Spending on early intervention children's services has fallen by £743m in the last five years, while children's centres have seen £450m cut from their budgets, new figures have revealed.

The figures show that budgets for safeguarding and children in care across England has risen by 10% over the same five years, an increase of £597m.

Director of policy and campaigns at Action for Children, Imran Hussain, said: 'We know from our own work that without the safety net of well-funded early help services like children’s centres, thousands of children at risk of abuse, neglect or domestic violence are being left to fend for themselves until problems spiral out of control. This failure to act with the right help, at the right time, will inevitably have devastating consequences for some children that last a lifetime.

'As these figures clearly show, it also makes no financial sense to cut early help as councils are then forced to spend vast amounts on expensive crisis interventions, "firefighting" problems after they have escalated. The Government needs to allocate additional, dedicated funding for children’s services at next year’s Spending Review. Without urgent action, we risk failing thousands more children across the country.'