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Cabinet
Tuesday, 7 March 2006

CA070306-09

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ITEM CA9

CABINET – 7 MARCH 2006

CHILDREN’S CENTRES STRATEGY – 2006/08

Report by Director for Children, Young People & Families

Introduction

  1. Children’s Centres are ‘one stop shops’ for all parents of young children. In a children’s centre parents will be able to get information about services available – including health, early education, childcare and family support services. Children’s centres across Oxfordshire will be different from each other – responding to the needs of the local community. Some will be on primary school sites as part of the extended schools offer; others will be extended family centres. Some will provide the full offer of services under one roof, others will provide drop-in facilities for parents and sign-posting to existing health, education and childcare services. Maternity services and Health Visitors will be key to reaching parents.
  2. Children’s centres have the potential to contribute to all of the Corporate and Children Young People and Families Directorate priorities. For example, they can:

    • help the economy to grow as fast as possible with a real choice of access to jobs (through creation of childcare places);
    • give all of us - throughout or lives - the opportunity to enjoy effective teaching and learning (through integrated early education and childcare);

    • safeguard our communities and maintain our rural character (through early intervention and support for vulnerable families);

    • help our disadvantaged residents to live fulfilling and independent lives (through targeted resources to geographical areas with the highest levels of disadvantage).

  1. Children’s centres will benefit young children, parents and communities in a range of ways:

    • Improved child/family health and well-being;
    • More effective parenting;
    • Enhanced opportunities for children’s educational development;
    • Better access to advice, learning, training and employment for parents.

  1. On 18 October 2005 the Cabinet:

    1. approved the paper "Proposals for Children’s Centres in Oxfordshire 2006-10" as the basis for continuing consultation with public and stakeholders and further development; and
    2. requested officers to report to the Cabinet in the New Year on the outcome of consultation on and development of the proposals, together with a full financial and risk assessment for the medium term, to include the identification of implications and options and a costed exit strategy, in the event of external funding not being maintained.

This report is submitted further to (b).

Background

  1. The Childcare Bill introduced to Parliament on 8 November 2005 will if enacted enshrine in law parents’ legitimate expectation of accessible high quality services for children under 5 and their families including childcare. Children’s centres are seen as a lynchpin for providing the full range of services in every community by 2010.
  2. In the first phase of development from 2004-06, Oxfordshire was given funding to develop two children's centres in areas that ranked in the top 20% nationally in terms of disadvantage (using the Index of Multiple Deprivation). These are the Leys Children's Centre Project in Oxford City and the Sunshine Centre in Ruscote, Banbury. The ACE Early Excellence Centre in Chipping Norton and Rose Hill-Littlemore Sure Start were also designated as Children's Centres in that they already provided the ‘core offer’.
  3. In the second phase, from 2006-08, the DfES has set Oxfordshire the target of developing a further 25 centres, the requirement being to develop children’s centres first in the areas that rank in the top 30% of need nationally. Areas not reached in the second phase will be included in anticipated plans for the third phase of development, from 2008-2010.
  4. As funding for centres to be developed in the 2008-2010 phase will not be announced until after the Government’s 2007 spending review, the consultation we have undertaken, and the content of this report, concentrate on the 25 centres to be developed over the next two years.
  5. Results of the Consultation

  6. A summary of the consultation undertaken and of the responses received is attached as Annex A (download as .doc file) to this report. There is a very encouraging high level of support from parents and providers for this initiative. It is acknowledged that there is much more work to do at local level in engaging parents in the more detailed development about levels of service and how to make them accessible, building on existing provision. The full consultation results are available on http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/earlyyearsandchildcare.
  7. Local Audits and Development of Proposals in each Locality

  8. Local Centre Leads have been identified in each locality (in most cases a school or family centre head) and they have started work bringing together partners organisations (health, voluntary sector, schools) to audit existing provision and develop outline proposals for the way in which children’s centre services will be delivered locally. A mobile rural project will take children’s centre services to identified rural areas (see Annex C) (download as .doc file). The project will build on current services provided by Oxfordshire and Banbury playbuses, the Advisory Service for Education of Travellers mobile classroom and the Early Years Team resource library, linking with the mobile library services and health outreach.
  9. Project Development

  10. A Children’s Centre Programme Board has been established, chaired by the Head of Early Years and Family Support, with a small project team overseeing the project plan (See Annex B) (download as .doc file). An existing development worker or advisory teacher from the Early Years and Childcare teams also supports each centre. There will be a children’s centre manager for Oxford City and one each for the North and South of the County, to oversee service level agreements and ensure effective management support.
  11. Individual outline plans have been submitted by each Local Centre Lead to demonstrate how they will meet the DfES requirements of grant. Officers in Children, Young People & Families Property & Assets have also been working with local leads to develop outline capital briefs for each children’s centre. A separate capital project team has been established. Approval for projects will be sought in accordance with the Constitution following option appraisal and completion of feasibility studies. The County Council’s consultants Mouchel Parkman have appointed a project manager.
  12. Indicative Funding Allocations

  13. The proposed principles and proposed indicative revenue and capital allocations for each centre are set out in Annex C (download as .doc file) attached. In order to manage expectations and give Local Centre Leads some idea of the kind of budgets that might be expected, officers consulted with the Sure Start Unit and the DfES and took account of local responses to the consultation document (eg from schools and District Councils) in drawing up the proposed principles and allocations.
  14. Challenges and Risks

  15. The key risks to the County Council are set out in the risk assessment in Annex D (download as .doc file). These risks are common to all local authorities, although Oxfordshire has a particularly high level of development in this phase (along with statistical neighbours) whereas many small local authorities with higher levels of deprivation already have almost universal provision through the development of local Sure Start Programmes and continued funding for these which will be converted to children’s centres.
  16. In October 2005, the Cabinet requested reassurance about the long-term sustainability of the programme and potential risks of the programme, given the high levels of investment and the short-term nature of the government grant (which is only guaranteed until 2008).
  17. Officers have consulted with other local authorities and with the Sure Start Unit about the approach to take. The consensus is that the development of children’s centres should be planned for the longer term as the Childcare Bill will make the provision of these services a statutory duty of local authorities. Furthermore the DfES have communicated that unspecified levels of additional funding will be made available in 2008 to develop further children’s centres across all areas to ensure that children’s centres become universal. Children’s Centres are also mentioned as the corner-stone of future service delivery in a range of recent government policy documents and the recent White Paper on ‘Our Health, our care, our say’.
  18. There is significant long term research evidence that the provision of high quality integrated services for under 5s has long term cost benefits in terms of early intervention and prevention of more costly specialist services for children in later life, as well supporting economic regeneration through additional tax benefits and supported work schemes for low income and workless families.
  19. Officers will ensure that in the unlikely eventuality that government funding for children’s centres will not be continued beyond March 2008, each local plan is supported to become as cost efficient as possible through sound business planning for childcare services, which will become self-sustaining over time, and the promotion of tax credits. A partnership agreement has been established between the local authority and Job Centre Plus.
  20. Risk to local services is also minimized through the approach of building on existing services such as schools (as Extended School Children Centres) and on family centres (as Family and Children’s Centres). Capital projects will build on existing schools and centres to improve and enhance facilities for community involvement. These improvements will be a lasting asset to the County Council and provide potential assets for income generation through hire charges etc.
  21. Family support and health services will provide early support to all parents but with targeted programmes for parents and families identified as needing additional support. Longitudinal research projects have demonstrated that high quality integrated services for young children and families in the early years have long term benefits, including cost benefits incurred through reduced need for high cost treatment services later on.
  22. Exit Strategy

  23. The worst scenario that it is understood the Cabinet had in mind is the non-continuation of the revenue support announced by the government in circumstances where the continuation of funding by the County Council could not be afforded against other priorities. The highest operating costs are inevitably associated with staffing and the table below gives an estimated cost and numbers of staff needed (assumed 80% of total cost) and therefore affected should reduction in services be required due to lack of continuation funding:

    *Staff Category

    Estimated number of new grant funded staff

    Annual additional Costs

    LEA managed staff

    9

    £262,265

    School based centre staff

    33

    £959,240

    Voluntary sector staff

    8

    £221,748

  24. The above figures do not include the childcare posts, which will be funded from parental fees. The above posts will largely be qualified teachers or parenting support and home/centre link workers or health outreach. Figures for ACE, East St, Sunshine Centre and S Abingdon have also not been included in this exercise as these children’s centres have existed for some years (funded from previous grants such as early excellence and local Sure Start programmes), and whilst the children’s centre grant enables sustainability and continuity for these centres, they do not represent a new risk as no new posts will be created with this funding. In some cases, school centre based staff may be employed through the Health Service (for example speech and language therapists or outreach workers attached to family centres) or another agency, but through a service level agreement with the school.
  25. Oxfordshire has a track record of supporting sustainable development of childcare places. The worst financial effect would be that the childcare proves unsustainable and that redundancies may be required over and above the estimated number of grants funded posts above. There would nonetheless be lasting benefits to the Council in terms of additional and improved capital assets (see Annex C) (download as .doc file), which could be sold or used to generate income. There will also be long term social capital benefits from even a short term investment (as indicated in paragraphs 2, 3 and 17 above).
  26. Procurement

  27. Given the proposed strategy to build on existing services it is proposed that most services will be provided through additional devolved grants to schools and family centres. Contracts for voluntary sector managed services will be for two years in the first instance with an option to extend. The intention is to build on and extend well-used local services and the proposals for exemption from the tendering process in order to achieve this are contained in Annex E (download as .doc file). Where consultation has not resulted in any single school or voluntary organisation as the preferred lead agency (Marston in Oxford and possibly Carterton), services will be put out to tender in accordance with Contract Procedure Rules unless a school-based local solution can be agreed.
  28. Rose Hill Littlemore Sure Start has ring-fenced funding of £850K for 2006/07. From April 2007 the Council will need to take on the management of the Family and Children Centre at Rose Hill at a similar level to other children’s centres (approximately £200K per annum). The existing Local Sure Start Board (a charitable company limited by guarantee) will be supported to develop as Trust Fund to raise additional income and distribute it to children and families in need to access children’s centre services across the Oxford City area.
  29. Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee

  30. This report has been referred to a small group of members of the Scrutiny Committee for advice. Their comments will be reported to the meeting.
  31. RECOMMENDATIONS

  32. Subject to:

  • consideration of any advice on behalf of the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee; and
  • satisfactory financial appraisal in respect of the request for exemption from the tendering requirements as mentioned in (b) below,

the Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

          1. endorse the approach to the development of children’s centres 2006 – 2008 as set out in the report and its annexes;
          2. agree the exemptions from the tendering requirements of the Contracts Procedure Rules of the specific contracts as set out in Annex E (download as .doc file)
          3. request officers to report back to the Cabinet in Autumn 2007 (in the light of the outcome of the Spending Review) on the long term sustainability of the programme and any further children’s centre developments planned for 2008 – 2010.

KEITH BARTLEY
Director for Children, Young People & Families

Background papers: Consultation responses

Contact Officers:
Annie Davy, Head of Early Learning and Childcare, Assistant Head of Service Early Years and Family Support - tel (01865) 815493
Clare Abolins, Children’s Centre Programme Manager - tel (01235) 549290 or (01865) 492052

January 2006

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