Council's funding cuts to children's centres face legal challenge

Hampshire County Council has already been forced to extend a consultation on the planned closures by one month, until mid-April, after criticism from residents on how it handled the consultation process (News, 24 March).

But parents say that the consultation is a sham and are threatening legal action because the funding cuts were approved in February as part of the council's budget.

Solicitors have now written to the council on behalf of one of the parents. Rosa Curling of Leigh Day and Co Solicitors, said, 'It appears that the council made the decision to close the centres and then launched a consultation. That is disingenuous and unlawful. We are challenging both the decision process and the decision to close the centres'.

Ms Curling said they had been contacted by parents from other areas about closures to their local children's centres.

Catherine Ovenden from parent campaign group Save Our Children's Centres Hampshire (SOCC), said, 'The budget was agreed on 24 February, so what is the council really consulting on? We want the children's centre funding reinstated for one year and then we are happy for the council to launch another, fairer consultation.'

She added, 'We want the children's centres to remain under local authority control because we feel there will be better qualified staff and that they will be more geared towards our local communities.'

The consultation document proposes closing one-third of children's centres and bringing in third party organisations to take over the running of the remaining 53 centres.

Parents from SOCC travelled to London on Saturday to take part in the March for the Alternative protest against public sector cuts.