£3.9m worth of contracts up for grabs in children's centres reorganisation

Six new contracts worth just under £3.9 million will be up for grabs as part of a major overhaul of the management and governance for Plymouth’s children centres.

A plan being put before Cabinet next week (Tuesday 15 October) will redesign the back-office functions of the city’s 16 children’s centres to help protect these front-line services from funding cuts, whilst balancing the need to make savings.

Re-organising the centres will mean better opportunities for working more closely with health and other services for young children, for example Health Visitors, according to the Council. It will bring together services from across the whole of the public sector in a more convenient and simple offer for families.

Plymouth City Council has been talking to parents, staff and others using the city’s children’s centres in a thorough seven-week consultation to involve the public in key decisions about the future of the centres.

Councillor Nicky Williams, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, said: “We’ve taken great care to speak to parents about the services they value from our children’s centres and how they think we can change or improve. Contrary to MP Andrea Leadsom’s suggestion children’s centres were ‘rubbish’ at the recent Conservative Conference, we got overwhelming feedback from parents that they are needed and wanted.”

The plan details a radical change to back-office functions that will see the 16 centres, all currently managed and served by their own individual staffing teams, clustered into six geographical management areas. This approach, alongside making the best use of links with other services, means there will be minimal change for parents or children using the centres but savings of almost £1m will be achieved from July 2014.

Once Cabinet has approved the plans, a tendering exercise will begin this month (October 2013) to give interested organisations from the private, community and voluntary sectors the chance to bid for the management contracts of the six cluster areas.

This will mean the Council will no longer run any children’s centres in the city and the Council staff affected will transfer to companies winning the new contracts. The majority of the savings will come from a reduction in management across all of the centres and some administrative staff, plus other savings from governance arrangements and combining resources for less duplication between centres.

It is hoped that companies taking on the management oversight of centres will be able to find roles for all staff throughout their other business interests and avoid any compulsory redundancies.

Under the proposals there will continue to be locally accessible services in each community. They recommend combining the two centres in Plympton – Plum Tree and Woodford Centre into one centre. This is a paper exercise only and parents will continue to be able to visit both locations so will feel no change in reality.

Likewise the proposals alter some of the delivery sites to ensure finances can be directed to services rather than costly buildings. This was fully supported in the consultation, with parents clearly saying they were happy to meet in community settings and church halls, as long as venues were local and accessible.

Councillor Williams continued: “To safeguard the services we know are important for our under 5s, but to achieve the savings we have to make, we’ve got to be smart about how children’s centres are managed. The way centres expanded across the city means they are not the most cost effective. We’ve taken this opportunity to look at the big picture and make the most of the resources available city-wide.

“We are absolutely committed to ensuring our under fives and their parents continue to receive the services they need and want. Our new and improved co-operative way of working will deliver this promise and the cost savings needed.”

Children’s centre will continue to act as a community hub and parents will be able to access a range of services from them, including childcare settings, midwifery, health visiting, additional support for children with special educational needs, family and parenting support, specialist services, Job Centre Plus and advice and information services.

Last year, Plymouth children centres registered 13,078 children out of the 18,740 under fives known to be in the city and have contributed to the rise in achievement at Early Years Foundation Stage in recent years from 56.5% to 60.9%.