Early Help remodelling

We sought views on how people might be affected by 25 proposals concerning the way we run children, young people and family centres; and other early help services.

For 15 of the 25 proposals, which present a key change to current early help services, we asked people to tell us how it would affect them and provided a tick box option for them to do this, (e.g. it will affect us negatively/positively/not at all).

We also provided people with a free text box to tell us in what way the proposed change would affect them and provided a further text box for any other comments.

For 10 of the 25 proposal, where no change was proposed, we provided a text box for comments only.

1,224 people responded to the consultation. Analysis of what people said is outlined in the consultation report. We also produced a downloadable information leaflet to summarise details of the public consultation and what we did as a result, (copies available on this site and also in the children, young people and families centres).
 
The key highlights of what people said are as follows:   

• For 5 of the 15 proposals, a majority of both the public and stakeholders were in agreement that the proposals would have a negative effect
• For one of the 15 proposals, considered by stakeholders only, a majority of stakeholders were in agreement that the proposal would have a negative effect
• For 8 of the 15 proposals, members of the public said the proposals ‘would not affect me/us’ but stakeholders responded to say the proposal would affect ‘me/my clients’
• For one proposal, both the public and stakeholders said the proposal ‘would not affect me/us/my clients’.

In relation to how people responded to the free text boxes, we identified four high level types of responses:
1.    comments about the service, proposals and consultation
2.    suggested potential impacts (of the proposals)
3.    suggestions concerning the service and proposal
4.    questions.
 
The analysis of people’s responses to the free text boxes is too detailed to be summarised here, but a full analysis is provided in the consultation report.

We looked at responses from service users, service providers, staff and members of the public, and revised 12 of the initial 25 proposals that featured in the public consultation before making a decision on implementing the changes.