On the 8^th October the Conservative Cabinet running Warwickshire County Council took the controversial decision to remove free transport entitlement for pre-school children attending the County’s specialist nurseries, with immediate effect for new applicants.

This decision was against the advice of the Children’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee, and was immediately challenged and called-in by Liberal Democrat and Labour members. A further special meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on the 22^nd October failed to resolve matters, so the issue was referred to a special meeting of the Full Council held at Shire Hall, Warwick today.

Cllr John Whitehouse, the Lib Dem spokesperson for Education & Learning, proposed a motion that deferred any decision to remove free transport for at least six months, while a detailed review was carried out by officers and elected members. The motion was seconded by the Labour chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee, and was accepted by the Conservatives with minor amendments to wording. The revised motion was then supported unanimously by all councillors present.

John Whitehouse said after the meeting:

“The original decision by the Conservative Cabinet was a very bad one, hitting vulnerable children and their families extremely hard financially, and putting the future of the specialist nurseries at risk without proper assessment of risk or impact.

“Today was a good day for the scrutiny process, and for determined and constructive opposition. I’m proud of the fact that the Liberal Democrats have stood up for the rights of a small group of vulnerable children and their families who would have been hit very hard by the cuts originally planned. The full facts will now be on the table before any further decisions on this matter are considered.”

ENDS

Note:

The full text of the motion proposed today by Cllr Whitehouse was as follows:-

This Council believes that the Cabinet should defer the proposed savings proposal Transport to Specialist Nursery Provision (Recommendation 11 to Cabinet of 8 October 2015), for the following reasons:

1. A significant number of parents/carers make informed choices to use specialist nurseries for their high level SEND child rather than more local mainstream provision, because they believe that this best meets the needs of the child. Officers have not produced compelling evidence that parents/carers are wrong, and that these needs could be met equally well and cost-effectively for all high level SEND children in mainstream nursery settings.
2. The removal of free transport to/from specialist nurseries would put the opportunity to make use of this provision to meet the needs of their high level SEND child beyond the financial reach of many families. The impact of the proposed saving would be most severe on those least able to afford it.
3. Very few high level SEND children attending specialist nurseries are currently in receipt of an SEN statement or Education Health & Care Plan (EHCP). The impact of introducing this assessment process for these children, and how many would then qualify for free transport to meet their needs, has not been assessed.
4. The sustainability of the specialist nurseries would be undermined, leading potentially to their closure. The impact of this happening has not been assessed, nor the cost involved.
5. There are alternative ways of achieving the great majority of the proposed cost savings in transport to special nurseries, for example by moving to full-day nursery provision, which have not been properly explored.

The Council recommends that the Children’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee be asked to conduct an in-depth scrutiny review of the matter, and to report back to Cabinet within a period of six months.

Warwickshire County Council has started a major public consultation on the future of Home to School Transport services in the county, as it looks to save £3.7 million out of its current £15 million expenditure on these services. This is against the background of its overall £92 million savings target by 2018.

The link to the consultation is here:-

Home to School Transport Consultation – 2015

Warwickshire Liberal Democrats are keen that public participation in this consultation is as extensive as possible, and will be advertising it widely through local Focus newsletters and other communications media.

The response deadline for the consultation is midnight on 17th September 2015.

At today’s meeting of the County Council’s all-Conservative Cabinet, its members voted unanimously to reject the recommendations of an all-party working group which had been reviewing school admission criteria for primary age children.

The working group had been led by Cllr Clive Rickhards (Liberal Democrat, Studley), with membership from the three main political groups on the Council plus a senior member of the Warwickshire Governors Association. It had reviewed in detail a proposal for changing admission criteria in Warwick, which had been the subject of public consultation earlier in the year, and had concluded that the proposed “Super Priority Area” approach was the wrong way to address the challenge of giving families a greater chance of their primary-age children being able to attend the same school.

Instead, the working group had made the unanimous recommendation that Warwickshire should move to giving siblings greater priority within admissions criteria while retaining existing priority areas for individual schools, and had recommended that the new approach be piloted in the Warwick & Leamington area for an initial two years.

Cllr John Whitehouse (Liberal Democrat, Kenilworth Abbey), a member of the working group and Lib Dem spokesperson for Education & Learning, said after the Cabinet meeting:

“For over a year the Conservatives have been dangling the prospect of changed admissions criteria to parents badly affected by the current rules, and groups like Siblings at the Same School which have done heroic work in bringing the issues involved to the attention of elected members. Now, today it has come to the crunch, and despite a set of unanimous recommendations from an all-party working group they have decided to do nothing. Warwickshire parents will continue to face the possibility that their primary age children cannot attend the same school, with all the problems that can bring for family life and the well-documented adverse impacts on the children themselves.

“A decision by Labour members of the Children’s scrutiny committee, to abstain en-bloc on the working party recommendations, provided the Conservatives additional cover to justify their “no change” decision today. Both major parties have decided to sit on their hands and leave parents to cope with the consequences as best as they can. Both Conservatives and Labour have let down Warwickshire parents very badly.”

Liberal Democrat members of Warwickshire County Council have published proposals to resolve the deadlock over the future of the County’s 39 children’s centres.

Cllr John Whitehouse (Kenilworth Abbey), Lib Dem group spokesperson for Children & Young people, said:
“We supported the call-in of the Cabinet decision on 12^th September because we did not believe it to be soundly based, but we’re acutely aware that the clock is ticking. Ahead of the Call-In meeting on the 26th, therefore, we’ve put forward our proposals for the way forward, which hopefully the other political groups will be willing to get behind.”

The Lib Dem seven-point plan is as follows:-
1.     Conduct a further, short (1 month) consultation with all affected groups in the areas where the Option 1 proposals now differ from those consulted on previously – to give everyone the equal opportunity to comment on the revised proposals.
2.     Use the same period of time for further detailed discussions with affected groups in all areas, to define more clearly how the new grouping/collaboration models would work in practice and to address more of the recommendations of the O&S Select Committee.
3.     Address the potential impact of the proposals on WCC’s ability to deliver the Warwickshire Child Poverty Strategy, in particular Priority 2 (Intervening early to break the cycle of poverty) and Priority 3 (Improving financial capability and financial awareness).
4.     Address the issues raised on behalf of WCC’s nursery schools (Early Years Teaching Centres), that the proposals jeopardise their nationally-acclaimed role of providing integrated 2-4 year olds education, the full children’s centre core offer and specialist educational and medical needs under one roof.
5.     Demonstrate that the proposals are more than a short-term fix of a financial problem, but will provide a sustainable future for all of Warwickshire’s children’s centres.
6.     Identify the key risks (including financial risks) arising from the implementation of the proposals, and the actions and contingencies which can minimise these risks.
7.     Bring a revised report back to Cabinet as soon as possible, including the results/outcomes of the six actions identified above.

Note:-
The agenda and papers for the meeting of the Children’s & Young People Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 26^th Sep can be found at: http://goo.gl/XtLNBh

The future of Warwickshire’s Children’s Centres is due to be decided by the county council’s Conservative Cabinet members on Thursday this week. In front of them will be two reports, one from the Children & Young People Overview & Scrutiny Committee following its select committee hearings last month, and one from officers recommending that ‘option 1’ is proceed with. Links to the two Cabinet reports can be found here:

http://goo.gl/2FShZE

http://goo.gl/DlMdmj

Liberal Democrat county spokesperson for Children & Young People, Cllr John Whitehouse (Kenilworth Abbey) said:

“We shall listen very carefully to what is said at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, and how its Conservative members react and respond to the two reports. The O&S report contains nine strong recommendations, not all of which have been accepted by the officers concerned. Which will the Cabinet back? Also we have strong reservations about the way forward as recommended by the officers’ report, as it fails to demonstrate a long-term sustainable future for our Children’s Centres within an overall strategic context of fair opportunities for all children.”