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Public meetings on Devon's children's centres

Public meetings are underway to discuss major changes to Devon’s children’s centres service as the county council prepare to cut £1.2 million from the service.

The children’s centre service from Devon County Council currently offer help and advice to all parents, carers and children in a range of areas such as child and family health, parenting, money, training and employment

However, many of these centres, currently operated from council owned buildings, could be now be under threat as the council seeks to cut the service budget by £1.2 million (15%) over the next three years.

A consultation on the proposals was launched last Tuesday (22 April) with a number of public meetings to be held across the coming weeks.

Announcing the review, Councillor James McInnes, the Cabinet Member with responsibility for Children and Young People’s Services said: “We know that children’s centres and associated services are vitally important to help support families across Devon.

“We remain fully committed to delivering high quality, multi-agency services for children under five, and particularly to those families in greatest need.

“And we will continue to support the delivery of local services, either directly from children’s centres or through a range of outreach services.

“But given the current financial situation things simply can’t stay the same and we have to think again about the best way to provide this support to families for less money.”

In Devon, Children’s Centre Services are not directly delivered by the County Council but are instead contracted out to six different providers – four charities and two school governing bodies.

Currently 34 children’s centres are operated from council-owned buildings, but the proposalscould see a significant reduction to that number in an effort to save money on management and administration fees.

While it is unclear how many Children’s Centre buildings could be affected by these changes the council has committed to retaining the buildings in the most deprived areas of Devon.

The council say that these changes will also come alongside an increase in the number of services provided from other locations such as schools or health centres, with the potential for some services to be offered directly into family homes.

The catchment area of the children’s centres is also due to be altered from areas based around school learning communities to areas based on district or city council areas.

The proposed changes would take place over the next three years as individual areas of the service come up for re-tender.

The consultation is expected to run until June 6 and is open to feed back on the council’s website.

Cllr McInnes continued: “I would encourage everyone to give us their views and to put forward their own ideas or suggestions on how best we can continue to provide and improve these important services.”

“However, given the money we have available the way Children’s Centre Services are delivered in Devon can’t stay the same.

To protect these services, we need to think about the best way of providing them for less money, even if this means change.

The first meeting was held in Okehampton this morning (28 April) with further meetings to continue until the 22 May, a meeting in Exeter will be held on Thursday morning (1 May) at Exeter city Football club between 10am and 12pm.

For more details on the proposals and to book a place at the public meetings visit: http://new.devon.gov.uk/childrenscentrereview/consultation-timetable