Birmingham children's centre closures 'inevitable'
Jess Brown
Thursday, May 19, 2016
The largest local authority in England has revealed that children's centres will have to be closed in order to balance the books.
Birmingham City Council currently runs 61 children's centres but the local authority's lead member for children and families told CYP Now that closures will be necessary as the council attempts to save £16m on early years spending by 2020.
“We haven’t closed any [children’s centres] yet, but we’re about to have to unfortunately," Brigid Jones said.
She said the cuts are likely to emerge as part of an ongoing review into how the council's early years services are delivered. She added that the council will be required to reduce children’s centre funding by two thirds from next year.
“Were struggling massively in Birmingham," she said.
"We’ve lost half of our government grants in the last five years so we’ve had huge financial difficulty,” she said.
She said the council is planning to continue to offer services, but reduce the number of physical buildings.
“What we're trying to do is move away from having lots of physical buildings and move toward having more floating support going to where kids are already,” Jones said.
“Tacking children’s services onto visiting other nurseries and health centres, tacking them onto places that already exist, rather than standalone buildings.”
Last month CYP Now revealed that the number of children’s centres that have been closed or downgraded since 2010 has exceeded the 1,000 mark.
