Autumn Budget 2024: Parent-Infant Foundation’s CSR submission

An overview 

The Family Hubs and Start for Life programme provides funding for 75 upper-tier Local Authorities to improve services supporting vulnerable babies. Currently funding ends on 1 April 2025. In our response to the government’s consultation, ahead of the 30 October Budget, we urged government to extend Start for Life funding, to avert local service closures.  

We point out in our submission to government, that the total funding envelope for Start for Life– approximately £300m across three years – is relatively modest.  At its peak in 2010, Sure Start received £1.8 billion a year.  Nevertheless, Start for Life has enabled local authorities to develop crucial services that support some of the most vulnerable babies in our society.

According to government estimates, at least 10% of babies are living in fear and distress – at risk of ‘disorganised attachment’. 1 These babies are scared and overwhelmed by disrupted relationships with their parent or carer.  

As the Start for Life programme acknowledged, the parent-infant relationship is like the foundations of a house.  With strong foundations, a baby feels safe to explore, engage and learn.  The government recognises that poor early relationships between babies and their caregivers can cause adverse physical and mental health outcomes as children grow. Every baby deserves a good start to life, and early intervention when babies and families need help is key.   

The Start for Life programme is in-keeping with the current government’s ambition, “to raise the healthiest generation of children in our history”. Early intervention is also key to achieving Labour’s opportunity mission.   

Our recommendations for the Autumn Budget/upcoming Spending Review are: 

• If a one-year spending review is conducted, we want the government to extend Start for Life programme funding at current levels (plus inflation) to avert the closure of local services that support vulnerable babies, parents and carers.  
• If a three-year spending review is conducted, we want the government to support the national rollout of the Start for Life Programme to all English local authorities, as recommended by the CQC and Ofsted.   As part of this, they should allocate an additional £70.7 million from 2025/26-2027/28 to enable every local authority area to develop at least one parent-infant team. This would enable 23,600 vulnerable babies to receive specialist support every year by 2027/28. 

To inform our submission, in July we undertook a survey of local Start for Life and clinical leads. Over a third of local areas responded (with 26 responses from 75 Start for Life areas). Our survey asked what local areas had achieved through the Start for Life programme. We asked too what the impact would be on babies and families if funding ends on 1 April 2025.   
 
Survey findings

• Every respondent said the Start for Life programme had enabled them to support more babies 
• Most local areas used Start for Life funding to expand access to parent-infant relationship support 
• Respondents said services would either dramatically decrease, or be completely disbanded, if Start for Life funding is not continued beyond the current cliff edge of 1 April 2025
• Without the programme, local leaders worry for the mental health of some families, and fear there would be a heightened risk for vulnerable babies
• Local leaders warned that a reduction in these preventative services would lead to increased demand for acute services
• Respondents said if the programme is de-funded, with no better alternative, this would be ‘devastating for many families’, and some babies would inevitably ‘fall through the gaps’.

Until such time as the government announces a more ambitious strategy for the early years, we believe it essential they continue to fund Start for Life.  It is the only existing strategic national programme aimed at supporting the healthy development and wellbeing of babies. The programme has enabled local services to scale up and reach babies earlier. The additional funding Start for Life allocates to parent-infant relationship services is sorely needed. These services deliver well-established health benefits, using approaches recommended by professional bodies and by NICE. 

We recognise the public spending environment is tight, but in view of the long-term decline in spending on early intervention, services that support babies should not be cut.  Not only is this morally indefensible, but it is counter-productive in economic terms.  Analysis of government figures published by the Children’s Charities Coalition finds that between 2010-11 and 2022-23, spending on late intervention services increased by 57%, while expenditure on early interventions fell by 44%.   As the authors observe, disinvestment in early intervention is ultimately counter-productive for local government, as higher costs are inevitably incurred through late intervention.2 
 
See the full submission from Parent-Infant Foundation here

Footnotes:

1. p 81. Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme Guide (publishing.service.gov.uk)  

2. Struggling against the tide: Children’s services spending, 2011-2023 | Pro Bono Economics 

Image from the Parent-Infant Foundation Baby PM pre-election film from June 2024 – see full film here