Chancellor Gordon Brown has boosted funding for childcare and early years services by £669 million by 2008 – an annual growth rate of more than 17 per cent.
Last week’s budget also included news that the Children’s Fund is to continue until 2008. This is to allow “a smooth transition to new Children’s Trusts, which will be focused on preventative work and developed and delivered with the full engagement of the voluntary sector” said the budget report.
The extra early years money will go towards creating 1,700 children’s centres – one for each of the 20 per cent poorest wards in England.
The chancellor also announced more financial support for teenagers. As well as introducing a £3 minimum hourly wage for 16 and 17 year olds, he promised a package of short-term measures including giving young people who undertake unwaged training the same financial support as those in school.
The government is proposing to combine benefits for under-18s with Connexions, and is proposing to allow Connexions personal advisors to call on a contingency fund to make one off payments to young people to help them into jobs.
It was also announced in the budget that extended schools are to be piloted in an extra four areas. Education secretary Charles Clarke later said said that “in due course” he would be announcing an expansion of childcare places and family support services as a result of the budget.
There is to be a massive 30 per cent cut in jobs at the Department for Educational and Skills London headquarters.
New measures are to be piloted to encourage non-working parents in couple families into employment even where the other partner is working. The rules are also changing for the partners of Job Seekers Allowance claimants.
There are to be more “Discovery weeks” for lone parents, aimed at boosting their confidence to seek employment, and there will also be more “childcare tasters” – giving them the chance to try out childcare for a week without committing themselves.
