Agenda item

The Panel will receive a presentation regarding this item at the meeting.

The Senior Commissioning Manager for Preventative Services gave a presentation to the Panel regarding this item. A copy of it will be available online as an appendix to the minutes and on the Panel’s Minute Book, a summary is set out below.

Children’s Centres - Current and emerging model

Current Model

11 Children’s Centres dispersed across B&NES, 9 provided by the council, 2 by a voluntary sector provider

Currently managed as 4 groups: Bath East, Bath West, Keynsham and Chew Valley, Somer Valley

Models vary but each centre has a co-ordinator (either PT or FT) to manage the building, the staff and coordinate the services.

Who uses the current services

Families with children aged 0-4 who have additional needs. These families are targeted by the services, either because of where they live in the community, or because of a particular need of a child or parent, or both. For instance:

Mums with post natal depression

Children with disabilities

Some families without additional needs can access the more open (universal) groups such as Stay and Play, Bumps and Babes.

Emerging model for Children’s Centres

Remodel 4 groups into 2 new groups by centralising and consolidating management support and back office functions, but retain 11 Children’s Centres and other venues for delivery.

Group the Children’s Centres according to geographical location so the new groups will look as follows:

Bath – 5 centres

North East Somerset – 6 centres

Commission the management and running of the Children Centre buildings separately to the services.

In consolidating management and back office functions, a ‘service centre’ for each group will be housed in one of the Children’s Centres. It’s proposed that these are:

Bath – Parkside

North East Somerset - Radstock 

Plus two subsidiary ‘service centres’ at Keynsham and Twerton.

These will be the bases for most Children Centre staff.

Health visitors and other partners can remain in these and other Children’s Centres.

The consolidation will not adversely affect the delivery of the service from 11 Children’s Centres and other venues.

Outreach Service

An outreach service which is fully targeted, only supporting families and children with additional needs. It will provide:

Home visits to support children and parents.  220 families/children will be supported at any one time.

Groups for children and parents – Capacity to support 44 groups in the Children’s Centres and other community venues each week, with up to 22 groups supported by 2 outreach staff and others led by an outreach worker but supported by a volunteer/ other staff.

All groups will continue to be provided in the Children’s Centres and other community venues such as Temple Cloud and Fox Hill as they do now.

Opening hours

The two service centres, Parkside and Radstock and the two subsidiaries at Twerton & Keynsham will open full time.

Opening times of the other Children’s Centres will be matched to the times when the groups and activities are running.

Groups delivered by other partners and organisations will still be able to use the buildings as they do now.

The additional cost of keeping the other 7 Children’s Centres open 9-5 weekdays would be £294,000.

Early Years Foundation Stage Service

Quality Improvement and Moderation

•  Business model being developed to charge for non-statutory support and training to generate income to cover costs. Level of service will reduce and visits will be targeted to settings/child-minders where:

• settings /child-minders need to improve i.e. poor ‘Ofsted’ rating; 
• there are high number of funded 2 year olds
• There are concerns about practice and welfare standards

•  Moderation is a statutory function and will be retained at the current level

Inclusion Support for children with additional needs

•  The service will remain resourced as it is to retain current levels of support and support the delivery of SEND

Impact of the £2.3 m reduction (£500k)

If we had to make a £2.3m reduction we would lose:

•  4 FTE outreach workers in the Children’s Centre Service, which would mean 40 less families/children supported.

•  Two teachers in the Children’s Centre Groups

•  The subsidy of Children’s Centre nurseries to retain enhanced staffing to support children with additional needs.

•  The current level of support the Early Years Foundation Stage team provides to children in pre-school settings with the greatest needs, and our ability to effectively respond to the SEND reforms.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked what would happen to breast feeding support service and the speech and language service provided by Sirona.

The Senior Commissioning Manager for Preventative Services replied that the contract for those services expires in March 2015 and at that point it is proposed to reduce the budget and reshape these types of services through the commissioning process.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked what would happen to the universal services in the future.

The Senior Commissioning Manager for Preventative Services replied that there were currently 13 universal groups, but none of these would be run by Children’s Centres staff in the future.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked when the cuts would actually take effect.

The People and Communities Strategic Director replied that a public consultation will take place and following that changes to the service will begin in September 2014 and continue until June 2015.

Councillor Liz Hardman commented that she was concerned about the lack of reception staff at centres in the future and asked if parents would have to pay for them or would volunteer groups provide them.

The Early Years & Extended Services Manager replied that there would still be some support at the centres for volunteers and parents and that payment for venue hire or further staff would be part of the consultation discussion.

Councillor Colin Barrett asked if services were unable to continue at the centre in Weston would the Council help in subsidising the travel costs of parents to access services elsewhere.

The Senior Commissioning Manager for Preventative Services replied that the consolidation process would not affect service delivery and therefore parents should not need to travel any further distance than normal.

Councillor Colin Barrett commented that he was concerned over the possibility of an increase in venue hire as it may seem some groups struggle to continue.

The People and Communities Strategic Director replied that they were looking to implement a more effective charging policy, but stated that nothing had been set down yet. He added that our current rates are quite low.

Councillor Dine Romero, Cabinet Member for Early Years, Children & Youth added that these concerns needed to be raised during the consultation process.

Councillor Manda Rigby commented that she was able to see the rationale behind the separation of the centres and the limit on their opening hours. She added that this message must be clearly explained to the public and the fact that the centres can be used at other times but some degree of a charge will apply.

The People and Communities Strategic Director replied that indeed was the intention to convey to families the services that are available. He added that he saw a role for the Council’s Communications team in this.

The Chair wished to thank all the staff concerned in this process so far and said that the Panel were aware of how important these services were. She urged all Councillors to ensure that their residents become aware of the upcoming consultation.