Nothing on Children’s Services in Osborne’s Spending Review – Should We Be Worried?

Nothing on Children's Services in Osborne's Spending Review - Should We Be Worried?

Source: Creative Commons

With the Autumn Statement taking place today, the whole social care sector was waiting patiently to see where else cuts would be made, and how hard the axe would fall.

The current Conservative government, and David Cameron in particular have recently been putting a huge focus on Children’s services when it comes to the social care sector, with adoption often being a key topic.

In fact, it was only last week that Labour’s education spokesperson in the Lords, Lord Watson of Invergowrie was criticising David Cameron’s rhetoric on adoption for being “inaccurate and misleading.”

At the beginning of November, David Cameron called the number of children waiting to be placed via adoption with a “loving family” a “tragedy.”

But Watson said: “That comment is both inaccurate and misleading. Many children in excellent foster homes are not waiting to be placed with a loving family; they are with a loving family.”

Despite Cameron’s failure to recognise the various other pathways that a child can take through the care system, the fact he was at least discussing problems within Children’s Services.

Indeed, Cameron’s fierce rhetoric at the Conservative Party Conference concerning child safety made the sector believe that there would be some announcements made in the Autumn Statement.

However, there’s been nothing but silence.

So while Adults' Services were directly addressed in the form of the new and welcome social care precept, Children's Services was conspicuous by its absence.

While it’s often said that no news is good news, the silence from the spending review is worrying, as this government has always been keen to talk about Children’s Services, or at the very least adoption.

So why now has the government decided to ignore it? We’ll have to wait and see if there is a hidden meaning behind the silence, and wait for when this hot-button issue inevitably comes back in from the cold.

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