Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Closure of Childrens Centres - Call-in Scrutiny Meeting
Many of you will be aware that the council have decided to close 4 childrens centres across the borough. The Libdems have "called in" the cabinet's decision and a special meeting is being held on Wednesday 8th June 2011. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee (on which I am a member) will look at the decision and decide whether the cabinet needs to rethink it.
The agenda and supporting papers can be found on the Haringey Council website. If you have any comments or questions I am happy to take them to the committee. Please do get in touch, you can e-mail me on karen.alexander.haringeylibdems@gmail.com
Whilst everyone understands the need to make substantial savings I am not sure that closing these centres is the way forward - with Haringey Childrens Service's recent history this is the last thing they should be doing.
Tags for Forum Posts: local nurseries, public spending cuts
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
And you will know - if you've spoken to any of the heads, Chairs of Governors, or the trades unions - that there are Labour councillors who are also deeply concerned and taking action about this issue,
Perhaps you would share with us the steps you have taken to give your views to Government Ministers whose decisions have forced local councils of all political colours to consider cuts and closures in these "vital preventative services".
(Labour councillor Tottenham Hale)
-
Permalink Reply by Karen Alexander on
-
Alan, I am simply trying to inform and engage with residents on this one, nothing more nothing less. I am well aware that there are councillors of all parties who feel very strongly about this - lets hope our cabinet listen to all of them and made the right decision next week.
-
-
The "right decision" Karen, is for Government ministers to listen to parents, heads, and yes, even councillors, and then properly fund Children's Centres. Councils - wherever they are in the UK and whichever party controls them - can't spend money they don't have.
-
-
Absolutely agree with you Alan, councils can't spend money they don't have but they do have the power to make choices as to where they spend the money they do have!
-
Permalink Reply by Julie on
-
Haringey has suffered a massive cut to children's centre funding and the proposal is to cut four centres in relatively affluent areas and slash funds for the remaining centres.
I assume, Karen, that you are arguing to keep the Highgate and Crouch End children's centres open? Without arguing for more money from central government, this would mean taking funding currently proposed for east of borough centres and giving it to the west. Has your group lobbied for more money all round? Or are you happy with the cut itself but not how it will be distributed?
-
-
I don't believe that any of the centres should be closed and as a Tottenham councillor I certainly would never advocate taking funds from the east of the borough to support the west. All these centres are vital for their area and we will continue to fight to find away of saving them.
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
What should be cut then? The maths around 'executive pay' demonstrably don't add up. Parks? Foster care? Education?
How about the people I work with in Muswell Hill paying substationally more in council tax than I do? At the moment it's capped...
-
Permalink Reply by JulieB on
-
Will this committee be seeing the results of the council survey about services which asked which services residents found most valuable and which they would be more willing to have cut? Also I completed a survery specifically about Children's Centres, so will they see these results as well? I'm sure they will give a good representation of parents and residents views.
I have 2 children aged 7 and 4, both of whom went to the excellent Woodlands Park Children's Centre. It has been vital to us in terms to childcare, early years education, playgroups and other baby services some of which are not available anywhere else.
I understand that costs of day care are to increase substantially, so cuts to the services at the same time does feel very wrong to me.
My son attends Chestnuts school and there are still children who start school without any pre-school education, and some do not speak English. Cuts to the absolutely vital Children's Centres can only make this worse for the most vulnerable in our society and increase pressure on Primary Schools who are also facing massive cuts.
-
-
On Friday Children & Young People Now carried the news item: "Parents urge government to protect Haringey's Sure Start Centres." It reports on the petition with more than 1000 signatures delivered to Michael Gove.
Can I highlight one particularly worrying aspect of the Children's Centre plans. This is the proposal to separate the management of Children's Centre staff from the Primary and Nursery schools where most are currently located. This is clearly a step backwards and threatens a return to the parallel working of the past with its competing Departmental "silos".
I've read the justifications offered - I'm sure in good faith and with the best of intentions as a way of saving money. Unfortunately these are no more than hopes and aspirations about how multi-agency teams should and could work. But very often don't.
If this proposal is agreed then at best it's likely to set up more barriers which professionals will waste time and effort working around. At worst, it will mean separating out parts of integrated teams which are now more like conjoined twins — with all the risks that entails that one of the twins will be harmed.
(Labour councillor Tottenham Hale)
-
Permalink Reply by Malcolm on
-
I'm pleased to hear that the Scrutiny Committee will be carefully considering whether this decision is the right one.
There are two strands to this: firstly, has the right overall budget been allocated to Children's centres, given the competing claims for scarce resources, and secondly whether this money is being spent effectively. Then there is the meta issue of whether the council have made the decision in a sensible way.
As a governor of the Ladder Children's Centre, I have deep concerns about both the proposed structure of the cuts and the process which has been used to get to the decision. With the current proposal, bricks and mortar are being preserved over the staff that deliver the services. We will end up with lots of under-utilised buildings with all the attendant fixed overheads, and fewer staff who actually make the difference.
If you look at the map of children's centres here: http://www.haringey.gov.uk/haringey_childrens_centres_leaflet_and_m... you'll see there's a lot of overlap in the south east of the borough, even with small catchment areas. Closing some of the buildings and keeping the staff would seem to be much better for everyone. However this is not an option that appears to be on the table. Shuffling staff to the LA's control means that opportunities for cost-savings with the associated primary schools are lost.
As for the decision making process, in my opinion it's been poor to bad. The initial consultation on restructuring came without any of the financial models to show what different options cost, nor with enough information to allow the CC staff and governors to propose alternatives. As far as I could determine, this was because the council had not actually done the modelling - hence the mid-course correction from "no closures" to "some closures" when the sums didn't add up. No opportunity was missed to avoid discussion on the timing, scale and structure of the reshaping.
-
-
A quick reminder about the Scrutiny Committee "call-in" meeting about the cuts to Children's Centres.
It's today Wednesday 8 June at 4.30 pm in the Civic Centre, Wood Green. The meeting is open to the public. I've asked if it will also be webcast.
-
-
The Call-in on the decision to close four childrens centres across the borough was successful last night. The Overview & Scrutiny Committee decided to pass the decision back to the decision maker, the Cabinet Member and then hopefully back to the Cabinet for them to reconsider their decision.
There were representations from a wide group of people, head teachers of local primary schools and childrens centres, childrens centre managers, chairs of governors and also from Cllr Zena Brabazon, whose expertise in the area proved invaluable.
The details of the decision are being drafted today and as soon as they are available in final form I will post them.
Many thanks for the hard work of everyone involved in making this call-in a success.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
