My first visit to a local council meeting...

Was very enjoyable!

I was the only person in the public gallery, but considering the lady I first spoke to on the reception desk today sent me to wait outside a locked door "because they usually open them when a public meeting is on", I'm not really very surprised. I won't say it was very hard work to get in to the meeting, but it did take asking the same question over several days to several people before I got the right answer.

I think more could be done to involve the public, to make council meetings more welcoming to Joe Bloggs. But, at the same time - I suppose if the public are that interested they will find their own way there? I would like to stress once I actually got IN they were very welcoming indeed!

Anyway! I attended the Children and Young People's Services Policy and Scrutiny Panel, and apart from now understanding a little more about the way the Council operates, I was given a piece of documentation others may find interesting. The Department for Education Business Plan 2011 - 2015.

Of particular interest to me are the following points contained in the document:

Action: Retain a national network of Sure Start Children’s Centres with a core universal offer, while also ensuring that they deliver proven early intervention programmes to support families in the greatest need.

i.Develop a Sure Start Children’s Centres reform programme (which has started already, end date Mar 2011)

ii.Work with local authorities to develop a plan to increase voluntary and community sector involvement within Sure Start Children’s Centres, improve accountability arrangements, increase the use of evidence-based interventions, and introduce greater payment by results (start date Jan 2011, end date Mar 2011).

iii.Introduce a new Early Intervention Grant to provide local authorities with the funding they need to support Sure Start and other intervention programmes (start date Apr 2011, end date Jun 2011).


There are many Children's Centres that are run by voluntary/private organisations already, and so this part of the plan neither surprises nor particularly concerns me. What does raise a concern is the payment by results. How will this be measured?

I am aware the Early Intervention Grant has caused some worries as it appears the majority of the grant will be taken up by Sure Start with little being leftover for many other interventions... The Local Governement Settlement Grant is due to be finalised this month, Dec 2010, and this will contain details of the Early Intervention Grant, so we won't be waiting much longer.

More points of interest include:

Action : Ensure access to sufficient and high quality early years provision

v.Put in place a new Early Years framework that is less bureaucratic and more focused on improving young children’s learning and development (starts Sep 2012, ends Sep 2014).

This raises an eyebrow! Just when everyone has got used to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework... The milestone for the New Early Years framework to be in place is September 2012, which is not as far away as it seems. On the bright side, if the framework is more effective in improving outcomes for children, we can't really complain, can we?


The final milestone I will make reference to is:

First annual data released on number of families that have been through an evidence-based early intervention programme by local authority (exact measure to be agreed after Graham Allen review) to be released Dec 2011. More details of the Graham Allen review can be found by clicking here.

So there we go, that is what I learnt today! Hope somebody finds it interesting and/or informative :)