The determinants of expenditure on children's personal social services

This paper reports the results of a statistical study of the determinants o f expenditure on children's social services in twenty-five local authoritie s in England. The study was commissioned as part of the Government's review of Standard Spending Assessments for Personal Social Services. The study c ombined data from a variety of sources, including local authority registers , to infer the distribution of expenditure between 1,036 small areas with p opulations of about 10,000. Multilevel statistical techniques were used, an d suggested that the principal determinants of expenditure are children in lone parent families, children in families of income support claimants, chi ldren living in flats, children with limiting long-standing illness, and po pulation density. As well as these results, the study yielded important ins ights into potential improvements for Standard Spending Assessment methodol ogy.