Innovating for children centres

A charity has warned that the government's suspension of inspections of children's centres is undermining the quality of services.

Action for Children says that since the government suspended Ofsted inspections in July 2015, nearly 1,000 children's centres have missed out on having their services assessed for quality and impact (see in numbers).

Ministers said the suspension would be for a short period, pending the results of a consultation on the future of children's centres, initially due in late 2015.

However, more than two years on, the consultation has yet to be launched.

Over that time, children's centres have undergone major changes - for example, hundreds have been closed or had services reduced as a result of council funding cuts, while others have merged to serve larger populations and provide a wider range of services.

With many councils struggling to find a way to maintain these popular community facilities amid shrinking budgets, the Local Government Association has published a report, Delivering Children's Centres Services, illustrating the different approaches being taken.

Some of these include co-locating health and early years services, bringing family support closer to children's social care services, and working with police and troubled families teams to provide more intensive support for struggling families.

Two examples of innovative practice by councils are summarised below.


Longer opening hours in Blackpool

The challenge: In an attempt to extend the reach of children's centres services from the pre-school age group to families with older children, Blackpool Council plans to create one-stop community hubs offering a wider range of services into the evenings and at weekends.

The service: There are nine centres in Blackpool, two run by the council and seven run by schools and academies on its behalf. Budgets are set using deprivation data to ensure areas with the greatest level of needs receive most funding. Base budgets are topped up based on the number of children living in deprived areas, poverty and workless households, and in contact with children's social care.

The solution: Centres are currently open from 8am to 6pm on weekdays, but hubs will extend this to 9pm during the week and during the day at weekends. A pilot of the approach has seen teams already operating outside office hours based at a centre.

There are also plans to offer emotional wellbeing and youth mental health drop-in services, benefits and housing advice, tenancy training for young care leavers and cooking courses.

Progress towards the hub model is being overseen by a strategic board with representation from the clinical commissioning group, police, the council's early help team and children's service, and the NSPCC.

The rationale: Councillor Graham Cain says: "We want to utilise our buildings more effectively as community hubs. This will only be possible through widening our offer of co-location and integrated services, particularly with the police and health. We are also aware that as children start school, families miss the access to community services they have through children's centres."


Benefits of early education in Bristol

The challenge: Bristol City Council needs to save £1.5m from its £3.5m children's centres budget. This is in addition to the £3.5m saved over the past three years. The service is popular and successful, and central to the delivery of early education in the city.

The service: Almost 25,000 families with under-fives are registered with children's centres, and 82 per cent of families participate in services.

Most of Bristol's centres are based on school sites and are managed by maintained nursery or primary schools. Partnership work with health is strong; an integrated progress check for two-year-olds has been developed and plans are underway to co-locate health visitors at children's centres.

The solution: A new model has been developed that will make the necessary savings without the need to close centres. This designates four lead children's centres to co-ordinate services in their areas. Individual centres will not need a management lead, producing savings.

As most centres are managed by nursery schools, they receive the nursery school supplement currently provided in the dedicated schools grant. To maintain this funding, the council is developing evidence of the role played by nursery schools in improving social mobility. Children achieving a "good" level of development at the Early Years Foundation Stage rose from 66 to 68 per cent in the past year, while the attainment gap has narrowed five per cent since 2013.

The rationale: Sally Jaeckle, head of early years at Bristol Council, says: "If we can improve the quality of early years provision, improvement in outcomes will follow. Close working between health and education brings coherence and is the only way our services can be of the high quality our families deserve."


In Numbers: Missed inspections

• 5 years between inspections
  
  
• 32 months since inspections suspended
  
  
• 969 centres that could have been inspected

Source: Action for Children