Vulnerable children ‘falling through net’ as services restricted to statutory minimum
Vulnerable groups are suffering a “significant and dangerous loss of visibility” because their needs do not meet the increasingly tight criteria of councils’ statutory functions, a parliamentary heard has heard.
The House of Lords public services committee was yesterday told how referrals to a council safeguarding board about girls who had been sexually exploited were not picked up because the council could no longer afford to commission those services.
The committee’s chair Baroness Hilary Armstrong, who has been working with the organisation that made the referrals, said the unnamed council – “which is a good local authority” – does not commission in this area “because they can't afford to, because they're busy using their statutory money on all their things where they have no option but to be involved”.