Fight to Save Council’s Children’s Homes

Andy Hannan, Devon County Councillor for Priory & St Leonard’s in Exeter, is taking Labour’s campaign to save the council’s children’s homes to the meeting of Cabinet on Wednesday 12th February.

He has tabled three questions for Cllr Will Mumford that focus in particular on the Blossom Corner children’s home, which has an excellent record in terms of Ofsted inspections.

First, he wants clarification of the figures used to justify the financial argument for closure, especially as these have been recently challenged by the staff of Blossom Corner. Secondly, he presents a statement from that home’s Ofsted inspector which challenges the council’s assertion that three beds is the maximum number ‘dictated by best practice’ and challenges the council’s argument that it should close because it is too large. Thirdly, he asks for information about what has happened to the children who would have been placed in the council’s children’s homes since two, Rifford Road and Birchen Lane, have been left empty and Blossom Corner has had its capacity cut from six to three beds.

Cllr Andy Hannan and Cllr Jill Owen raised questions at a recent meeting of Joint Budget Scrutiny about the assumptions made in the budget proposals that the closure of the homes would make significant savings once the cost of alternative provision and staff redundancies were taken into account. They argued that some children with complex problems and challenging behaviour would always need to be placed in a residential rather than a family-based setting at least in the short term, even though fostering arrangements were clearly preferable for the great majority. This view is supported by Professor Ray Jones, recently-appointed Chair of Devon’s Children’s Safeguarding Improvement Board.

Andy Hannan says, ‘There is little sense in closing council-run provision if it works well and breaking up a team of highly skilled staff in the hope that the private sector would do a better job at a lower cost. This is especially true of Blossom Corner children’s home which has consistently earned Ofsted ratings of Good and Outstanding. Even though the other council homes have experienced problems they could be put right were there sufficient determination to do so, especially as a lot of money has been spent in upgrading them in the very recent past. We know from a recent report that the Care Quality Commission came across 41 instances in the South West region over a 12-month period up to March 2013 where police cells were used as the designated ‘place of safety’ for children aged 17 and under who were believed to be experiencing a mental health episode. My worry is that this would increasingly happen to children who would otherwise have found a refuge in one of our children’s homes if all these were closed’.