Funding cuts force children's centres to cut back on childcare
Katy Morton
Friday, July 20, 2012
Two children's centres in the London borough of Barnet, one of them 'outstanding', are having to reduce the amount of childcare provision they offer as the council switches funding to centres in more deprived areas.
Wingfield Children’s Centre in Collindale and Newstead Children’s Centre in East Finchley, North London will have to reduce the number of weeks of childcare provision they offer to term-time only when changes to the allocation of council funding are implemented on 1 September.
Wingfield Children’s Centre will also have to cut its provision from full to part-time care following Barnet Council’s decision to remove the subsidy for childcare and re-direct funding to the ‘areas of greatest need.’
Local families campaiging against the cuts say that working parents are unlikely to sign up to the new timetable as they will have to find alternative provision in the school holidays and the discontinuity will be disruptive.
The children’s centres will continue to receive some subsidy until the financial year 2014/15, which the council says is intended to ‘cushion’ the new funding allocation.
It is estimated that around 55 children will be affected by the changes to Wingfield and Newstead Children’s Centre, which was rated as outstanding by Ofsted in May.
In May, Barnet Council proposed redistributing its £4.3m budget to target the most disadvantaged areas and to deliver services for the most vulnerable families.
The reallocation of funding will see some of the council’s 13 children’s centres gain more funding over time, whilst others will see their budgets cut by more than 30 per cent.
According to the council, the children’s centres that receive an increase in their allocation will use the money to employ additional family support staff to reach out to more vulnerable families in their communities. Settings that meet agreed targets will be rewarded through a payment by results system.
Councillor Andrew Harper, cabinet member for education, children and families, said, ‘At a time of limited resource I genuinely feel we have a moral duty to target funding to those in greatest need.
‘Children’s centres that reach out successfully to vulnerable families will be rewarded, an approach which has worked already in a number of out children’s centres which have seen a 25 per cent increase in the number of new families visiting.’
Parents have set up an action group to campaign against the cuts to Newstead Children’s Centre.A petition launched by the Save Newstead group has so far been signed by more than 180 people.
