BASW General Election Blog: Invest in family and community services

Invest in family and community services 

Local authorities have duties to provide support and services for adults and children, such as ensuring the wellbeing and safety of children and young people, and protecting adults at risk of abuse and neglect. 

Austerity and massive cuts to local authority budgets have resulted in local authorities cutting back on the services and support that they provide. While they are still required to do their statutory duties, they have fewer staff and less money which will mean that support will have been cut or restricted to the most severe or urgent cases, or only when a situation reaches a crisis point. 

We are asking the next UK Government to invest in family and community services across the UK that support adults and children and prevent escalation to the level of statutory intervention. 

Investing could result in more social workers to work with families and individuals to support them, including those who may not fall into the urgent or severe category. Investing can also see the creation of early intervention and preventative schemes, which could reduce the number of families that reach a point where there needs to be statutory intervention. Investment could develop outreach to identify adults at risk much earlier than when they are already exposed to abuse and neglect. 

Investment can reduce the number of people who need costly crisis or urgent intervention, which would have a positive impact on local and national budgets. But upfront investment requires the political will to recognise that early identification of issues is better for people and requires politicians to act on it.