Introduction

In previous chapters we have shown how contemporary child and family policy in the UK reflects a view of the world in which economics coupled with biology reigns supreme. Future outcomes and human capital are prioritised and conflated with the national interest, often at the expense of more humanistic values that could shape a different vision of the national good. The social investment logic that underpins this approach reduces social problems and solutions to technical and moral matters of individual capacity. It rules out and delegitimises alternative perspectives. So why and how has early intervention come to acquire the status of a virtually unchallengeable orthodoxy among policy makers and practitioners? In this chapter we step back from the focus on parenting and infant brain development, to look at the wider landscape of social policy delivery as social investment in which early years intervention is situated. We map out the intricate web of vested interests and agendas that are woven into the fabric of children's services generally, and, more specifically, early intervention. We demonstrate how social investment narratives have cultivated and buttressed these ulterior motives. We structure the chapter around the three key interest groups with a stake in the delivery of early intervention: business, politicians and professionals. Taking each in turn we show how the edifice of social investment initiatives is propped up by deep-rooted and interlaced interests in maintaining the status quo.

We begin by exploring the mechanisms of policy making in contemporary Britain, detailing how government reforms instituted over the last 30 years have prompted a diffusion of power and influence away from the public sector towards a range of private and voluntary sector actors. In examining this wider context, we show how strategic alliances, partnerships, informal allegiances and mutual interests have glued together an early intervention house of cards and rendered social investment logics beyond question. We then set out in detail the complex and contrasting political interests framing the current cross-party consensus on early intervention, revealing the underlying pragmatic, moral and broad-scale economic drivers. Tied to this unanimity, the inevitable pull of neoliberal political orthodoxies towards market-based solutions to social provision issues has created a set of substantial and lucrative business interests.