NCB CEO Anna Feuchtwang responds to Autumn Budget

Reacting to the government’s Budget statement on 30 October 2024, Anna Feuchtwang, Chief Executive Officer of the National Children’s Bureau, said: 

“After years of underinvestment in services for children and repeated failures to address shocking levels of child poverty, NCB welcomes the change in direction signalled by this government and many of the significant spending commitments in this week’s Budget.

"Additional funding for schools, with a specific £1bn uplift for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND); rises in the minimum wage and changes to Universal Credit debt rules; and major investment in the NHS are all much needed. They are necessary steps in fixing the foundations that underpin healthy and happy childhoods. But they are not enough to deliver the step change that children and families need.  

"For local government, there will be £1.3bn of extra funding for essential services with at least £600 million of that set aside for social care. However, Rachel Reeves’s statement did not go far enough to provide long-term security for those who rely on local authority services. With rising need and huge cuts to early intervention, analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) shows that councils face a £2.3bn funding gap in 2025/26, rising to £3.9bn in 2026/27.  

"We need the government to commit to a significant and sustained increase in overall funding to support children and young people that reflects current and future costs and isn’t just a new set of sticking plasters. The stabilisation of local government is an essential prerequisite for the much-needed reforms to the SEND system and children’s social care that will be outlined in more detail in the second phase of this Spending Review. 

"We welcome major additional funding for the NHS. This is vital if the government is to deliver on its manifesto commitment to raise the ‘healthiest generation of children ever’ and to reduce waiting times. But we should be under no illusion that this ambition will require the government to stop treating children as an afterthought in health policy.  

"An easy win is to ensure that all NHS funding announcements are explicit about the proportion of spend allocated to children. Unfortunately, this did not happen in the Budget. While the uplift in NHS spending is welcome, including specific funding for reducing waiting lists, we call on the government to urgently set out how much of this will directly support children health services.  

"While we welcome an increase to the minimum wage and the increased protections for working families offered by the Workers’ Rights Bill, it’s hard to not see this Budget as a missed opportunity to signal serious intent on tackling child poverty.  

"The forthcoming Child Poverty Strategy must include binding targets for reduction and a commitment to eradicate child poverty for good. Social security reform and investment will be essential to making this vision a reality and scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap in this first Budget would have been a great start.  

"Accepting and acknowledging the significant and urgent challenges faced by many families is welcome. Now it is time for this new government to move further and faster to address those challenges, beginning with the Multi-Year Spending Review in the Spring. The Prime Minister and Chancellor must take this opportunity to move away from a scattergun approach to funding.  

"What babies, children, young people and their families need is long-term, whole-systems investment in public services and social security that delivers at the right time, in the right way and to the right people to prevent ill-health and harm and allows all children to thrive.”