SAVE THE CHILDREN'S CENTRES

Central Bedfordshire Council sent out a consultation at the end of 2011 with 3 options, 2 of them to close children centres and 1 of them to keep them open, but to introduce a 'hub and spoke' network meaning that some centres would have services reduced and others increased.

Petition
Our members and families using these services felt passionately that the service was doing a great job the way it was, and that any reduction in service at any of the centres would hurt those children and parents most in need, so the petition was started.

We received an amazing 313 signatures to the petition which closed in December 2011 as the Children's Services scrutiny committee meeting were due to meet. At this meeting they decided to advise the council to take option 1 and not to close any of the Children's Centres but to regroup them into clusters. At the Executive Committee meeting on Tuesday 10th January 2012, we presented our petition and asked them to keep the status quo. A third of the responses to their consultation asked for this even though it was NOT offered as an official option: if it had been how many would have asked for this?

No Centres to Close
The Executive voted through Option 1 which on one hand was fantastic news as NO Children Centres would close but on the other hand some centres will be downgraded and have funding cut, and some families in deprived areas will have their resources reduced.

The hub and spoke scheme will reduce costs but will not help parents or children. We asked Mark Versallion, Executive member for Children Services, to confirm that, even with the overall budget for Children Services increasing slightly, funding for each Hub and Spoke would remain the same as under the old system. He didn't answer this in the council chamber and as of now Sunday 15th January we still haven't had a reply to a letter sent to him.

We know this is a difficult time and the council has to save money, but our children are the future and we cannot neglect them for short term budget savings.