Councils face cuts to early intervention funding
Catherine Gaunt
Friday, September 28, 2012
Where the Department for Education has found 100m for capital funding to support early years settings to expand places for two-year-olds, is unclear.
While it is understood to be ‘underspend’ funding from within the department,some local authorities are concerned that funding to encourage providers to offer places for disadvantaged two-year-olds is actually being redistributed from existing funding for services for children and families.
The Government confirmed earlier this year that funding for two-year-old places, which is currently included in the Early Intervention Grant, will from April 2013 be transferred to the Dedicated Schools Grant, which unlike funding in the EIG, is ring-fenced for spending on education.
But in the same week that the Government appears to have found extra money towards expanding places for disadvantaged two-year-olds, elsewhere there are reports of cuts to next year’s EIG, which funds children’s centres, as well as other services for children and families, such as short breaks for disabled children.
As local authorities start to receive details of their budgets for the next financial year, it is emerging that at least one council will have a cut of more than 20 per cent to its Early Intervention Grant for 2013-2014.
Figures seen by Nursery World show that Bradford City Council is set to receive a cut of £6.71m, representing a 21.7 per cent reduction in funding for the early intervention grant (EIG).
The figures show that this is partly due to extra money being taken out of the EIG and transferred into a ring-fenced DSG for two-year-olds.
The council estimates that a total funding shortfall for the EIG could be as much as £6.8m.
Bradford Councillor Ralph Berry, lead member for children and young people, told Nursery World, ‘This makes a mockery of Graham Allen’s work.’
He pointed out that Bradford has five of the most deprived wards in the country and that despite the pressures of the cuts the council has ‘refused to close’ any children’s centres.
‘We haven’t closed a single children’s centre in Bradford and all our children’s centres are good or outstanding.’
But he said that to ‘absorb this level of cut…is putting a lot at risk, services designed to target the most needy. How does this all hang together?’
The full funding announcement will not be available until December, but Mr Berry said that he would be lobbying against any cuts to early intervention grant funding.
