01 September 2006
Prime Minister Tony Blair will next week launch a new attack on social exclusion, extending help to vulnerable children and adults through existing funding, which could be boosted in this winter's Pre-Budget Report.
Whitehall officials were this week putting the finishing touches to plans to allow voluntary sector organisations to take over failing childcare homes, create long-term tie-ups between vulnerable children and mentor care workers, support mentally ill people on benefits and tackle difficult cases of antisocial behaviour.
The idea, a senior source told Public Finance, would be to 'flesh out' the government's third-term commitment to help 'high-risk, high-cost and hard-to-reach' people and families; including many who have 'fallen through the welfare net'.
A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said that the initiative would 'build on successful anti-poverty and antisocial behaviour policies.' But she added that 'some of the most socially excluded members of society – such as children in care – have been unaffected by existing programmes to help them into jobs or deal with tough social conditions' and were 'in need of additional, targeted support'.
The spokeswoman said the programme was likely to be funded largely from existing budgets, but 'could be supported by new announcements in the Pre-Budget report' from Chancellor Gordon Brown this winter.
Blair, under fire over the government's foreign policy and the Labour Party's protracted leadership handover, will try to refocus attention on public services when he outlines the plan on September 5. The prime minister hosted a private meeting on social exclusion this week, attended by ministers and organisations including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
However, the Cabinet Office confirmed that Blair would merely 'trail' a government 'action plan' to be launched by social exclusion minister Hilary Armstrong on September 11.
Armstrong would 'co-ordinate and realign' existing antisocial exclusion work across departments, including the Home Office, Health, Education, Communities and Local Government, Work and Pensions and Treasury-linked bodies. But new initiatives would also follow, the spokeswoman said.
While the government has reduced child poverty levels by 600,000 since 1999, it is likely to miss its target to halve the figure by 2010. Experts estimate that £4bn in investment is needed to hit the target.
The Department for Work and Pensions, for example, is designing systems to support Incapacity Benefit claimants, many of whom have mental health problems, back into work.
Armstrong's plan will also propose the extended use of the private and voluntary sectors to deliver services.
Education ministers are considering plans to allow voluntary groups to take over failing childcare homes, although the details have been closely guarded. Officials believe using voluntary sector experts could help to boost educational attainment among children in care – less than 10% get five or more high-grade GCSEs.
Education Secretary Alan Johnson will publish a green paper on children in care this autumn. The Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank this week called for a system of £20 per month personal accounts, funded by council tax rises, to support vulnerable children through improved access to after-school clubs.
Conservative MP Greg Clarke argued that relaunching existing anti-exclusion programmes was a tacit acceptance that government policies have failed. 'Comparatively little', he argued, had been done to improve conditions for the most socially deprived.
PFsep2006
