CYP Now - Creative thinking is vital for children's centres to survive

Barely a week goes by without another council announcing plans to downsize its network of children's centres. From Kent to Bradford, Northants to Nottinghamshire, children's centres, like most other local authority services in England, are being squeezed in the face of unrelenting funding cuts.

Towards the end of 2013, Oxfordshire County Council backtracked on proposals to close 37 of its 44 centres following a consultation, which, unsurprisingly, found the plans to be unpopular. Even the Prime Minister, whose constituency is in the county, urged the council to reconsider the original plans. Unfortunately, in most other areas, local residents will not be able to call on David Cameron for help when councils realise that children's centres will have to share the burden of cuts to children's services, regardless of how unpopular that may be.

Councils are caught between a rock and a hard place over children's centres: cut the funding in a bid to share the burden of reduced budgets and weather the flak that comes your way; or protect them and make bigger than planned cuts to other children's services, such as youth support, where the public backlash might be less fierce.

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