The care system is failing children and young people. Adults who spend time as children in the care system are 70% more likely to die prematurely than those who do not. Care leavers are estimated to make up around a quarter of the adult prison population, despite the small percentage of children who enter care each year. And in 2021, only 6% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were known to be in higher education. Meanwhile, 41% were Not in Education, Employment, or Training, compared to just 12% of all young people of the same age group. Worryingly, outcomes for children formally assigned as “in need” but not in care have been shown to be similarly poor.
The long-awaited review of children’s social care, chaired by Josh MacAlister, has called for a “radical reset” of the system, aimed at shifting provision away from crisis management and towards early intervention that begins in the community. The review suggests that achieving this will require £2.6bn of investment over four years, and a strong focus on intensive services to support families in crisis, aimed at providing support to at-risk children as early as possible.
While some commentators have raised concerns with elements of the review’s recommendations, consensus from leading children’s charities and other sector experts has formed around the urgency to do more to lessen our unsustainable reliance on crisis intervention and instead support measures offering help early, before situations spiral.
This report aims to contribute to that effort. Tracing shifts in early and late intervention spending over the last decade, it digs into the underlying data behind those trends to explore what’s gone wrong and where help may be best targeted. In the process, it shows that cuts to early intervention services – and family support in particular – have disproportionately impacted children in the most deprived parts of the country. Only through targeted investment in early intervention in those places can we begin to reverse the crisis in children’s services and create a more caring system for children and young people.