Extra £20m for respite breaks, but Child Trust Fund is axed

An extra 8,000 week-long respite breaks for disabled children will be funded with savings from axing the Child Trust Fund, the Treasury announced today.

The chancellor George Osborne and chief secretary David Laws today set out some of the details of the spending cuts for this year, which included axeing the Child Trust Fund, freezing civil service recruitment, halting IT spend and cutting quangos. It is not yet clear how much individual quangos in the social care sector will have to save.

A document outlining the cuts stated: “There will be £320m [savings] from reducing and then stopping government contributions to the Child Trust Fund. The Government intends to introduce legislation to scale back payments from August this year and then stop payments from 1 Jan 2011. Payments to disabled children due this year will be made, and the Government will ensure that the funding allocated for these payments in future years will be redirected to other forms of support for disabled children.”

About £20m will be reinvested in providing extra funds to increase additional respite breaks.

Councils in England will have to make savings of £1.165bn but in return ring fencing will be removed from £1.7bn of local government grants. However, funding for sure start centres, 16-19 year olds and schools will remain in place.

While health and schools will be expected to make efficiencies, savings will be reinvested into frontline services, rather than contribute to deficit reduction.

The Department for Education will have to make savings of £670m this year, the Department of Communities and Local Government must save £780m, the Department for Work and Pensions £535m and the Ministry of Justice £325m this year.

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