Responding to a National Audit Office report on the Government’s
approach to tackling serious and organised crime, Cllr Simon
Blackburn, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and
Stronger Communities Board, said:
“This report reinforces the need to invest in local services
which protect and support young people, keeping them safe from
the lure of gangs, modern slavery and county lines drug activity
or from becoming involved in serious crime.
“Government is responding to the challenge, but there are still
significant and avoidable shortcomings to its approach.
“Councils’ youth offending teams have an exceptional record of
reducing youth crime and making a real difference to young
people’s lives, but they are under huge pressure after seeing
their government funding halved over the last decade.
“Children’s services are now starting more than 500 child
protection investigations every day, but face a £3.1 billion
funding gap by 2025. This is forcing councils to divert funding
away from preventative services such as youth work into services
to protect children who are at immediate risk of harm.
“To help stop young people being criminally exploited and drawn
into serious crime, including knife crime, it is vital that
government reverses years of funding cuts to local youth
services, youth offending teams and councils’ public health
budgets, which need to be addressed in the Spending Review.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
- 1. Councils in England face an overall
funding gap of £8 billion by 2025. The LGA’s #CouncilsCan
campaign aims to influence the forthcoming Spending Review and
highlight the growing risk to vital local services if the
Government does not take action to secure the financial
sustainability of councils. Visit our campaign page for more
information - https://www.local.gov.uk/spending-review-2019
2. 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.
- 3. Government funding for Youth
Offending Teams has more than halved, from £145 million in
2010/11 to £72 million in 2017/18.
- 4. Councils’ public health grants from
central government have been reduced by £700 million in real
terms between 2015/16 and 2019/20.
- 5. Councils are starting 500 child
protection investigations a day, up from 200 a day a decade ago.
