Issue - meetings

(Report of the Director of the Children and Young People’s Service): To implement the final funding decisions in relation to the budget reductions in the Children and Young People’s Service.

(Report of the Director of the Children and Young Peoples’ Service – Agenda Item 4):

The Appendix to the interleaved report was the subject of a motion to exclude the press and public from the meeting as it contained exempt information relating to the business or financial affairs of any particular person (including the Authority holding that information).

It was noted that overarching funding criteria for the Council, based on work from the Audit Commission had been approved by the Cabinet on 8 February. The Children and Young Peoples’ Directorate specific criteria measured services against a three stage assessment. Services were first assessed regarding the extent to which they met at least one of the first two strategic priorities of the Children and Young Peoples’ Services Strategic Plan 2009-2020. The second stage assessment involved prioritising services where the predominant numbers of service users were vulnerable children and young people with acute or highly complex need, being level four on the Haringey Continuum of Need. Under provisional assessment, services which did not meet level four would receive no further funding save for circumstances where a withdrawal of service would put the Council at serious risk of failing to meet its statutory duties. In such cases, funding would be reviewed, and this represented the third stage of the assessment.

These criteria had been applied and the provisional decisions were notified to providers and users to enable consultation to be undertaken. The final recommendations for services, having considered the responses to consultation and conducted an Equalities Impact Assessment were set out at Appendix H Annex 1. The recommendations meant that services and organisations would be subject to one of three outcomes which were that, in 2011/12, they would receive: the same level of funding; a reduced level of funding; or no funding.

It was also noted that the criteria reasonably utilised the ‘Continuum of Need’ as a basis for a risk assessment, as this was the tool used as part of the Common Assessment Framework and was developed by the London Safeguarding Children Board (a multi-agency board) following the statutory guidance as laid out in “Working Together to Safeguard Children” (September 2010). The further criteria stages were developed in response to consultation to include a third stage to ensure that the Authority complied with its Equality Act 2010 duties and the Aiming High government project. The range of services that might be affected by both the design of the criteria and the decision to implement the decisions on applying the criteria was broad. For the purposes of the Equality Impact Assessment, the services provided had been grouped into 8 themes,  Early Years Education and Childcare; Activities for Young People 13-19 Years; Disabilities and Special Educational Needs; Family Support; 14 to 19 Education; 6. Children in Care; Youth Offending; and Teenage Pregnancy.

It was reported that in commenting on the application of application of criteria and proposed decisions, the following main themes emerged from consultation responses:

• Feedback to the consultation process –  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2