A total period of 15 minutes is allocated for members of the public to make a statement(s) on any matter that falls within the remit of the Committee.
Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes, but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned, where there are a number of speakers.
Note: In order for officers to undertake any background research, it would be helpful if members of the public contacted the Scrutiny officer listed at the foot of the agenda, at least one working day before the meeting to provide brief details of the matter to be covered.
Minutes:
There were 12 members of the public who wished to speak, all of whom spoke in relation to a decision by Cabinet at its meeting on 23 February 2016 regarding Children’s Centre. The Chairman allowed each speaker 90 seconds.
Sue Helliwell, a Town Councillor from Alsager, suggested that funding from Section 106 Agreements might be used to supplement the funding of children’s centres to remove the need to save £0.5m from the Children’s budget. She suggested that the Cabinet decision should be reconsidered by Full Council.
Amelia Helliwell, a member of the Youth Parliament, spoke to suggest that there was no evidence included in the consultation, which the Council undertook in relation to children’s centre, regarding the quality of mobile services compared to services delivered from a physical building. She requested that the Scrutiny Committee review the Cabinet decision and refer the matter to Full Council for reconsideration.
Several representatives of a public interest group ‘Friends of Cheshire East Children's Sure Start Centres’ spoke on various issues in relations to children’s centres and the decision by Cabinet.
Maeve Kelly referred to building costs in relation to children’s centre and suggested that if some services are removed from centre this would increase costs to other services using those buildings, including partner organisations. She suggested that increased costs may lead to partners moving services out of buildings and suggested a recent decision by NHS bodies to move midwifery services from children’s centres to GP practices was an example of this.
Paula Eaton suggested that the mental health of mothers in the postnatal phase of birth was a major issue that services delivered by children’s centres helped to cope with. She suggested that mother with mental health issues were often reluctant to self refer through fear of having their child taken away and that the support provided by other mothers and children’s centre staff in physical locations was important and would be less effective if delivered by a mobile service.
Ted Wall suggested that there was no time line or details available in relation to the implementation of the Cabinet decision and suggested that full consideration had not been given to the issue which would risk a budget overspend.
Debbie Jamison referred to a discussion regarding children’s centre consultation which had recently taken place at Knutsford Town Council. She suggested that the Cabinet decision on children’s centres was not in keeping with the Council’s ‘Residents First’ philosophy and suggested that the consultation process had not been carried out appropriately.
Carol Bulman, a teacher at Sandbach Boys School, suggested that due to the number of new homes currently being built in the area there would be a large number of new residents who were unfamiliar with the town. She suggested that Sure Start Centres played a vital role in supporting new residents’ integration into the community and that there would be an increase in demand for services in future.
Carol Jones suggested that the Council had not done enough to promote Sure Start Centres and a lack of information and a low profile had led to the low footfall which she suggested the Council used as justification for some of its decision making. She also suggested that physical centre were much better than mobile centres.
Andrew Mawhood suggested that the consultation process which the Council had undertaken was not appropriate. He also suggested that Councillors could have been better informed during the decision making process.
Sally Handley spoke regarding breastfeeding support services (Cherubs) and the importance of them to mothers. She suggested that children’s centres were an important place for breastfeeding groups where mothers could socialise and support each other.
Sue Munro suggested that to help people in rural areas access services the Council should try to access EU and Rural Funding to provide more effective transport to the current children’s centre locations.
Ethel Ranson suggested that the Council’s strategy of redirecting funding to increase support to people living in rural areas was having a detrimental impact on services to people in urban areas and that funding needed to be rebalanced to provide equity.
During their speaking time each representative of Friends of Cheshire East Children's Sure Start Centres concluded with a requested that the Committee review the Cabinet decision and refer it to Full Council for reconsideration.