Streamlining Children’s Services in Hampshire
The Alliance is grateful to Christine Pattison, Senior Policy Officer, Community Action Hampshire, for providing the following summary of the restructuring, savings and efficiencies being undertaken in Hampshire County Council Children's Services Department.
Cuts to grant funding already announced by the government in June and further anticipated reductions from April next year alongside service demand pressures have led Hampshire County Council (HCC) Children’s Services to estimate that it needs to reduce its budget by around £24m from April 2011 with £6m coming out immediately. £4.9m alone was removed from money flowing down as part of the Department for Education (DfE) contribution to the Area Based Grant (ABG). It also lost out to the tune of about £1m in the reduction of the Local Public Service Agreement 2 (LPSA2) reward grant.
Around 185 full-time equivalent (fte) posts are likely to go in a restructure which, where possible, will seek to reduce management costs. A high proportion, some 46 fte posts, would be senior management ones. This represents more than 22% of the total number of management posts within the department. The other posts under scrutiny represent 5% of the remaining Children’s Services workforce. Compulsory redundancy will be a last resort. A general news release is at
http://www3.hants.gov.uk/communications/mediacentre/
mediareleases.htm?newsid=415019
A paper that went to the Executive Lead Member for Children’s Services on 26 July identifies other reductions in government grant from April 2011 totalling £15.9m. These are in areas of ABG (£4.4m) and Specific Grant (£11.4m) felt to be at high risk of ceasing as they are funding streams at the end of their three year funding period as set by the previous government. These include the Children’s Fund, Aiming High for Disabled Children, Extended Schools, parenting and family support services,
The paper points out that £1.4m of grants have already been allocated to local and county-wide voluntary organisations in two funding rounds in 2010/11 and £254,000 through the Youth Opportunities Fund, again in two funding rounds. As we know, there will be no more funding rounds on either of these programmes during the current financial year. Several major government funding streams that have previously supported the VCS, like the Children's Fund, will cease at the end of the 2010/11 financial year. The paper notes that there are some services that can be done better or more cost effectively by some parts of the VCS, saying that Children’s Services will work closely with Hampshire Voluntary Sector Children & Young People's Alliance (The Alliance) to ensure a partnership approach to decisions where such evidence exists.
The department will also reorganise geographically, with 2 areas (north and south) and 8 districts.
The paper can be found at
http://www3.hants.gov.uk/councilmeetings/advsearchmeetings/
meetingsitemdocuments.htm?sta=&pref=Y&item_ID=1935&tab=2
