Hackney Council is planning early intervention to address overspending within its Children and Education Directorate, with a focus on a Prevention and Early Intervention programme designed in collaboration with families, schools, and professionals.

The council aims to ensure that these measures will improve outcomes and build confidence across the system, fostering shared responsibility, transparency, and effective support. Full Equality Impact Assessments (EqIAs) will be developed for each initiative to understand and manage potential impacts.

The Hackney Council Cabinet met on Monday and noted the council's overall financial position, which includes a forecast overspend before reserves of £7.5m and £3.6m after reserves for 2025/26 in the Children and Education Directorate, according to the August Overall Financial Position 2025-26 report. To mitigate this, they approved a proposal from the Children and Education Directorate to establish a Prevention and Early Intervention programme. This programme aims to reduce growth by £7.4 million by 2028/29.

The programme will comprise three initiatives:

  • Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) service transformation: The Children & Education Directorate proposes a SEND Transformation Programme that aims to rebalance the system towards earlier intervention and inclusion. This will be achieved by building capacity in mainstream and early years settings, strengthening universal support, improving decision-making, and enhancing data-led performance management. The transformation focuses on five key workstreams: developing Early Years SEND Provision through a Multi-Disciplinary Team, embedding early support via Speech and Language innovation - building on the Verbo programme, strengthening inclusion within the mainstream offer, enhancing decision-making panels and processes for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), and building a robust SEND performance and data culture.
  • Developing an approach to matching the needs of children looked after with the right care and support: Current challenges include increasing care costs and complexity in the independent care and support market. While Hackney's CLA volumes have declined by 24% in the two years to June 2025, the number in residential children's homes has only fallen by 5%. Some care arrangement types, particularly supported accommodation, have seen unit costs more than double in the two years to June 2025. The new approach will embed a systemic focus on children's needs, strengths, aspirations, and outcomes, aligning with the Children's Integrated Commissioning Strategy. This will enable more focused and evidenced practice and decision-making around how care can meet and reduce needs.
  • Supporting the Fostering Service to increase recruitment, retention and utilisation: Currently, 43% of children looked after are placed in external provision, which are more costly and often further from the borough. The strategies to overcome these challenges include using behavioural science to co-design and test interventions to increase retention and utilisation, improving end to end recruitment processes from inquiry to approval, investing in the capacity of carer matching and assessments, and exploring housing-based solutions to help carers expand capacity, building on what has worked well in the past.

Councillor Robert Chapman, Cabinet Member for Finance, Insourcing and Customer Service, presented the August Overall Financial Position 2025-26 to the Cabinet. The report outlined the overspend and the initiatives set out to mitigate it. The Cabinet agreed to the Children and Education Directorate proposal to establish the Prevention and Early Intervention programme, as detailed in the report and in August OFP Appendix 2.

Further development of these proposals will include engagement with parents, carers, schools and other partners and stakeholders.