Council to close more than 20 children's centres

Kirklees Council currently operates 25 children's centre buildings, but in a bid to save money, the council plans to reduce this to four designated children's centres.

In addition it will run four "hub" sites that will provide an access point for children and families seeking support or information on early intervention services.

It will also deliver some services for children aged up to 19 and their families from community buildings such as libraries. 

The council's lead member for family support and child protection Erin Hill told CYP Now the changes could save the local authority as much as £10m.

Approval of the plans comes less than a week after children's services staff at the council voted to strike at the end of the month.

The children's services department was graded "inadequate" by Ofsted in November 2016.

Hill said that while the changes to early help provision would improve services for children and families, the circumstances under which the decision had been taken were "far from ideal".

"I wish we weren't making the decision under these financial circumstances because clearly it's a really difficult time for local authorities and children's services budgets," she said.

"What we've tried to do has been twofold - both make the saving we have to make but also address some of those problems.

"It's fair to say the children's centres that we built when Sure Start was first created weren't always in the right place.

"Certainly in my ward I know of families that felt stigmatised by going where there were community cohesion issues."

Hill added that by not just using council buildings, the authority would be able to reach areas it had not serviced before.

She said the changes are also trying to address concerns raised in the Ofsted inspection that children's centres were failing to catch problems early enough.

The council's decision followed a public consultation, which received more than 1,300 responses, of which 86 per cent agreed with the council's vision for early help.

Hill would not comment on how many children's centre staff would face redundancy as a result of the restructure.

Kirklees Council said it is having to reduce spending by £170m across the authority.