Issue - meetings

(Report by S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education  and Mrs R Turner, Managing Director of Children, Families & Education Directorate)           

(Mrs A Gamby, Head of Early Years and Childcare (Operations) and Mrs R Tickle, Children’s Centre Project Officer were present for this item)

(1)         The Committee received a report regarding the Review of Children’s Centres, with a particular focus on Round Three.

(2)         The Chairman welcomed Mrs Gamby and Mrs Tickle to the meeting and asked Mrs Gamby to introduce the report.

(3)         Mrs Gamby explained that the Children’s Centres agenda was a major national initiative.  The Children’s Centres role was about the leadership and management of a range of services for children and their families in an area in a joined up way. A Children’s Centre was not a nursery although a nursery may be a provision at the Centre. The government’s aim was for 3500 Children’s Centres nationally by 2012.  What this meant for Kent was that originally there would be 102 Children’s Centres, which would be delivered in three rounds; Round 1 had 20 Centres (2004-2006) and Round 2 had an additional 52 Centres (2006-2008) and in Round 3 up to 30 Centres.  There was a need for Round 3 to connect and join up with Rounds 1 and 2 for universal coverage.  Cabinet agreed to a review of the Children’s Centres to ensure that in the current economic climate that the capital portfolio was the best that it could be to deliver universal children’s services.  The revenue funding for Children’s Centres came through a grant and at present there was no confirmation of what that grant would be after 2011.  The aim of the review was to; minimise the number of new builds, maximise the number of centres delivering existing facilities, further explore whether some centres might deliver and manage through contractual arrangements with voluntary or private organisations and identify whether there was potential to provide universal coverage for the children and families of Kent with fewer Centres than the potential 30 in Round 3 and fewer than the original 102 Children Centres.

(4)         Mrs Gamby then spoke on the two tabled papers headed ‘Revised Round Three Proposals 11/09’, which highlighted that following the review there could potentially be 25 Children Centres instead of 30 in Round 3 and therefore county wide 97 Children’s Centres in total instead of 102, and ‘Children’s Centres Capital Funding and Predicted Spend’, which provided the predicted sending on Rounds 2 and 3 and the infrastructure and signage around all three rounds.  This gave a predicted spend with the revised proposals of £30,708,986 with a balance of £3,824,950 to be reinvested. 

(5)         Members of the Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(6)               In response to questions by Mr Pugh on Rounds 1 and 2, Mrs Gamby advised that KCC was the accountable body for all Children’s Centres, most were delivered in house through a KCC Children’s Centre Manager, a few were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19