News

• New vision for children's services stresses local solutions

Local systems to identify, track and refer children at risk of offending, drug-taking and teenage pregnancy are to be introduced across the country next year, according to the minister for children and young people, writes Clare Jerrom.

John Denham set out how the £600 million for the Children’s Fund and the Children and Young People’s Unit announced in the recent spending review, will be spent. The money is available over three years from April 2003.

The Children’s Fund will continue tackling social exclusion and poverty, and the funding will also enable small grants to be provided through the local network fund for projects helping 0-19-year-olds at risk of social exclusion. The money will also support the work of the government's youth participation unit.

"The Children’s Fund has shown its worth in the first 17 months of existence, and is joining up working with children in the areas most in need through partnerships between statutory, voluntary and community sectors," Denham told a meeting of local partners in the Children’s Fund in Trafford.

But, he warned that a review of children at risk had identified the failure of agencies to share information as a significant barrier to providing effective services to help young people at risk.