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The government is to issue a consultation paper on care services available to children at risk of social exclusion, as part of a wider programme to tackle deprivation and poverty, writes Derren Hayes.

The initiative will encourage local authorities to develop preventive strategies for young people to cross all departments of local government.

Issued in the form of a green paper, it will focus on how best to deliver services that can improve the life chances of young people. It will aim to break down divisions between departments and promote joined up working between health, social care and education services.

Althea Efunshile, director of the government’s children and young people’s unit, told the National Social Services Conference that establishing new ways of working to also include the police and voluntary sector was the "minimum" the government expected councils to do when drawing up strategies.

She said children’s services needed to "shift forwards" from being process driven to focusing on tested, outcome-based evidence.

The government’s proposed new children’s trusts would be one way of addressing this, she added.