Issue - meetings

Surrey County Council and its partners are delivering an Early Help Transformation Programme, to radically reshape the early help offer for children, young people and families. We will develop and implement a cohesive, collaborative approach with partners to provide a continuum of help and support to respond to the different levels of need and risk for children and families, whilst securing the best possible value for money for residents. We will do this to achieve better outcomes for children, young people and families, and this is also a key part of the County Council’s Children’s Services improvement journey, following the Ofsted inspection in 2015.

As well as transforming the offer, the Council also needs to achieve savings in early help of £2.9 million in 2017-18, rising to a cumulative total of £7.5 million in 2018/19. The proposals in this paper are the first stage in addressing the savings and seek to realise £0.25 million during 2017/18, rising to a cumulative total of £0.45 million in 2018/19. A subsequent report on Early Help will set out the approach for the remaining savings.

On 28 February 2017, Cabinet approved an eight-week public consultation, from 9 March to 3 May 2017, about proposals to change some of the Council’s externally commissioned young people’s early help services to deliver these first stage savings. The services in scope for this consultation were: Neighbourhood Local Prevention; 1-to-1 Local Prevention; and Year 11/12 Transition. This report sets out a final recommendation in relation to these proposals for a Cabinet decision, informed by the findings of the consultation period.  

[The decision on this item may be called in]

RESOLVED:

The Cabinet agreed to de-commission Neighbourhood Local Prevention Grants so funding ceases on 31 August 2017.

Reasons for decisions

This is recommended so that the Council delivers the change to grants necessary for the required savings in the Medium Term Financial plan for 2017/18 and 2018/19, whilst protecting investment in the most strategically critical services, and preparing for the wider transformation of early help.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Children and Education Select Committee.]

The Cabinet Member for Children introduced the report and informed the Cabinet that this was a difficult paper to present but it was necessary due to the difficult financial circumstances. She explained that the Council and its partners were currently working together to look at how Early Help was provided and the outcomes being delivered. She stated that there was a need to provide value for money services that met the needs of children and that it was with regret that this paper sought approval to de-commission the Early Help services that were currently commissioned through the Local Committees.

Members were informed that this would achieve a £250,000 saving in the current year and more over the longer term. It was also confirmed that this would not impact on the 1-1 Local Prevention support or the Year 11/12 Transition.

Mrs Kay Hammond, Chairman of the Overview and Budget Scrutiny Committee was in attendance and asked a question regarding the consultation period and whether this was in line with the Surrey Compact agreement and the Monitoring Officer confirmed that the work undertaken was Compact compliant.

The Equalities Impact Assessment was discussed in depth and Members queried what support that would be provided to vulnerable children. It was confirmed that this was only one part of the range of services provided and that Looked After Children and disadvantaged children were a particular group that would be targeted as a priority. Members were also told that signposting to other services would take place.

Members expressed concern as to whether the named organisations set out within the submitted report would be able to continue to deliver services with the de-commission occurring.  They were informed that the Council owed a great deal of thanks to these providers for the work they had done to date and it had been confirmed that they would continue to run as businesses if this decision was implemented.

RESOLVED:

The Cabinet agreed to de-commission Neighbourhood Local Prevention Grants so funding ceases on 31 August 2017.

Reasons for decisions

This is recommended so that the Council delivers the change to grants necessary for the required savings in the Medium Term Financial plan for 2017/18 and 2018/19, whilst protecting investment in the most strategically critical services, and preparing for the wider transformation of early help.