Contact: Cliff Turner, Deputy Branch Manager, Children and Families Branch, Children's Services Department, 01962 846533 : [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 The purpose of this report is to provide feedback to Elected Members from the recent consultation exercise with stakeholders regarding the development of 53 additional children's centres under Phase II of this initiative. The target areas, determined by the Index of Multiple Deprivation, were identified in a report to the Lead Executive Member for Children's Services on 26 October 2005. They are shown in the tables supporting appendix one.

1.2 This consultation has been led by Cliff Turner (Deputy Branch Manager, Children and Families) with support from staff within the Early Education and Childcare Unit.

1.3 The development of children's centres supports:

_ Aim one of the Corporate Strategy: maximising life opportunities;

_ Aim four of the Corporate Strategy: building strong and safe communities.

1.4 All five outcomes of the Children Act are supported through these developments:

_ Be healthy: by ensuring that advice and health services are available to parents

_ Stay safe: by ensuring that appropriate health and safety measures are in place (including child protection)

_ Enjoy and achieve: by promoting high quality opportunities for the development of the whole child

_ Make a positive contribution: by providing opportunities for the develop of social skills from an early stage

_ Achieve economic well-being: by supporting parents who return to employment.

2 Background

2.1 The Government requires that children's centres are located in relatively deprived wards so that families that need support services most can access them easily. In November 2005, Hampshire County Council informed the Government Office, South East (GOSE) which wards had been identified as possible locations of children's centres based on indicators of disadvantage within "Super Output Areas".

2.2 All children's centres provide a point of information and advice for parents about health, parenting, employment and additional services. There are two kinds of children's centres. "Full core offer" children's centres provide integrated childcare and education on site. Children's centres that provide a "graduated" range of provision are networked with integrated childcare and education providers external to the centre, rather than on site. They provide advice and support for parents and may offer "drop in" facilities, as distinct from regular classes for pre school children.

2.3 Eight children's centres were designated in Hampshire during Phase 1 of the initiative, but there is a requirement to meet the Government's target for a further 53 centres in Hampshire by 31 March 2008. The total number of children aged under 5, expected to be reached by children's centres by 2008 is 42,559. ("Reach" refers to the number of children who are able to access services delivered by the centre). To support this target a Sure Start capital budget of £9,515,160, and a revenue budget of £7,958,958 will be available from April 2006.

2.4 Children's centres provide an excellent opportunity to realise the vision of Every Child Matters, but this can only be achieved through close co-operation within the departments of the County Council, and with its external partners. This will involve aligning existing sources of funding and service delivery models.

3 Consultation

3.1 The stakeholders consulted during this exercise include headteachers and chairs of governors of all Hampshire schools, pre-school providers in Hampshire, district councils, health colleagues, voluntary organisations (including those specifically representing parents), staff of the County Council and further education colleges in Hampshire.

3.2 The consultation process invited responses, via a questionnaire, about the overall strategy, existing services, possible locations and any specific aspirations for particular communities.

4 Feedback from consultation

4.1 The feedback has generally been positive with 91% of the 246 respondents agreeing with the overall strategy. A summary of responses is given in appendix 1 to this report. Inevitably there are some wards identified as qualifying for a graduated offer, whose representatives would have preferred a full core offer. The County Council does not have this flexibility present, although a centre providing graduated services could choose to develop nursery provision on site in future.

4.2 Registered providers of nursery education provided 44% of all responses received to date (the largest number). There is an agreement to the overall strategy, but some concern to avoid duplication of childcare places that may threaten existing provision.

4.3 Headteachers and school governors provided the next largest number of the consultation responses; almost a fifth of the total responses. Headteachers and school governors welcome the overall strategy, but raised questions surrounding management issues, particularly site accountability. Further guidance about governance and management has been produced by the DfES since the consultation started.

4.4 Voluntary sector representatives see that they have an important part to play in the development of children's centres. Almost 14% of the respondents represented voluntary organisations. They raise concern about ensuring that existing provision is not overlooked and point to their long track record in working with parents (including those who are reluctant to access maintained services). Voluntary organisations stress that the strategy must be not only planned in partnership, but also, implemented in partnership. The One Compact for Hampshire will be valuable in providing a basis for partnership with the voluntary sector in relation to the delivery of services through children's centres.

4.5 Nine borough, district and parish councils provided feedback. Their responses have been positive, and those whom the children centre project team have met, have demonstrated a willingness to work in partnership.

4.6 When asked about additional services that respondents would like to see delivered through children's centres, many of them identified services that would form part of the full core offer. Whilst it is encouraging that the importance of these services is being recognised, the finding illustrates that there is more work to do in explaining what children's centres are required to deliver. Full core offer children's centres are not the same as neighbourhood nurseries.

4.7 Hampshire County Council staff welcomed the development of children's centres. There will be a need to develop effective links between children's centres, extended schools and with the proposed local cluster teams within Children's Services.

5 Next steps

5.1 Wherever children's centres are located and whoever is providing services within a children's centre, it is clear that Hampshire County Council is responsible for the performance management of children's centres. Facilitated by GOSE, consultations with local partners are underway regarding governance arrangements for children's centres. It is proposed to manage performance through the Early Education and Childcare Unit reporting to the Deputy Director of Children's Services (Education and Inclusion).

5.2 Some schools in the targeted wards have been approached for exploratory conversations about the possibility of hosting children's centres. Careful consideration is being given to how existing Early Years Centres might develop further in order to become children's centres.

5.3 Not all wards have schools that could provide accommodation for a children's centre, or even space on site for a new building. Other locations are being sought, including community venues, health centres, etc.

5.4 Close links are being developed between the Parent Development Team and colleagues within the Early Education and Childcare Unit. This will enable Senior Development Officers to provide effective support to colleagues in children's centres who, for example, are involved in direct delivery to parents. This partnership is also supporting the identification of training needs and the development of suitable training materials based on the National Occupational Standards for Working with Parents and Family Learning. As indicated in the Parenting Strategy, training in these standards will, in time, become integral to the continuous professional development of staff delivering services through children's centres.

5.5 Regular meetings take place to ensure that there is policy alignment between the development of children's centres and that of extended schools.

6 Legal implications

6.1 Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 places a duty on each Children's Services Authority to make arrangements to promote cooperation between itself and relevant partner agencies to improve the well being of children in its area. Section 11 of the same Act imposes a duty to make arrangements for ensuring functions are discharged with regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

7 Financial implications

7.1 In consultation with County Treasurers, financial models for different types of children's centres are being developed.

7.2 Model service level agreements regarding issues such as ICT, site maintenance, personnel management, finance and insurance are being developed.

7.3 Significant financial implications were highlighted in the previous report to the Lead Executive Member for Children's Services dated 26 October 2005, not least that the capital allocation will not go far in addressing target specifications for children's centres. A first priority will be to develop the existing early years centres so that they can be designated as children's centres. It is likely to be possible to supplement the capital programme for children's centres with additional capital resource from early years.

7.4 There will be a large number of individual building contracts requiring specification, management and implementation. This will be difficult to achieve before the end of March 2008 but every effort will be made to reach the target. There may be a need to increase staffing capacity to deliver targets on time.

8 Personnel implications

8.1 It was reported to the Lead Executive Member for Children's Services that significant personnel issues will emerge as Hampshire County Council develops children's centres. Human Resources will need to invest time to address these issues.

9 Impact assessment

9.1 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

10 Crime prevention issues

10.1 The Local Authority has considered its obligations and approach under Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The approach being developed by Hampshire is consistent with these requirements

11 Views of the Local County Councillor

11.1 In addition to discussion of this paper, elected members have the opportunity to express views as part of local consultations.

Recommendations

1 To receive this report on the strategy for developing children's centres and the feedback from the consultation process.

2 To request six monthly updates on progress on the strategy for developing children's centres from March 2006 until March 2008.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

List documents here or type `none'.

None.