Government axes £15m for children’s IT

The government has axed £15m of funding promised by the previous Labour government to help local authorities implement integrated children’s systems.

Education secretary Michael Gove has written to directors of children’s services and chief executives to set out the details as part of the Department of Education plans to save £1 billion from its capital budget in 2010-11.

In his letter Gove said the £15m additional capital grant that had been announced by the previous government would not now be available.

Labour had said it would ring fence £15m for local authorities in 2010-11 to help councils whose integrated systems were unworkable so they could scrap them and start again.

Gove said local authorities that wanted to continue to address their IT problems would need to use the £23m Local Social Work Improvement Fund if the IT work is considered a priority.

Gove said advice from the Integrated Children’s System Improvement Panel about how the usability of local integrated children’s systems could be improved was published in March and was available from the DoE.

Other projects that have been cut or will face reduced funding include a fund to enable further investment in IT infrastructure in schools and £24m from the co-location fund, which was supporting plans to increase integration within children’s services.

Gove said the total of the funding cuts he had announced would save £169.5m for the department.

He added: “Whilst this is only a small proportion of the total savings that the Department must make, we appreciate the difficulties that these decisions will cause. Unfortunately, however, we can no longer deliver our full budget.”

The education secretary said local authorities would have “plenty of opportunity” over the next few months to get involved in the comprehensive spending review covering 2011-2015 which will be announced on 20 October.