Responding to the announcement of a new government programme to
protect children at risk of exploitation, Cllr Simon Blackburn,
Chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger
Communities Board, said:
“Effective multi-agency work is essential to tackle and prevent
violent crime by young people and safeguard those exploited by
criminal gangs for purposes of county lines drug dealing, online
grooming and modern slavery.
“This programme will help councils who are working hard with
their partners to identify and protect children and young people
at risk of abuse amid ongoing funding cuts and soaring demand for
urgent child protection work.
“Children’s services are now starting more than twice as many
child protection investigations every day than they were 10 years
ago. This demonstrates the increasing pressure that is forcing
councils to divert funding away from preventative work into
services to protect children who are at immediate risk of harm.
“To help stop young people being criminally exploited or groomed,
and with children’s services facing a £3.1 billion funding gap by
2025, it is vital that government reverses years of funding
cuts to local youth services, youth offending teams and councils’
public health budgets, which needs to be addressed in the
Spending Review.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
-
· Councils
were forced to cut spending on local youth services by 52 per
cent, from £652 million in 2010/11 to £352 million in 2017/18, as
a result of government funding cuts
-
· Government
funding for Youth Offending Teams has more than halved, from £145
million in 2010/11 to £72 million in 2017/18
-
· Councils’
public health grants from central government have been reduced by
£700 million in real terms between 2015/16 and 2019/20
-
· Councils
are starting 500 child protection investigations a day, up from
200 a day a decade ago.
