Agenda item

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 Employee side raised concerns on the following: the necessity to agree smaller unit staff changes by delegated authority, the level of information contained within the individual reports on the unit restructures or closures as they  did not provide information  on the future vision for the service, the  consultation concerning  the closure of the travellers unit which had not  sought the view of users of this service, the delayed restructure of staffing in Children’s Centres which was resulting in high anxiety levels amongst staff  and more  generally  the numbers of SM1 and SM2 graded staff  that seemed  not to have been overly affected by the changes in the service.  The Employee side further mentioned that they had received information on Equality Impact Assessments only after the consultation period and not before.

The  Director of the Children and Young People’s service responded to the concerns raised by the representative of the Employee side  and  reiterated that the significant reduction in grant funding to the service would  inevitably affect the wide range of services provided by  directorate. The task of re-organising the service had been made more difficult by the late notification on the detail of the grant reductions. The cuts in funding were front loaded meaning that local authorities had a short time to make changes to services, prompting immediate consultation on them. It was noted that many grant funding streams had been incorporated into the new Early Intervention Grant and that this had then been cut.   This meant making difficult choices on the services that could continue to be provided.  In relation to decisions taken by delegated authority, the committee would decide which restructures would be agreed this way and these options were set out for the committee’s consideration.

 In answer to the concern on the participation of service users in consultation exercises, the Youth, Connexions and Participation consultation was highlighted as an example where user comments were informing the shape and the future delivery of the service. The Committee learned that this consultation had been extended to the 1^st of April meaning that the report would need to be considered at a later Committee date.  The consultation on the closure of the traveller’s education unit had also been extended by an extra week to allow union comments. 

In relation to the to the number of senior posts affected by the staffing restructures in the service, it was noted that the directorate contained 33 posts at SM grade which would be reduced to 20. The Committee were asked to keep in mind  that in some circumstances, staff would be expected to work in  high demanding environments and therefore  their salaries would need to accord with the more intensive duties that they would have.

 In response to disquiet expressed on the sharing of equalities information, the Director of Children and Young People’s service agreed to provide the Employee side with copies of the Equalities Impact Assessments completed on all of the restructures and unit closures in his directorate.

 The staffing restructure in the Children’s centres was discussed and, the Chair requested that information be compiled for the Committee on the likely timeframe for a report on this to be considered by the General Purposes Committee.  The Chair further requested that the Equalities Impact Assessment on this restructure be sent to the Employee side as soon as completed.  The Committee were informed by the Director that the public consultation on this key service had begun and would end on  22^nd April. This would be followed by staff consultation that would end in mid May. The staff consultation period would also be run concurrently and be completed by mid May enabling a report to potentially be considered by the Committee in June 2011.  The Employee side queried why the restructures in Early Years Team and Children’s Centres could not be conducted concurrently to enable displaced staff in the Central Early Year’s team to be considered for posts in the Children’s Centres structure.  Currently consultation on the Central Early Years restructure was due to complete on the 14^th March and be considered at the Committee meeting on March 29^th 2011.  In response to this query, it was noted that  not all Central Early Years team staff  would be eligible to compete for posts in the Children’s Centres re – organisation.  However, there would be a case by case analysis of staff displaced by the Central and Early Years team restructure to understand if they were eligible to be considered for posts in the Children’s Centres staffing restructure.

Members of the Committee raised concerns about the reduction of the delivery business units from four to two and how this would impact on the Council’s determination to be an excellent authority for the delivery of services to children and young people.  The Director of the Children and Young People’s service advised the Committee  that the local authority had little choice in reorganising the service into two delivery areas as the School Standards and Inclusion team were mainly funded by government to support school improvements and, as previously outlined,  this funding had now transferred to schools.  The School Standards and Inclusion team had been reorganised, following a previous decision by the Committee, and were now actively examining how the service could support and challenge schools to continue their improvements.  The government had provided a clear steer that schools should have accountability for improvements and that local authorities should monitor and intervene where necessary.

The Committee discussed the provision to the traveller’s community and the impact the closure of the traveller’s education unit would have. The Committee noted that the directorate were seeking to utilise on available external funding for the traveller community with potential for application to the European Union for funding. It was acknowledged by the Committee that the provisions for pupils of this community by schools was much improved. However, there was felt to be a corporate responsibility for this group of children and young people as they had specific needs and the Committee would need to feel satisfied that the providers, picking up these duties, were fully able to meet them. Therefore it was agreed that the report on this unit closure be considered at the Committee meeting on the 22 March.

In considering this report which emphasised the impact of the budget reductions on the staffing organisation of the Council, the Chair  made an  enquiry to officers about  how widely and effectively displaced staff were able to access and be considered for agency filled posts. This question arose from the Chairs enquiries into the number of agency staff employed by Urban Environment which was higher than he had envisaged.   Concerns were also expressed by the Employee side regarding the co-ordination of and matching of displaced staff to suitable agency covered posts.  The Assistant Chief Executive advised that this information was compiled by Human Resources and shared with services and staff on a regular basis.  However he agreed to examine the process for how this information is co-ordinated and shared to provide a report to the Committee on this matter.

 The Committee sought clarification on the rules of delegations in relation to staff matters. The Chair  referred to the Council Constitution, Appendices,  section E , details of delegations to officer, page 85, which set out the authorisation powers for officers in  Personnel matters.  Decisions on Personnel matters that were outside this described scope were the responsibility of the General Purposes Committee as the non executive decision making body of the Council. The Chair requested that a copy of this section of the Constitution be provided to members of the Committee by the clerk. It was further noted that the Constitution contained a clause to allow decisions to be taken under urgency by the Chair of the Committee and the appropriate director should the decision be deemed too urgent to wait the next available Committee meeting.

RESOLVED

1. That the overview of the current and  proposed future shape of the service and summary of proposed restructures set out in Appendix 1 of this report  be noted.

2. That the following restructure decisions be delegated to the Director of the Children and Young People’s service in consultation with the Chair of the General Purposes Committee following the conclusion of formal consultation and taking account of the appropriate Equality Impact Assessment.

• Behaviour
• Children’s &Families Administration Review
• Extended services

3. That further reports be considered by the Committee following the conclusion of staff consultation on the following proposed restructures:

• Youth connexions &Participation
• After School Childcare
• Central Early Years Service
• Children’s Centres
• Travellers Education service
• Vulnerable Young Person’s Drugs worker