Recommendation 5

The Government’s focus on early intervention is the right one and long overdue. The additional £270 million provided through the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant is welcome but falls far short of the £1.2 billion that has been removed from early intervention services since 2012, an even greater gap in the context of an increasing population. We welcome the additional funding provided through the Transformation Fund and look forward to seeing further details of the proportion of funding that will be allocated to early intervention programmes. It should be seen as a first step towards a wholesale rebalancing of the system towards early help and support for families, with an urgent need to identify further resources. (Conclusion, Paragraph 18)