Wide variation in social care across England putting children at risk

According to findings from All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children inquiry, four in five directors of children’s services say that vulnerable children facing similar problems get different levels of help depending on where they live.

The new report, Storing up trouble, suggests that children’s safety is being put at risk by a social care system that varies widely in different parts of the country, with children often having to reach a crisis point before social services step in.

The National Children’s Bureau, which is the secretariat for the APPG for Children, carried out several online surveys as part of the inquiry, which had over 1,900 respondents, including 97 directors of children’s services (out of 152 in England); 1,710 child and family social workers and 101 local authority lead members for children’s services.

Four in five children’s services directors reported a postcode lottery of support, with two-thirds saying this applied  to cases where the child was at serious risk.

Of the 1,700 social workers surveyed 70 per cent said the threshold for helping ‘children in need’ - a legal term for children who require extra support but are not at risk of serious harm - had risen in the last three years, with half saying that the point at which a child protection plan was triggered had gone up.

Funding constraints are affecting day-to-day decisions about whether to intervene to support a child.

Budget pressures are particularly undermining decisions about how to support a child early on, through, e.g children’s centres, family support, and respite breaks for families of disabled children.

There are reports that pressures on resources are influencing decisions about whether to take action to safeguard children at risk of harm.