Local Authority Grants: Impact of Cuts

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for calling this important and timely debate. I am honoured to follow the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, who recently spoke about the need for our society to be one in which everyone feels that they could belong. He warned of the dangers of alienation and isolation, which he has just repeated. Yet the latest UNICEF report on child welfare in developed nations again places us towards the bottom of the table. It highlights that, in particular, we have a long tail of child poverty. Many of our children in poverty are more deeply impoverished than those of our peer nations. They are more deeply alienated and isolated.

Perhaps I may refer to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and talk about the efficiencies that still might be made by local authorities. I read with interest the Philip Green report on efficiencies that could be made across government by using its size and volume to commission services in a much more efficient and effective way. I welcome what the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Westminster are doing in terms of sharing services. At this critical time, I very much encourage that motion towards those new efficiencies. The right honourable Iain Duncan Smith and the honourable Graham Allen have worked together in establishing the importance of early intervention in breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty. They highlight the huge cost to our society now and in the future for failing our most vulnerable children and families. I pay tribute to all the parties for their commitment to this endeavour.

We are in a dark time. We need only look to Eire to see the risks we face and the need for retrenchment, so we must take this opportunity to focus our resources on the essentials and to innovate. As my noble friend Lord Adebowale said, we need to redesign our services and delivery. If we can take a breath and step back, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said, we must do that because many families and young people are going to lose out under the current arrangements. I hope that the Government will listen to the words of my noble friend Lord Low, and that they will monitor carefully the impact of these cuts on the most vulnerable.

I wish to consider how we can do this for the Sure Start children’s centres. Will the Minister consider giving guidance to local authorities on how to keep the essentials of children’s centres alive at this time and how to make them as financially independent as possible? I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the matter outwith the Chamber, given her vast knowledge of local authority affairs and her responsibilities in this area.

Recently I visited the Melcombe Primary Children’s Centre in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and I was impressed and moved by what I saw. On Tuesday I received an e-mail from the manager, Joan Murphy, which says:

“This is just to keep you updated. As you are aware, the funding for children’s centres will not be ring-fenced next year. We have received information from Hammersmith and Fulham borough informing us that:

1. The local authority will not be funding any centres under the new arrangements and

2. No funding expectation should be assumed.

We are therefore extremely concerned about our future”.

I also received a letter from one of the mothers I met at the centre. She is a Thai woman and I will read her words verbatim except for making occasional amendments for the sake of clarity:

“I want to say that I am one person in the children’s centre. Every time that I go to children’s centre I see people and family enjoying friends and family, and then when I come back, everyone has very nice smile. I want to see my daughter come back again. I stay very far. Need to take two bus and come back two bus. Long way to go, but I happy to go this class because everybody very good people in there and very good parent in there. I mum and very happy to take daughter place very clean lots of toy and very good children. Somebody I know tried to go to another centre near their house and then they came back again because they say in this centre good students and quiet … We have very big trouble before but Adrienne help me a lot”—

the family welfare officer. She continues:

“And then when I want my help sometime they come to my house for helping. I mean like we need to come to them to help but they come to my family … Staff help me and tell me and always smile and this very nice”.

She goes on to say that:

“Another one parent she have problem with her baby who die soon but council not give her no stair. She need to carry baby go upstair downstair every day. She quite old lady. I not understand but Adrienne try to help her”.

This refers to another parent, an elderly lady with a child suffering from muscular dystrophy for whom no appropriate housing could be found. She had to carry her child up and down the stairs.

I want to make the point that it is crucial to social cohesion that these centres continue to exist. They offer a place for parents on the edge of society to gather together in order to do improving things with their children and meet other parents, thus easing their sense of isolation. Without that these parents can easily become depressed. They lose their joy in life and in their children, and the vital attachment which we all recognise, particularly in the earliest years between parent and child, can be undermined.

Not all children’s centres are excellent. Melcombe Primary Children’s Centre certainly seems excellent to me and I hope with all my heart that something can be done to save its services. Meeting with the chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation yesterday, I heard some helpful suggestions on how children’s centres can be made more self-supporting and effective. They can adopt a Robin Hood approach, asking parents to pay for services at different rates according to their means. They can make use of charities such as Home-Start to provide services for families. They can adopt the reserve grandparents model from Denmark and become multigenerational centres while saving money. They can make use of time-banking or become largely independent social enterprises. They can indeed be at the very heart of delivering the big society.

I ask the Minister as a matter of urgency to consider whether guidance can be given to councils on the essentials of what needs to be saved and how children’s centres can become more self-supporting. I ask her whether a kite-mark might be developed to be given to local authorities that adopt best practice in this area, as has proved very effective for universities in improving support for care leavers. I ask her whether more could be done to encourage philanthropy and to encourage businesses to consider corporate social responsibility in this area. I look forward to her response.