Balls pledges more investment for children

Children's Secretary Ed Balls will today set out his plans to carry on investing in children's services against a backdrop of a ferocious public sector spending squeeze.

Mr Balls emerged as the big winner in last week's Pre-Budget Report with a 0.7% real terms increase in the schools spending at a time when other departmental budgets are being frozen or facing the prospect of deep cuts.

But delivering a two-year update on the Government's Children's Plan, he will acknowledge that efficiency savings will need to be found in order to fund investment across the wider range of children's services.

"Our mission is to make this the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up," he is expected to say.

"We need to build on the progress we have made through the first two years of the Children's Plan by working together, continuing to invest in our front line services, and making efficiencies that will deliver more from our investment for children."

The wide-ranging 10-year plan drew together the Government's proposals to improve children's learning and wellbeing - from improving playgrounds to reforming the youth justice system.

At the same time Mr Balls will publish a review he commissioned on the commercialisation of childhood.

He will also set out full details of a shake-up of rules requiring millions of adults who work with children to undergo criminal records checks.

School leaders last night hailed a government climbdown over the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) as a "victory for common sense".

Mr Balls said he had accepted all the recommendations of an independent review into the scheme, to be published today.

Adults will now have to be vetted only if they see the same group of children or vulnerable people once a week or more, rather than once a month.

Mr Balls said around two million adults would no longer be affected.

He ordered the review by Sir Roger Singleton, chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority, following a storm of complaints that volunteers were being deterred from working with children because of the VBS requirements.

The key recommendations by Sir Roger include:

* Adults, such as children's authors, who go into different schools or similar settings to work with different groups of children should not be required to register unless their contact with the same children is frequent or intensive;

* There should be immediate changes to the rules so that 16, 17 and 18 year olds in education will not be required to register;

* Overseas visitors bringing their own groups of children to the UK - such as to international camps or the London Olympics - should have a three-month exemption from the requirement to register;

* Exchange visits lasting less than 28 days, where overseas parents accept the responsibility for the selection of the host family, should be regarded as private arrangements and will not require registration.