Where was the long-term plan for children and families, we asked after the Conservatives’ March 2024 Budget. After 14 years in power, it was a fair question. We concluded that while there were a handful of welcome short-term measures, there was little in Jeremy Hunt’s statement to really tackle the deep-rooted, generational problems holding back the life chances of many of our children.

Since then, a new Government has been elected and Rachel Reeves has now delivered her first Budget.

No-one could fairly expect the Chancellor to change the world after four months, particularly given the challenging state of the economy and public services that she inherited. But we should be starting to get a sense of the Government’s story – its long-term plan, its ambitions, priorities, and destinations. Its ‘mission’, if you like.

All of us working with children and young people recognise the very tough challenges facing Ministers. The last few years have been extremely difficult for many families and communities. Covid and the cost-of-living crisis have rocket-boosted existing problems affecting the most vulnerable children, as well as creating new ones. We are continuing to spend eye-watering sums on dealing with families and children in crisis, often because of a failure to invest in early help.

No Government’s first Budget is ever going to be able to address every concern or meet every immediate need.However, we do welcome the extra £1bn for Special Educational Needs, and the extra billions for school infrastructure and for the NHS. The funding for kinship careand to keep the previous Government’s family hubs going isgood too, as is the Universal Credit Fair Repayment Rate and the increase in the National Minimum Wage.

These are all positive and necessary measures to tackle immediate crises.    

We also strongly support the Government’s previous announcements on breakfast clubs in primary schools, and of course we are particularly pleased to see the commitment to Young Futures trailblazers, a policy we developed during our commission on young lives in 2022.

The big question though is public services reform. While the extra funding for SEN is a relief, there is a risk that without reform it will be swallowed up very quickly. The same goes for the extra NHS billions – how much of this new funding will go on improving children’s mental health prevention and developing innovative new services so the system becomes fit for purpose?

Likewise, more money to repair schools is crucial – some schools are literally crumbling - as is the extra funding to for 6,000 extra teachers. But schools have been running on empty for years, while the demands on them increase.

The extra funding for kinship care is exactly the kind of supportive, preventative work Government should be encouraging. But the children’s social care system will remain in a desperate state without significant investment alongside the sensible reforms proposed in the independent review two years ago.

And while a boost in the minimum wage will put extra money in the pockets of some of the poorest families, the scourge of child poverty remains, as does the cruel two child limit which we have joined many others in calling on the Government to abolish.

It would be churlish though not to welcome the Budget as a step forward, and to recognise too that some of the abovequestions could be answered more fully in next year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

So, for now, we will bank the extra funding that will go children, young people and families, while continuing to urge the Government to put more flesh on the bones of its opportunity mission.

We did notice that the word ‘mission’ barely appeared in the Budget Statement at all. Our view is still that a targeted mission to boost children’s life chances is crucial to both our country’s future prosperity and social cohesion.

Driven by political leadership, Whitehall must be set the task of delivering that mission by using all the machinery of government to push through reforms that improve services and children’s outcomes. This approach led to some of the big successes for children and families we saw in the early 2000s.

This should come alongside a more open and productive partnership with those who are already innovating. As our series of reports with Child of the North have shown, there are plenty of creative ideas out there being delivered by charities, not-for-profits, academic institutions, and businesses. There is no shortage of goodwill, or willingness to share best practice.Whitehall should not be afraid to reach out. We all want the Government’s opportunity mission to succeed.

For that to happen, we need to escape this doom loop ofbailouts for failing, patched up systems and services, which holds back life chances.

As we have argued before, during Covid children were anafterthought for the then Government. At a time of national crisis their needs and interests should have been right up there with the rest of society, not sidelined. Indeed, for many years both before and since the pandemic there has been a large hole marked ‘children’ at the heart of government’s vision for Britain. It is now the task of this new Government to fill it