Issue details

The Waverley Family Centre and Mobile Family Centre (bus) is run by Barnardo’s on behalf of Surrey County Council (SCC) to deliver targeted services. The purpose of the Mobile Family Centre is to engage with rural communities, although this was expanded to include any families that were isolated for any reason regardless of where they lived. It is funded by SCC through a £69,000 per annum grant to Waverley Family Centre which is managed by Barnardo’s. This grant covers the costs of running the Mobile Family Centre including five hours a week for a Mobile Family Centre co-ordinator and a driver for the centre whose hours vary based on need. In addition to this, SCC is responsible for covering the costs of maintenance and repairs and pays £14,000 per annum for the lease of the vehicle. In total this amounts to £83,000 per annum cost plus any repairs that might be required. If the service continues running, by March 2024 the total cost would be £166,000 alongside any repair costs that might be required.

The grant funding criteria requires that Barnardo’s make the Mobile Family Centre available to other family centres in Surrey for four days a week. Since November 2019 only Waverley Family Centre have used the Mobile Family Centre with other family centres being reluctant due to it not meeting their service delivery model.

The transformation of Children’s Centres into targeted Family Centres in 2018 reduced the Mobile Family Centre offer from two buses to one. There was a public consultation on the transformation including the decommissioning of the Mobile Family Centre however the decision was taken to retain one Mobile Family Centre (bus) in response to the consultation. Usage of the remaining Mobile Family Centre has been in decline with the number of visits declining from thirteen a month in April 2018 to two by July 2019. Some of this was due to the change in services that Family Centres deliver compared to the Children’s Centres that they replaced, as there was a move to delivering targeted level 3 interventions directly to families in the home and level 2 services in the community or virtually.

The Mobile Family Centre has not carried out any visits since the first national lockdown began in March 2020.

Barnardo’s have recommended that the Mobile Family Centre service should be de-commissioned as they believe it no longer provides value for money, does not complement the Family Centre model, or meet the needs of local families.

A consultation was held between 21^st February and 21^st March 2022 to investigate views on discontinuing the services and the impact of this on families and children. There were four responders of which two indicated that the impact of discontinuing the service would be ‘no impact’, one indicated it would be ‘somewhat negative, and one that it would be ‘significantly negative’.

As a County Council we are focused on ensuring services for families enable them to thrive while also providing value for money. We are therefore proposing to discontinue the Mobile Family Centre from 1^st July 2022, when the current grant agreement expires.