For some time now I have been pushing Government to recognise and tackle the economic pressures and systemic problems with children’s services in England. As political focus has been ever more fixated on our relationship with the EU, a historically neglected sector has been left even further on one side. This is both fiscally and morally unwise.

Our latest research reveals fewer children are receiving help, with a quarter of all spending on kids now going on only 1% of children and, incredibly, one council spending 20% of its budget on just 10 children. This is before one considers our vulnerability research which estimates there are 2.3m children – one in five children in England - growing up with a vulnerable family background, including 830,000 children who are ‘invisible’ to services.