Children's Centres - Looking to the Future. Parents, Carers and Families Have Your Say

Overview

Leicester City Council currently has 23 children’s centres providing services to families and children across the city. The children’s centres deliver a range of activities and services which include group activities for children and parents/carers. These activities and services focus on learning, health, well-being and community engagement, and are delivered in the home, the community and schools.

What we are consulting on?

• The times that families prefer to use children’s centre support and services
• Where families prefer to access their children’s centre services
• The potential effects of children’s centre area changes
• Which children’s centre activities families prefer and find most useful
• Whether the proposed changes present any particular problems for service user groups wishing to access services or activities.

Why your views matter

Following the government’s most recent spending review announcement, the grant that includes funding for children’s centres has been reduced by £4.4 million. In order to protect services for the most vulnerable and maintain some universal services, the council now needs to make changes to the way children’s centres are run.

What does this mean for Leicester?

We want to create an affordable network of children’s centres, this can be achieved by:

• Keeping all 23 children’s centres open as ‘delivery sites’, allowing children, parents and carers to continue accessing services
• Clustering children’s centres into 6 groups.  See map showing proposed children’s centre cluster network areas
• Employing flexible staff and resource arrangements across the 23 delivery buildings
• Reducing management costs at the centres.
• Working with local community groups and agencies to enable them to deliver activities through children’s centres that will contribute to children’s development and well-being.
• Tailoring opening hours to when families use them most, with some centres having reduced opening times.
• Ensuring that families in greatest need are able to access support and services from any of the centres as they choose
• Recognising that there will be reduced levels of activities delivered in areas of less need, whilst ensuring that vulnerable children and families in those areas continue to receive support and services. 

What happens next

What will change as a result?

We will look to you for your views in delivering an affordable children’s centre network, and incorporate your concerns and aspirations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible.