Meeting documents

The Committee will consider the submission from the County Councillors who called in the decision and witnesses they have invited to attend the meeting.

There will be 20 minutes to present the case, followed by an opportunity for the Committee to ask any questions.

Contributors:

Julia Wassell, County Councillor (lead member submitting call-in request)

Witnesses:

Mrs A Dass, Member of the Public

Mr M Knight, District Councillor

Mr M Farrow, County Councillor

Supporting Papers:

·         Supporting Paper and Appendices from Julia Wassell

·         Representations received in response to the Cabinet Member Decision

·         Early Help Consultation ‘You Tell Us’ July 2017

·         Additional Consultation Information September 2017

The Chairman welcomed Julia Wassell (County Councillor) who introduced her supporters and witnesses: Mr M Farrow (County Councillor), Mr M Knight (District Councillor) and Mrs A Dass (Member of the Public). The group were advised that they would have 20 minutes in which to present their case followed by questions from the Committee.

Julia Wassell opened with a presentation and made the following key points:

• There was a legal requirement for a proper consultation.

• There were three reasons why the decision process was flawed: a faulty consultation; shortcoming in the pre-scrutiny process and a failure to properly engage individual local Members.
• The consultation was misleading which lead to invalid results
  • The first phase of the consultation started on 14 July until 22 September 2017.
  • Subsequently additional information was made available to the public on 4 September 2017 because of feedback from members of the public who expressed confusion over the proposals being outlined in the original consultation document.
  • The deadline was then extended until the 16th October.
• People who responded to the first phase were then also able to respond in the second phase, therefore the final results would not reflect public opinion should voters have changed their minds as a result of the revised, additional information.
• Respondents in the first phase were not asked for their contact details so it would not have been possible to notify them of the additional information provided from 4^th September.
• The additional information provided in the consultation was the first time there had been a reference to the reduction of 35 Children’s Centres into 9 hubs. The initial consultation document was misleading and those who completed the first phase of the consultation should have had the information on Children’s Centres on which to base their opinion.
• There should have been a question relating to how recently families had used the Children’s Centre.
• The question numbers in the report did not relate to the actual questionnaire which was misleading and called the report into question.
• Page 250 of the Cabinet report from 8 January stated that access and availability was among the most important considerations but it was not clear what this referred to.
• There was a legal duty to consult when closing Children’s Centres and it was not clear from the consultation that this was part of the redesign of Early Help.

Julia Wassell then handed over to her witness Ms A Dass to present her case to the Committee, the following points were made:

• Having spoken with users and staff members, Ms Dass had received feedback that the consultation document did not make it clear that the proposal was to lose services. Instead, the users and staff members believed that the 9 hubs were going to be an additional service.
• The consultation was deliberately vague, heavily biased and not clear.
• It was not explicitly clear that children’s centres were under threat of closure

Julia Wassell then went on to outline the next point of her case which was the failure to properly scrutinise the decision during the meeting of the Children’s Social Care and Learning Select Committee on 17 October 2017. This was also the day after the consultation ended so members were not privy to the final outcome.  Ms Wassell explained that: The time frame did not allow a proper challenge from the Select Committee for the proposals.

Julia Wassell outlined how in her view the consultation had been inadequate in engaging local Members, Local Area Forums and other stakeholders. She explained that:

• In the report template for the Cabinet decision, section H entitled ‘Feedback from consultation and local Members views’. The document states in bold that this particular section must be completed in full otherwise the report cannot progress for the decision to be taken.
• Section G has been deleted from the Cabinet report from 8 January 2018.
• Only three of the 19 Local Area Forums had received a briefing on the Early Help Review.
• There was no summary of local Member views and Members had not been fully briefed or fully engaged.
• Some stakeholders had shared concerns but the Cabinet Member had not responded to these fully.
• There had been no audit of the work carried out at the Buckingham Children’s Centre and no mention of the hubs in phase 1.
• There had been a failure to define what the hubs would be, which caused confusion.
• Many stakeholders would be let down by the proposed closures and letters had been received from Children’s Centre advisory groups, schools and Local Members expressing deep concerns about the proposed closures. These had been shared with the Cabinet Member who had responded to this.

Other concerns raised were

• in relation to being able to deliver services in a confidential environment should the Children’s Centres close; and  Point 6 in the Cabinet report from 8 January 2018 analysed that one of the reasons for the rise in demand was the reduction in universal services which would call in to question what was being proposed. (‘…The reasons for these increases in demand are complex, but include demographic changes and pressures and reductions in universal services provided by the Council and other partners’.)

Julia Wassell then handed over to Mr Farrow to present his evidence. The following points were noted:

• In light of the recent Ofsted report, more time should have been taken to consider the findings. Despite the £3.3M savings from closures which had been reported in the Early Help for Children and Families paper presented to Cabinet on 8 January 2018, the decision was short sighted and it appeared that no work had been done to explore other possible improvements in service delivery.
• A study commissioned by Oxford University showed that the outcomes for children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds were compromised when Children's Centres were closed.
• The £3m of savings the Council was aiming to achieve would lead to deterioration in outcomes for children and therefore an increase in future cost. The Local Authorities that were used as best practice examples were not comparable to Buckinghamshire. North Lincolnshire had an Ofsted rating of ‘outstanding’ and had retained their Children’s Centres.
• No other Local Authority used a 2 stage consultation process.

Mr Farrow handed over to Mr Knight who made the following points:

• The Cabinet report stressed that resources would be prioritised in areas where there would be the greatest need. However there was no indication of what the strategy would be in order for this to happen.
• When the contract for Children’s Centres changed from Bernardo’s to Action for Children, Mr M Appleyard visited the Centres and spoke with parents. This has not happened with the Early Help review.
• The Children’s Centres in Mr Knight’s District were underfunded. One of the Centres was being run by a voluntary group.  Centres had become run down with staff feeling unsupported. This was a sign that these Centres were not being run well.
• The services provided by the Children’s Centres were being reduced without consultation and the Advisory Boards were not attended by the public or local Members.
• Mr Knight had heard about the Early Help Review Consultation from Julia Wassell. 

Julia Wassell then summarised the case made by her group as follows:

• The consultation was flawed by the additional information provided part way through. The results therefore would be skewed. In addition to this, there had not been proper analysis on the results presented in the corresponding Cabinet report which was therefore inaccurate and misleading. 
• The proposals had not been fully scrutinised or challenged and the concerns raised had not been fully addressed.
• There had been insufficient direct consultation with local County Council Members.

• There had been a lack of transparency and accountability around the financial implications.
• Areas with high levels of deprivation and pockets of deprivation had not been given sufficient attention.

The group therefore requested that the Committee consider the following actions to be undertaken by the Cabinet Member:

• The consultation to  be re-run with clearer information and more input from the Children’s Centres
• An audit to be completed of the Children’s Centre staffing and services including outreach work.
• Further engagement to take place with Local Members and, in particular, those with Children’s Centres in their district.
• Written feedback to be recorded from key stakeholders, schools, charities and service users.
• Proposals to be provided for alternative uses and re-provisioning of the buildings.

Ms Dass asked the Committee on behalf of parents to consider the request to complete the Consultation properly.

The Chairman thanked the group for their presentation and invited Members of the Select Committee to ask questions.   Questions were asked on the following issues:

• Clarification on the information missing from the Cabinet report in regard to consultation responses.
• Details of local member engagement and briefings that had taken place.
• The extent to which consultation flaws would undermine the validity of the decision.
• Questions on the future of Micklefield and Disraeli Children’s Centres and how these, and other centres, could be run better.
• The clarity of information to the public and whether there was confusion about the terms ‘Early Help Review’ and ‘Family Worker Model’.
• The phasing of the consultation and approach to this.
• The number of responses to the consultation in comparison to the petition numbers.
• The safeguarding issues and need for confidential meeting space in the new proposals.
• The extent to which deprivation had been sufficiently considered.
• The nature/status of the ‘hubs’ and if they were service delivery points or office bases.

The Chairman thanked the group for their presentation.

Julia Wassell thanked the Committee for their time and questions.