Child Death Review Processes: LA Children's Services Funding, 2008 to 2011
Speaking recently at the launch of the Children's Plan, Kevin Brennan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families, was keen to stress the importance of maintaining an unwavering focus on the safety of children, young people and the vulnerable.
The Children's Plan sets out 'Our vision for the next decade ... to make a reality of our aspiration to make children's safety everyone's responsibility. We want a society where everyone understands the issues and what they can do, and where everyone works together to help children and young people stay safe.'
Commenting specifically, the Minister stated:
'From April next year all Boards will be putting in place mechanisms for reviewing child deaths and taking steps to minimize similar deaths in future. We have announced funding of over £7 million a year for the next three years for local authorities to put those mechanisms in place. And the Department of Health has identified the need to support health professionals in taking part over the same period.
And now, for the first time ever, we have a formal agreement across Government - a Public Service Agreement - which sets out our priority of improving children and young people's safety. It will ensure that - across Government - we make progress, and measure progress, towards keeping children safe.'
The Children's Services Funding Settlement circular details the grants that the DCSF is making available to authorities for children and young people's services from 2008-09 to 2010-11, supporting the information in the Local Government Finance Settlement announced by The Department for Communities and Local Government. This includes the additional £22 million provided to enable each authority to carry out reviews of all child deaths in their area from April 2008.
As announced in the Staying Safe Action Plan, published on 5th February 2007, additional NHS monies of £10 million per annum over the period 2008/2009 to 2010/2011 will be provided to support health professionals in their participation in the new statutory child-death review processes. For 2008/2009, a central budget will be distributed as in-year resource limit adjustments to all Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) pro rata to their weighted capitation targets.
The accompanying worksheet shows each local authority's share of the resources for the child-death reviewing processes.
This page was last updated on 23 April 2008
