Agenda item

The Director of Children, Families and Communities, Assistant Director for Families, Communities and Partnerships and Lead Commissioner were in attendance at the meeting to discuss the progress on Optimising the Use of Children's Centre Buildings.

During 2016, this issue had been discussed on a number of occasions by the Panel and two call-ins had been considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board (OSPB).

Although the Cabinet Member decision of 13 September 2016 was subject to one of the Call-ins, it was agreed by the OSPB that the decision should be accepted but with the qualification that the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel be requested to work with the Cabinet Member with Responsibility throughout the implementation of the decision to ensure continued Scrutiny and Quality Assurance and to report any concerns to OSPB.

Following this, work has been undertaken to ensure the smooth transfer of Children's Centre buildings and to ensure the necessary support for this process and the sustainability of universal stay and play provision across the county. In addition, progress had been made in developing and embedding new early help services and pathways across the 0-19 Public Health Nursing Service and Parenting and Targeted Family Support Services.  This was integral to  the Safeguarding Improvement Plan and also included supporting and challenging the whole workforce in playing their full part in identifying risk and managing need at the earliest stage. 

32 Children's Centres buildings were within the scope of the project, 18 were part of the consultation on future use of buildings, 2 were not part of the consultation but lease arrangements needed to be updated and a further 12 were not part of the consultation but required existing leases to be reviewed and updated.

Current providers were contracted to the end of March 2019 and renewal of leases of the 12 centres which were continuing as Parenting and Family Support providers (previously Early Help providers) were currently being aligned where appropriate to this date. This work was nearly complete for South Worcestershire (Action for Children) and in Bromsgrove (Redditch Borough Council).  It was expected that all other areas would be completed by the end of March 2017.

In terms of the transfer of centres to schools/other providers, as the lease negotiation process was lengthy, officers had worked with the Place Partnership Ltd to put in place Tenancy at Will arrangements to ensure legal occupation of buildings by the agreed new occupiers.  In a small number of cases, this has not yet taken place due to the future use of the building still needing to be agreed.  However, in all cases continued delivery had been possible by effective partnership working between teams within the County Council, Place Partnership, providers and schools. 

To support new occupiers, a one off sum of £30k had been made available on a need-by-need basis to support the sustainability of the universal stay and play sessions. Some of the £30k had been allocated following requests from providers and schools. To date a request for £8,127 from Redditch Borough Council (for provision in Redditch and Bromsgrove districts) and for £5,000 from the Provider 10:32 for provision in the Wyre Forest area had been approved. These requests include using funding to update equipment, ensure suitable access arrangements and for the training and guidance of staff and/or volunteers to run sessions. It was anticipated that the full £30k would be allocated across the county by the end of this term. A wide range of sessions continued to be delivered across the county, in a variety of settings, and were publicised via the council's website (http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/childrenscentres)

After only a month of their new contract, one of the Parenting and Family Support providers reported a significant uptake of volunteering opportunities.

During the ensuing discussion, the following main points were noted:

·       Discussions were continuing about the alterations required to enable the shared use of the Brookside at Comberton, Kidderminster Centre by the school and a request for alterations had been sent to the Place Partnership.

·       It was confirmed that all providers were eligible to apply for financial assistance from the £30k one-off sum to support the sustainability of the universal stay and play sessions.

·       In response to the concern about the impact on the families currently receiving early years support who would not be able to access this support following the reconfiguration of the provision, the Panel were reassured that every child would get support through the Health Visiting Service or School Nurse and those identified as needing more support would receive it.

·       However, a Member of the Panel pointed out that reductions were also being made to the Health Visiting Service and the knock-on effect of those reductions was a concern also.  The Panel were advised that the Health Visiting Service was undergoing a service reconfiguration redesign and would be delivered using a different model and would be able to support referrals for additional support.  Also, at every Children's Centre an information and advice offer and a virtual early help offer for practioners and families was also being developed.

·       It was confirmed that the new leases would include monitoring and improvements and at least an annual meeting would take place between schools and a County Council Improvement Adviser and more frequent if necessary.

It was agreed that the Panel would receive a further update at the end of the year, but in the meantime any problems/issues would be highlighted to the Panel if necessary.