support and care in the long term, instead of relying on short term injections of cash."

Sam Royston, director of policy and research at the Children’s Society, said that without more funding for children’s services, there was a “real danger” that the life chances of hundreds of thousands of children would be damaged.

Local councils generated a total overspend of £872m on children's social care and local government funding pressures last year, and they expect to spend £4.2bn on children in care in 2018-19 – which is £350m more than they budgeted for in 2017-18.

Minister for Children and Families Nadhim Zahawi said: “We have raised the bar in children’s social care and the child protection system, so that children at risk are identified sooner, and we are tackling the reasons why children are in need in the first place.

“The number of local children’s services rated outstanding is growing, and the number rated inadequate has dropped by a third since 2017 – from 30 down to 19. By 2022, I want this reduced to fewer than 10 per cent of councils, and we are on track to meet this.

"We know there are pressures on councils, which is why we are providing an additional £410m in the Budget for adult and children’s social care and an extra £84m to expand innovative practice to support vulnerable families across a further 20 councils.”