Early action can make all our children ‘schoolready’
Nick Clegg welcomed the launch of a new report highlighting the difference early interventions can make in a child's later life.
Attending the launch of a new report Early Intervention: The Next Steps at the Swiss Re Tower in London, the DPM said Graham Allen’s independent report confirmed the benefits that identifying and investing in children during their early years can have, for society as well as the individual.
He also spoke of how, by the time children start school, the amount of investment in their first few years will already have marked them out for different paths in life.
The Deputy Prime Minister said;
The report highlights the importance of what it calls ‘school-readiness’. The gaps that exists today in ‘school readiness’ mean that by the time they hang up their coats for their first day at school, children from different backgrounds are already on different tracks, already pointed to very different futures.
The Deputy Prime Minister also called on financial institutions to play their part in finding creative ways to fund social investment, saying;
The Coalition Government has said clearly that we need a new social contract between the financial services industry and broader society.
Financial services do not exist in a social vacuum, indeed no single commercial sector can operate in isolation from the values of wider society. The financial institutions of the City have an important role to play, not only in rebalancing the economy, but also in rebalancing society in a fairer direction.
Speeches and Transcripts: Early Interventions speech