The Ladder Children's Centre slated for closure by @haringeycouncil - please complete survey. No kids required

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by empyrean_aisles on July 1, 2015 at 14:50

Thanks for drawing attention to this, Liz. I'd like to add my request for as many people as possible to respond to this consultation: these centres are such important resources for early years education and for supporting people in the first few difficult months and years of parenthood. (And if you don't have children now, you may well later - or perhaps you'll find yourself minding grandchildren or the children of friends/neighbours and will be glad of a playgroup to take them to.)

Also, I notice that they have this question: "If the proposals means that the Children Centres are closed, to what extent do you support the following buildings being used as key community access points?" And I find that I'm pretty cynical about it, especially given that it follows directly on from the question "To what extent do you support our proposals to close the following Children's Centres?". Obviously I see nothing wrong with creating key community access points (though this term is pretty vague: what do they mean, Citizens Advice-style places, or additional storefronts in which one can pay parking fines?). The reason I'm cynical is that it seems likely to be a motherhood-and-apple-pie proposal - who on earth would object to the creation of additional community access points - which can be put forward as something the community really approves of, in order to mask the dreadful reality of cutting children's services in the borough even further.

So, I put 'no opinion' on the 'key community access point' question, and would like to hear the opinions of others about whether this is, tactically, a good idea.

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Permalink Reply by Liz on July 1, 2015 at 15:49

My response to the question on key community access points was to ignore it and ask what they were in a comments box. As you say, without information as to what that term means in practice it's meaningless vague jargon (to which they'll say we agreed if we say we support them even though we have no idea what they are). 

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Permalink Reply by Josephine on July 1, 2015 at 17:34

Tried to fill it in but 'document expired' after few mins. Will try again.

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Permalink Reply by Issy on July 1, 2015 at 18:55

Thanks for drawing attention to this. Have completed the survey. 

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Permalink Reply by Nick G-T on July 1, 2015 at 20:59

Done. That wound me up for 5 minutes.

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Permalink Reply by Zoi on July 3, 2015 at 6:41

Thanks Liz, great advice on how to respond! Also parents can get involved in the consultation workshops. The next one is on Monday 6-8pm at 1 Philip Lane N15 4JA or to find another one near you see http://www.haringey.gov.uk/children-and-families/family-information... …

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Permalink Reply by Zoi on July 3, 2015 at 6:44

Thanks for putting the film on there!

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Permalink Reply by Dominik on July 3, 2015 at 9:12

I submitted my opinion. This is outrageous as I cannot believe the council is unable to find the necessary savings in other areas. Closing the centres is totally unacceptable as they are an integral part of the neighbourhood, a meeting point for parents and kids and easy access is essential.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Cosmetatos on July 4, 2015 at 10:29

When you look at the map of Haringey's children's centres, you can see that there are three pairs of centres in the south eastern part of the borough that are quite close together.  Given they need to make substantial savings, it seems almost inevitable that they would want to close/re-purpose one from each of these pairs.  While I want them to keep the Ladder open, it seems to me that it's hard to make the case without ignoring the financial reality (which is bleak and getting bleaker), or arguing, in effect, that they should be closing Woodlands Park instead (Woodlands being the other of the closely located pair that includes the Ladder).

One argument against the closure(s) is that this is yet more of the kind of reorganisation that may aim to save money but often simply undermines the delivery of existing services by diverting attention to coping with changes while incurring substantial frictional costs (consultants, redundancies, new systems, connections, governance, etc.).  But the funding available is falling.  It just is, whether we like it or not.  We can object to how the Council responds to that situation because it affects our own local children's centre in a way we don't like, of course; but where does that lead?  Is there a more constructive point we can make?

The only other thought I have is to argue that the benefits of children's centres (and of most of the early intervention services especially to which they facilitate access) are almost certainly undervalued - so the savings to be made from closing them are illusory/false.  This argument would be stronger with some data, which of course I don't have - but intuitively it feels strong.  The trouble is that the Council has to focus on short term savings, not on what makes sense over the medium or longer term - so savings are savings, even if they are, in fact, false.

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Permalink Reply by Zoi on July 16, 2015 at 7:52

I think that the cuts to CCs are a drop in the ocean for Haringey, so it's not really a reality except that the priorities for Councillors are wrong. 6.6% pay rise to themselves in May, the cost of the 50th Anniversary events and rebranding exercise, an IT upgrade when open source software is not being exploited. The list goes on...

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Permalink Reply by GenevieveP on July 15, 2015 at 14:59

Is there any appetite to have some sort of demonstration about the closure of the Ladder to try to get LBH's attention and to show the strength of our feeling? I am not really one for a demo but I would do it for this cause.

Is there any scope for proposing a structure whereby the Ladder becomes more self-funding through those of us who can paying more?

Or, is closure in reality a fait accompli and there isn't anything to be done? 

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Permalink Reply by wholepint on July 16, 2015 at 13:55

I would be up for this. 

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