Child centres reviewed as council seeks savings

Families are to be consulted on a shake-up of children's centres which could see services run with fewer buildings and staff.

Leeds City Council said it could save £2.45m after launching a review of the future of 56 centres, with a consultation expected to be confirmed later.

Plans include a workforce reorganisation, more sharing of buildings and some services being offered online.

No job cuts or centre closures have been announced, but a council report said it was "inevitable that there could be fewer overall posts on the revised structure".

Children's centres in Leeds were established in the early 2000s as part of the national Sure Start initiative to support young children and their families.

These centres aimed to provide a range of services including early education, childcare, health services and family support, particularly targeting disadvantaged areas, to promote better outcomes for children under five.

A report to senior councillors said Leeds had more children's centres than any other city.

It said: "Leeds remains an outlier with 56 children's centres, compared to Liverpool with 23 and Birmingham with 22."

A decline in birth rates means fewer families are expected to use the services in future.

The report also highlighted national data which "indicates that by 2017, 16 local authorities had closed 50% or more of their centres, accounting for 55% of the total closures nationally".

It said the number of centres had been "steadily declining ever since".

Last month a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies said Sure Start centres had a "remarkably long-lasting" positive impact on the health and education outcomes of children who had access to a centre in their early years.

It said they "benefitted a range of groups, but particularly children from disadvantaged areas, the health outcomes of boys in adolescence, and both the educational and behavioural outcomes of children from non-white ethnic backgrounds".

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: "This research reinforces what those of us in the early years have long known: that children's centres play an absolutely critical role in improving children's life chances, especially those from more disadvantaged backgrounds."

Currently in Leeds, 40 centres are run by the council and 16 are operated under agreements with schools.

Most of the 56 centres are divided into 18 "delivery groups", each with a single team of staff covering three or four sites.

Under the new proposals that would be reorganised into seven groups, each covering a wider geographical area.

Children's centre staff currently employed by schools and academies would be transferred to council contracts which would allow "all employees to form part of the review."

Formal proposals for the centres are expected to be presented to senior councillors in the autumn.

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