Liverpool facing 'tough choices' on children's centres cuts

The council has said it will reduce its £6.8m budget to £2m as part of a bid to protect funding for services such as child protection, fostering and adoption.

The authority is yet to publish details about how the cuts will affect children’s centres services, which operate on 26 sites across the city, but it hopes to launch a consultation on the plans early next year.

Councillor Jane Corbett, cabinet member for education and children’s services, has blamed a 58 per cent cut in funding from central government and said the authority has to save £156m over the next three years as a result.

She said: “Extremely tough and heartbreaking choices have had to be made across all departments, including children’s services.

“With the budget we are now left with we still need to provide for children at risk of serious harm and for children in need of protection. Sadly, this means having to make larger cuts from other parts of the department, including children’s centres.

“Government won’t allow us to use the money we are investing in new schools or from selling off land and assets to fund the centres, so we are now between a rock and a hard place.”

Local residents have launched a petition against the cuts and plan to publically demonstrate against the plans on Friday.

Unison recently warned about the impact of cuts to local government funding on women.

A survey of 7,550 women highlighted a decline in support available at children’s centres following £82m worth of cuts since 2010, with 60 per cent reporting a reduction in services available at their local centre.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said that women have been hit hardest by the budget cuts.

He said: “They are hit as workers in local government where they struggle with low pay, increasing workloads and the constant threat of redundancies – and they are also hit as service users as some mothers rely on children’s centres for childcare and other public services for their families.”