Agenda and draft minutes

(Report of the Director of the Children and Young People’s Service): To set out proposals, following the period of consultation, to maintain effective children’s centre services within the available budget and based upon the principles agreed by Cabinet:

·        maintaining a full children’s centre services offer in our most deprived areas

·        ensuring that the delivery of services reflect local needs;

·        shared management and other jobs across centres;

·        flexibility amongst staff working across Children’s Centres

·        the closure of centres if the financial appraisals suggest that we are unable to maintain high quality, effective services across all centres.

(Report of the Director of the Children and Young Peoples’ Service – Agenda Item 3):

It was noted that in February 2011 the Cabinet had agreed savings of £6.519 million from Haringey’s Early Years’ and Children Centre programme and had recommended charges to the fees charged for childcare in Childrens’ Centres. Reductions to central staffing costs and commissioning budgets were agreed and a public consultation was held between 16 March and 22 April on how the Children’s Centre delivery programme should be configured within the revised budget constraints. The underpinning principle for the model of provision was that the most vulnerable families living in the most deprived areas would be the priority for future service delivery. An addendum to the consultation was issued on 5 April 2011 making explicit the Childrens’ Centres that would be at risk of closure if the available finances could not sustain all existing centres. Almost 1,000 responses had been made to the online consultation as well as 13 public meetings and over 65 e-mails and letters and alternative proposals had been received.

It was reported that serious concerns had been expressed by all sections of the community about any reductions to resources for this age group of children. National research had consistently demonstrated that the early intervention with young children could prevent greater problems developing as they got older. However, given the scale of reductions that the Council had to make as a result of the changes in Government funding, the over-whelming response from the consultation was support for the proposal to focus the resources that remained on provision for the most vulnerable families living in the areas of greatest deprivation. The report now submitted set out the model that would be adopted for delivering it. Childrens’ Centres would be reorganised into four clusters with staff directly employed by the local authority. A Service Level Agreement would be in place that prioritised the most vulnerable and set out the provision required to support the best outcomes for these families. The report also proposed the establishment of Local Partnership Boards in each cluster who would ensure that Children’s Centres worked together to deliver an offer within each locality that would provide the full range of services to the families that most needed them and would link with the other partnerships operating in the locality. Funding would no longer be provided to support the following Children’s Centres:

·        Highgate

·        Northbank

·        Rokesly

·        Tower Gardens

The central commissioning of services would continue to support the most vulnerable families wherever they lived and to provide specialist family support for the families that were most at risk, wherever they lived. No significant changes were proposed to the current pattern of NHS Haringey services that already operated across Childrens’ Centres.

Subject to agreement, a new fee structure was proposed from September 2011 that would reduce the subsidy provided for childcare. A further review of the impact of this was planned, so that fees charged would be linked to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.

(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.