Mr Allen’s second Government-commissioned report, Early intervention: smart investment, massive savings, suggests ways to raise non-Government money from the private sector, charities and local government to help pay for early intervention programmes.
Investors in early intervention programmes would see a return on their investment through a payment-by-results basis for outcome-based contracts.
The Early Intervention Fund would work closely with the Big Society Bank, which would offer different early intervention investment products.
The Government would also co-fund a £20 million endowment to sustain the independent Early Intervention Foundation to ‘champion’ early intervention.
Other ideas to raise money include offering savers Early Intervention ISAs and increased ISA allowances for Early Intervention investors.
Mr Allen, (right), said, ‘The Government has a great opportunity to not only talk the talk on early intervention but walk the walk too. There are no "magic bullets’ in this report, just a tough, practical guide to changing our spending culture from later intervention to early intervention, which has to be driven inside Whitehall by ministers and officials, and outside Whitehall by an independent Early Intervention Foundation.’
Mr Allen said his review was backed by the recent reviews of Dame Clare Tickell into the EYFS, and those of Frank Field and Professor Eileen Munro, which all argue the case for the cost-effectiveness of early intervention.
'School readiness'
The report includes 19 recommendations. They include that the forthcoming statement on Families in the Foundation Years to include ‘regular and purposeful assessments’ for children from birth to five, which should focus on ‘measuring social and emotional development to enable all children to attain "school readiness".'
Mr Allen added that, ‘"School readiness" should be adopted as an intended outcome from Early Intervention and be used as a measure, or basket of measures, of the impact of investment and the extent of savings, and thereby act as an incentive for further investment.’
Other key recommendations:
- The next Comprehensive Spending Review should have early intervention as its theme
- An Early Intervention Task and Finish Group of experts should be set up to co-ordinate work on early intervention and work with the Early Intervention Foundation on early intervention outcomes. They would agree on the evidence needed to measure these outcomes and ‘improve data on measures, outcomes and cashable savings so that Government and local areas can attach payments to outcomes.’
- Local areas should drive the work of the Early Intervention Foundation, starting with the 27 existing Early Intervention Places run but local authorities and voluntary organisations that have said they want to help pioneer new ways of early intervention.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, said, ‘Graham Allen is right. Intervening early to help children and families before problems get out of hand would transform lives and deliver massive savings to the economy. Evidence of the effectiveness of early intervention techniques is irresistible and puts a moral and economic imperative on all of us to demand action.
‘But this important report recognizes that the implementation of early intervention strategies requires a shift in culture, both in terms of the structure of support services and the economic model to finance them. Such a culture change has to be led by the Government and while today’s report takes us a step closer to giving our children the future they deserve, it is now time for decisive action from the top.
She added, ‘A first step must be to ring-fence resources for early years’ programmes by preventing local authorities from spending the £2billion Early Intervention grant on other things. The grant is an important step in delivering a new approach to services and must reach the people it is intended for.’
The union Unite, which represents health visitors, said that the report's recommendations must be properly funded and that Government cuts to benefits were making it harder for families.
Unite’s national officer for health, Rachael Maskell, said, 'The Government is pulling in opposite directions. It says that it supports families and children, yet its policies are doing enormous harm to the structure of family life.’
‘There needs to be full support for properly resourcing early intervention - and that includes the employment of more health visitors and school nurses, and reversing the severe cuts to speech and language therapists.’
‘There have been cuts to Sure Start centres and school nurses, while the promised recruitment of more health visitors is only just coming on stream.’
‘Graham Allen has done a serious piece of work for which he should be congratulated. But if his recommendations are to have traction, priority should be given to a national strategy - funded by the state and accountable to parliament.’
'Weaken the family'
However, Dr Ellie Lee, director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent, said that the current drive to early intervention politicised parenting and would weaken the family. She said that the Government's plan for early intervention was based ‘less on research than on a powerful prejudice that parenting is too difficult and too important to be left to mere parents.’
Dr Lee added, ‘The politicians driving this early intervention plan argue what they are going to do is based on sound evidence. Yet some of the claims made in documents authored by Labour MP Graham Allen and supported by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith about the effects of what parents do on the brains of small children make 19th century phrenology look sophisticated. In general, their policy proposals are built on highly determinist thinking that links parenting directly to a bewildering array of social problems.’
