Agenda item - Public Involvement

To consider the following matters raised by members of the public:

(a)    Petitions: to receive any petitions received by due date of 10 working days ahead of the meeting (21 December);

(b)    Written Questions: to receive any questions submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 3 January;

(c)    Deputations: to receive any deputations submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 3 January.

          (a) Petitions

35.1    There were no petitions.   

          (b) Written Questions

35.2    Ms S Perera put their question, which can be found on page 3 of      addendum 1, to the Committee.

          The Chair provided the following response:

The current draft proposal is that the nursery would close at the end of the Summer term 2023. Based on current attendance figures this would enable the 26 children who are due to start school in September 2023 to complete their early years education at the nursery rather than change setting mid academic year. All children who receive additional support funding due to their additional needs will be starting school, so there will not be a need to find alternative provision.

The remaining 22 families and children will be supported by the Family Hub and Early Years team to secure places in local nurseries. This may involve being allocated a Family Hub keyworker if necessary and support from the childcare brokerage officer. BME and EAL families will be supported by the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service.

Staff vacancies in council nurseries are currently being held to allow for adequate redeployment opportunities for Bright Start Nursery staff. This will allow these nurseries to increase numbers of children attending if staff are redeployed in these settings. Together with the family we would identify where nursery vacancies are across the city, and aim to place staff and children near to where they live or where parents and carers work. We will also work with private sector nurseries to look at securing childcare places from September 2023. It is not possible to cost this work as it is unclear at this time how many families would need support to find those childcare places.

          Ms S Perera asked the following supplementary question:

          Can the Council guarantee that it will be able to fulfil its legal obligations      towards children with SEND in the future if Bright Start closes given that        the Jeanne Saunders Centre has seen unprecedented demand for      places over the last two years. Can the Council guarantee that every     child with SEND will be able to get a suitable nursery place without       the           capacity and experience that Bright Start brings? If so, how, and what         will it cost?

          The Legal Advisor provided the following response:

          In terms of the Council’s legal obligations, the first obligation is to ensure        that there is sufficiency for those young people needing nursery places.    You will see from the report that we are considering shortly that the   issue of childcare sufficiency has been considered. In addition, if any           child was entitled to an EHCP, of course the Council would be       obligated to provide whatever services were identified as being needed and available under the plan.

35.3    Mr P Gilbert put their question, which can be found on page 3 of      addendum 1, to the Committee.

          The Chair provided the following response:

I think it is first worth clarifying that no decision has been made. There has been reports presented to the Policy & Resources Committee which put forward proposals, but the decision will be made formally at Budget Council at the end of February.

          Regarding the Community Infrastructure Levy, the Council is awaiting clarification on the funding of childcare facilities. If changes are made      to the scheme there will be a need for us to consult with providers on the      levels of funding required for inclusion within our infrastructure delivery           plan – which goes to the Tourism, Equalities, Communities, and   Culture Committee. Our current plan contains just less than £600m for new infrastructure required across the city by 2030. There will be an           annual bidding process for the council’s share of that money and the detail agreed annually by Policy and Resources Committee.

          We are currently working on updating our childcare sufficiency     assessment but do not anticipate that it will show an overall shortage of early years and childcare provision in           the city. We do of course   continue to review what more targeted provision and support is required for our children most in need including those from low-income           backgrounds, refugee, and asylum-seeking families and for children with           SEND.

          While other councils, although you do not quote which specifics, may         laud their settlement, this council does not welcome the Local Government Settlement published in December. This means the budget         gap reported to Policy and Resources Committee at the beginning of December was projected to be £18.890m. This takes into account      any rise in spending power the Council was given, as well as additional           funds because while the government often say that they have given    councils more money, a lot of the time it’s that we have been given the          power to raise more money from our residents.

          These assumptions have already been taken into account, however, the        impact of our individual settlement received in December is actually that      the budget picture has got      worse, not better. Our budget deficit for 2023/24 is projected to be £39.1m. At December Policy & Resources           Committee, we put forward just £10m of savings. We have then      accounted for the additional funding received from the government on top, which means that what’s left is at least an £8-10m deficit on top of           the savings already found. At this present time, we are focused on trying       to make our budget balance and have not reconsidered any proposals     on the table.

          Mr P Gilbert asked the following supplementary question:

          Why has the Council not shown residents a set of criteria, priorities or a           strategy which determines whether something is decided for cuts or   not, and why has the Council not shown residents an options    appraisal that shows whether the Council has considered things other than the out and out closure of Bright Start?

          The Chair provided the following response:

          We would never put other options on the table that we’re not going to put       forward for proposals, simply because I think that would cause a real        amount of anxiety among the public and teams if we then decided not to        put a proposal forward. You know from how this process is treating you           and your community that this is an extremely difficult process and if I        were to put forward proposals on the table to give other options, that   would cause extreme anxiety.

          We look in detail at what services we are legally obligated to       provide,        those are our statutory services, and then we look at what services we         can, therefore, put forward on the table. That’s the process that we are           continuing to do because we continue to have       a deficit and a gap to           find. That’s basically the strategy for this directorate, what services        do       we have that we can possibly put forward, because so many of our    services are statutory, as I said in my Chair’s Communications, and we      are not allowed to cut our statutory services.

          Sadly, nurseries are not a statutory service for councils to provide and   so many councils no longer run their nurseries and so many of them cut          them years ago. We are very lucky in this city that we have kept so many        services running for as long as we can, but we are at the end of the     road for what we can do at this point. It’s a really, really difficult   thing and nobody wants to make any savings. I’ve said it before, nobody           became a councillor to have to make savings and this is a really difficult        thing to do but we are doing what we can to try and protect the   services that we have. I would much rather we      were in a position that        we didn’t have to make £20m of savings this year but sadly we are in   that position, and we’re focused on doing all we can to find our way      through this.

          Unlike the government, we have to make our budget balance. We can’t    turn around and say that we don’t want to make any cuts so we’re just         going to leave it. The government can borrow and borrow and borrow          but that’s not the case for us in terms of revenue – we can borrow for           capital projects but not for revenue. So, it’s a really, really difficult          position and so many councils have been in this position. We’ve been in      this position year on year for the last twelve years and that’s why we’re           in a position of closing services, because we’ve trimmed the fat as much       as we can to try and avoid closing services but sadly, we are in a position         now where we don’t think we can do anything else. I know that’s really   difficult, and it’s difficult for everyone and nobody wants to be in this position but sadly that’s where we are.

          (c) Deputations

35.4    There were no deputations.