Issue - meetings

The report will provide an overview of the proposed restructuring of the Children &Young People’s Service and seek agreement for some restructure decisions in this service to be made by delegated authority by the Chair of the General Purposes Committee and the appropriate director following consultation and consideration of the equality impact assessments. Report to follow

The Director of the Children’s and Young People’s service  presented this report and  set out   the  context of the report and the necessary changes required to the service which were predicated on the loss of grant funding to the directorate. The Committee noted that the Children and Young People’s Service was to be restructured to respond to three key drivers:

• Becoming an excellent authority for the delivery of services to children and young people together.

• Dealing with the current budget position of considerable reductions in grant funding, core budgets and changes to the DSG.

• The changes in policy recently announced by the Government, particularly relating to the changed relationship with schools.

The proposals, set out in the report, sought to respond to these challenges.  The Committee considered the details of the transformation agenda for the directorate that would ensure the Borough (including partners) could secure support for the most vulnerable whilst not losing sight of the need for universal and early interventions that prevent escalation into greater difficulty. In summary this was the development of a clear balance, within available resources, of universal, targeted and specialist provision.

 In noting the reduction in the directorate’s delivery business units from four to two, It was important to understand that schools now had direct responsibility for their own improvements with funding from government directly provided to them for this function. Whilst schools could choose to continue to buy services from the local authority, this was implicitly (if not explicitly) discouraged by central government. There was also no indication from schools that they would purchase support functions from the local authority .Therefore the directorate was obliged to respond to these circumstances by making the necessary changes to the service.  Although the funding arrangements between schools and the local authority  was changing, this would not equal a total disintegration of support provided by the local authority but would mean that alternative ways and means of supporting schools to  ensure success with pupils could continue to be delivered. This was the current priority of the newly re –organised School Standards and Inclusion team. In further responding to the cuts in funding, there were also discussions with neighbouring borough, Enfield, on which functions can be shared which will accommodate the breadth and depth of the services.

A table setting out the proposed restructures and unit closures was included, in section 4 of Appendix 1, for the Committee’s comments and consideration.  For those still to conclude staff consultation, it was proposed that the Committee agree to either delegate the final decision to the Director of the Children and Young People’s Service (for those affecting fewer than 20 staff) or require a report to a future meeting of the Committee.  In all cases the final recommendations would be accompanied by a full account of the consultation, a response to points raised in consultation and an Equalities Impact Assessment.

In considering the table of proposals for the restructure and closure of services within the Children and Young People’s service, the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 91