Tories focus on early intervention

All funding for early intervention and parenting support will be combined into one budget under a Conservative government.

David Cameron launched the Conservative’s political manifesto this morning which contained very little relating to social care and children’s services other than a commitment to “set out a new approach to help families with multiple problems”.

However, the Tories did reiterate their commitment to bring all funding for early intervention into a single budget overseen by a single, newly-created Early Years Support Team.

If elected, the Tories would also scale back Sure Start children’s centres to the “original purpose of early intervention”. This would mean focusing on the neediest families and better involve organisations with a track record in supporting families”. Sure start providers would also be paid by the results they achieve.

Policies on youth justice were a little more explicit with the promise of introducing early intervention measures such as “grounding orders” to allow the police to issue instant sanctions without criminalising young people unnecessarily.

Payment by results would also apply to the youth justice system and specialist organisations would be brought in to provide education, mentoring and drug rehabilitation programmes to help young offenders go straight.

The manifesto said the Tories would also scale back the new “vetting and barring” scheme to “common sense levels”.

Related articles

Labour wants more social workers in schools