Issue - meetings

Cabinet received a report which requested it to consider any recommendations arising from the meeting of Full Council, held immediately before the meeting of Cabinet.

On 3 February 2014, the Cabinet made an executive decision relating to the Future Direction of Children’s Centres Delivery and on 5 February 2014, a request to call-in this decision was received.

On 17 February 2014, the call-in request was considered by the Creating Opportunities and Tackling Inequalities Scrutiny Committee and the call-in was upheld. It was agreed that the decision be referred to a meeting of Full Council, 26 February 2014, for consideration and debate.

Full Council had subsequently considered and debated the request to call-in, and taken into account all relevant advice.  The outcome of the meeting was:

i)             To not agree to the request to call-in, when the decision shall take effect immediately.

It was therefore advised that there were no recommendations for Cabinet to consider. That being the case, the meeting was concluded with no further action to be taken, or decisions to record.

The Committee had been asked to consider a Call-In request that had been made in relation to the decision madeby Cabinet and published on 3 February 2014, regarding The Future Direction of Children’s Centres Delivery – FEB14/CAB/09.

The request to Call-In this decision was made on 5 February 2014 by Councillor Murphy and supported by Councillor Forbes and Councillor Johnson.  The decision for Call-In was based on the following grounds:

(i)    Decision is Key but it has not been dealt with in accordance with the Council’s Constitution.

(ii)      The decision does not follow the principles of good decision making set out in Article 12 of the  Council’s Constitution, specifically that the decision maker did not:

a)    Realistically consider all alternatives and, where reasonably possible, consider the views of the public.

b)    Understand and keep to the legal requirements regulating their power to make decisions.

d)     Act for a proper purpose and in the interests of the public.

f)      Follow procedures correctly and be fair.

The reasons put forward by the Councillors were:

Paragraph 3:  Breach of constitution. The previous call in recommendation was not debated fully in public.  The debate was not fully transparent as it was part dealt with behind closed doors.  I accept that this call in relates to the executive decision and not the previous call in but I would like to see the debate in public this time.

Additionally there was no debate at the Cabinet meeting. 

Paragraph 4, a, d & f

The consultation period was time tabled during winter and over Christmas a particularly difficult time for consultations especially amongst the service user involved who are mainly parents with young children.

The consultation should not have been commenced when a call in had been agreed but this was not done in this case.

No attempt was made to research the children’s views, nor were the evaluation reports commissioned (e.g. Cordus Bright) to look at Sure Start in Peterborough considered and not were the outcomes for children properly reported or considered.

Cabinet did not consider and debate the recommendations from scrutiny and council.

Matters raised in the consultation and the web consultation tool were not designed to raise alternatives. As such Cabinet did not realistically consider all alternatives and, where reasonably possible, consider the views of the public. Alternatives were numerous and included (1) further consultation, (2) making budget savings through efficiencies, (3) reducing the level of budget reductions required and (4) income generation by use of the facilities and charges for this, as well as looking for contributions from health and other budgets.

No cost benefit analysis was done concerning the consequence of the proposals and effects on other services and the increased costs for these.  No information was considered regarding the additional travel costs for service users at the Cabinet meeting.

To date no information on additional cost and cost of the proposal such as travel expenses for outreach or staff restructuring or redundancies were considered. 

The impact of loss of service  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3

Cabinet received a report which outlined a revised set of proposals on how children’s centre services could be run in the future.

On the 18 November 2013, Cabinet had agreed to a public consultation on a proposal to change the way early years services were offered in Peterborough, including children’s centres. The proposal was to create four super hub children’s centres with a wider reach, three outreach centres and to re-designate the remaining eight children’s centres for other uses. The consultation ran from the 2 November 2013 to 8 January 2014.

The report informed Cabinet of the outcomes of the consultation and brought a revised set of proposals, for Cabinet’s approval, on how children’s centre services could be run in future.

         The Chairman advised that there had been recommendations made by both the Creating Opportunities and Tackling Inequalities Scrutiny Committee and Full Council in response to the issue. It was usual practice for Cabinet to take recommendations from Scrutiny and Council as a separate item of business, however as the recommendations related directly to the ‘Vision for Early Years Services Including Children’s Centres’ report, they would be considered as part of the report.  

         The Chairman further advised that there were two members of the public present who had been permitted time to speak in objection to the proposals.

         Mrs Angela Brennan addressed Cabinet and in summary, highlighted key points of concern as follows:

·         Lack of financial clarity as to where money was being spent at the current time;

·         Lack of clarity around such areas as repayments of grants and the cessation of staff contracts;

·         The need for the right infrastructure to be in place, due to an increase in population and the baby boom;

·         The Local Authority’s duty of care to the people and the projects that could wait if they were to be at the cost of such vital services;

·         Sufficient children centre provision being a statutory duty on Local Authorities under Section 5 of the Childcare Act 2006 and amended by Section 198 of the Apprenticeships Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009;

·         The scope to better utilise existing centres and to bring more money in;

·         Closure not being considered unless all other options had been exhausted;

·         Exploration of all other angles by the Council, ensuring work was undertaken with those people best equipped to provide alternatives;

·         The long terms costs, which would outweigh the savings being made in shutting the centres;

·         The impact on society, leading to a drop in school readiness, further demands on the NHS, stigma and further class divide;

·         The positive contributions that the children’s centres had had on improving outcomes for children; and

·         The positive support offered by staff who were well trained in watching for signs, mentoring and supporting any issues.

         Mrs Faustina Yang addressed Cabinet and in summary, highlighted key points of concern as follows:

·         Hampton was a big community with lots of young people and lots of new and young parents;

·         More houses were due to be built, with more new  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4

The Principal of City College Peterborough introduced the report which provided the Committee with an overview of Peterborough City Councils Adult and Community Learning Provision at City College Peterborough (CCP).  This included who used the college, its outcomes, NEETS, the Raising of the Participation age and the impact the service had on local residents and businesses. A short video of interviews was provided showing two NEETs (not in education, employment or training) who had been attending Peterborough City College.  In the video they discussed the training Peterborough City College had offered to them to help them in their job search and in their personal lives.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         Members sought reassurance that Peterborough City College had the capacity to broaden the provision of qualifications offered and continued growth and success of apprentice schemes.  The Principal replied that the apprentice scheme was an area of growth and the Skills Funding Agency has noted that the College had achieved their contract early and had been told to expand the apprenticeship provision and to continue recruiting over target as it would attract funding.

·         Members asked if courses at the college could begin to address issues around the poverty strategy. The Principal replied that a contribution had been made to the poverty strategy and that one of the Vice Principals had been involved with the poverty strategy and that City College would look to see how they could further support this.

·         Members congratulated the Principal on the success of the John Mansfield Centre.

·         Members expressed concern regarding the categorisation of pupils and asked if pupils were aware of which categories they were placed into. The Principal stated that such categorisation was confidential and the categorisation was for support staff in order to assess what type of support pupils would require in order to remove barriers to learning and apply for funding to increase support.

·         Members asked for a hypothetical example of a change in categorisation. The Principal responded that a criteria of somebody who may be in care or have drug abuse in the family would place that individual into a category so that if they failed to attend college they would be prioritised for further support. The Principal further clarified that the introduction of a new category of purple to indicate an increased cause for concern in addition to the already existing categories was a response to more pupils indicating significant barriers to learning and therefore a new category was introduced.

·         Members asked about the youth access hub and inquired as to whether it would be part of the poverty strategy. The Principal stated that she would make sure that this would be included.

·         Members then asked where funding for each individual person came from and if funding was allocated based on individual need. The Principal responded that funding came from a variety of agencies. Young Persons’ funding came from the Educational Funding Agency. An allocated amount was given per young person and additional high needs funding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6