Sure Start under threat as council plans nursery closures
Article published: Thursday, September 15th 2011
Sure Start’s future as a council run service is in question following proposals by town hall chiefs to close all of their nurseries and daycare provision in Manchester. The move will mean the loss of hundreds more jobs amid a dramatic shakeup of Manchester City Council’s early years service for children aged 0 – 5, which includes £22 million in cuts over the next four years.
Photograph: Phil Simpson
The proposals, unveiled to the public just two days before they were put to the council’s executive, will end local authority funding for daycare in Children’s Centres and nurseries across the city. Council Sure Start provision as a service accessible to all is to end, with earlier plans to outsource daycare to private, voluntary and independent providers scrapped on the grounds that it would not be “commercially viable” due to staff and building expenses.
Other proposals include increased funding for early intervention, and every family with a newborn child is to be visited by an outreach worker in co-ordination with NHS health visitors in order to assess and meet the needs of families judged to be “the most vulnerable”. Some programmes, such as mental and physical healthcare and up to 30 hours of commissioned daycare per week, will continue to be offered for “targeted families” with “complex needs”.
In addition, all early years buildings deemed “fit for purpose” will remain open as venues available for parents and other organisations such as schools to make use of as “community assets”. Such programmes are likely to be self-funded however, and the council intends to charge rent on their operation in order to “ensure a sustainable business plan”.
The plans represent a drastic change to budget plans passed last March, with initial cuts of £11.6 million that were to be made next year put back until 2015/16 as the council attempts to ensure there are enough available childcare places in the private and voluntary sector to meet its statutory requirements of 15 hours term-time care per week. At the executive meeting Children’s Services director Mike Livingstone stated his “confidence” that his department “might be able to withdraw from the market” by April 2014, calculating that the council currently provides 11 per cent of places in the city.
To plug the gap in funding created by pushing back the cuts the council will pull up £4.1 million from its reserves next year, move forwards £1.5 million in “early savings” from this year and pull in £5.5 million from other areas, including its budget for children in care, over the next two years.
In a statement, executive member for Children’s Services councillor Afzal Khan said: “We believe our early years proposals will enable us to use our reduced resources to the best effect, supporting those most in need to give them the best start in life. And we believe the emphasis on outreach will help us and our health sector partners to identify those most in need, and start helping them and their parents.”
A three month consultation period on the proposals will now take place before being considered for final confirmation in January. The short notice given of the complex plans before their approval by the executive has prompted questions over transparency, with many mothers from the Save Sure Start campaign only learning of the new policies through the press, causing senior council figures such as Livingstone and chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein to directly apologise to individual campaigners.
“We want an urgent meeting with Livingstone and Bernstein to clarify points in these plans which are not clear and are ambiguous” said Joanne McCann, one of the mothers leading the campaign. Some expressed concern as to whether the plans, coupled with government cuts to tax credits, would force working mothers on low incomes to leave employment, while others wished to know whether parents on higher incomes who also face pressures would be eligible for help. Alison Jones, another campaigner, pointed out how “you could be a woman solicitor with post natal-depression, anyone could be classed as ‘needy’.”
Liberal Democrat opposition lead member Marc Ramsbottom echoed this, saying “the level and quality of consultation is absolutely crucial” and observed how “in focusing on outreach some working parents might slip through the net.” Council leader Sir Richard Leese acknowledged the “very important points” regarding the need to make the proposals clear and transparent but argued that Sure Start was “always intended to be a service for people with the least chance of life”, although he added that “if we had more money we could do a better job.”
In an energetic exchange Lib Dem councillor Paul Shannon fiercely criticised Afzal Khan, saying there were “not enough details” in the council’s proposals as to why commissioning out daycare was considered unaffordable and claiming that staff and building costs “are all factors we control”. Shannon angrily told Khan to “get a grip”, prompting Leese to condemn his remarks as a “really quite disgraceful” personal attack.
Roughly 390 jobs, the bulk of the city’s early years service, are expected to be lost as part of the changes, adding to the 1,600 jobs already lost in the spring as part of the council’s budget cuts. To moderate the losses the town hall intends to reassign 60 positions to its new outreach programme and will consider reopening its voluntary severance package to take into account 150 staff members who previously applied for redundancy but were refused and 36 employees who had been approved for severance but declined. While this still leaves a shortfall of over 100 full time positions, both Khan and Livingstone insisted there would be “no compulsory redundancies” as a result of the proposals.
Richard Goulding
More: Council, Manchester, News
Comments
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This is extremely short-sighted policy on the councils part that does not take into account social and ecological impacts of their decisions but sticks with purely the economic ‘cost-benefit’ model. Manchester has some of the poorest educated youth with feelings of alienation from the authorities. What little Sure-Start provision that was provided will only aggravate the already serious deprivation most of Manchester suffers from. The council is quite happy to hand over millions to property developers to build inappropriate dwellings and offices.
Comment by Patrick Sudlow on September 15, 2011 at 12:28 pm -
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Pingback by - Nursery Manchester - Dribble Drabble on September 20, 2011 at 6:17 pm -
This is yet another brick in the wall of the ‘Con/Lib/Lab’ capitalist coalition against working people.
These professional politicians squable with each other over the details of policy whilst adopting the very same strategy of public sector cuts and privatisation.
This particular cut will affect, either directly or indirectly, workers, unemployed, old and young alike and is especially damaging.
Comment by Mike on September 24, 2011 at 3:06 pm
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