Agenda item

The core purpose of Sure Start children’s centres is to improve outcomes for young children and their families and to reduce inequalities experienced by families in greatest need. This report provides information about the role that children’s centres play in delivering early help and securing good outcomes for children in Medway. 

Discussion:

The Strategic Manager Early Years Service, presented the report on the role that children’s centres play in delivering early help and securing good outcomes for children in Medway.

A video was shown to the Committee, the website link to clips from the video are:

http://www.medway.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/childcare/surestart.aspx

and

http://www.medway.gov.uk/educationandlearning/earlyyearsandchildcare/childcare/surestart/surestartvideos.aspx

The Committee thanked the Strategic Manager Early Years Service for the excellent presentation of his report and Members formally acknowledged the impact that his personal leadership, drive and enthusiasm has had on the service. They then raised a number of issues and asked specific questions regarding the report and future service developments.

• Department for Education (DfE) estimates for early education for two year olds. Officers assured Members that despite the DfE originally forecasting 690 eligible child places, eligibility was extended to include low income working families and the current forecast for September 2014 specifies that 1490 children would be entitled to places. Eligibility includes families that are entitled to free school meals.

• Better Start lottery bid.  The Director of Children and Adults Services advised that the presentation of Medway’s bid to the Big Lottery Fund, which included key delivery partners and a local parent on the presentation team, appeared to be well received, but that announcements regarding the successful bids were unlikely to be known until the end of June. The parent spoke passionately about life challenges and the impact that Medway’s children’s centres have upon children and families. Should the bid be unsuccessful then the Council, in conjunction with partner agencies, would need to reconsider service development plans, starting ‘in a different place, at a different pace.’ She also advised that partner relationships had been established and strengthened during the development of the bid, and that this has included exploring new ways of making the most of the population of 12,000 higher education students based in Medway.

• Daycare nursery provision. In response to questions relating to All Saints Children Centre, mentioned in paragraph 8.6 of the report, officers confirmed that the 3 other children centres that had been affected by the policy shift, from subsidised full-time childcare places to provision of free places for two-year olds, were: Wayfield; Bligh and Saxon Way.

• Integration of learning across services. Members welcomed the Director of Children and Adults Services’ observations on how the learning from early years work, including ‘wrap around’ services, and social worker intervention, can be transferred across services and different age groups. The Director confirmed that she was considering this and also reported that although individual secondary schools had procured social care intervention services, these were not universally available or funded by Medway Council.

• Impact of the recession and budget restraints. Officers reported a 38% increase in numbers attending children’s centres in the last 2 years, despite budgets remaining at 2012 levels. They also confirmed that whilst certain funding streams had reduced, others had increased, such as the dedicated schools grant (DSG), and reported that public health also provided more services at children’s centres, such as the expansion of the numbers of health visitors on site, which had improved service availability, at no additional cost to Medway Council.

Decision:

The Committee thanked the Strategic Manager Early Years and noted the report.