I attended Cambridge City Council’s North Area Committee on the 11th of December 2008. The main issue which took up most of the “Open Forum” time was the loss of “Sure Start” funding which had adversely affected two volunteer groups which work supporting families with young children in North Cambridge. The Chair and Treasurer of Home-Start Cambridge were present at the meeting, along with committee members and users of the Meadows Children and Family Wing .

Cambridgeshire County Council had sent a relevant officer, and a “locality manager” to the meeting. The locality manager was introduced as a new position, one role of which would involve improving communications between area committees and the County Council. County Councillors early on in the discussion of this item suggested to this officer this was something they would like her to get involved in helping to resolve.

The children’s services officer from the County Council explained the problem had arisen as “Sure Start” funding had been cut from £650 to £176 per young person per year. He said the effect was a cut in all services targeted at families with children 0-5 years old.

Cllr Pitt declared an interest as a governor of a primary school which had a children’s centre attached. The Government’s idea is that children’s centres take on some of the role currently fulfilled by the voluntary groups.

County Councillor, Gaynor Griffiths, the Liberal Democrat’s opposition spokesperson for children and young people attended the meeting, she lives in Ely but represents Cambridge City’s Market ward on the County Council. She explained that the Meadows Children and Family Wing group had been in existence for around fourteen years and they had previously had various sources of funding including from the Primary Care Trust and various council funding in that time but most recently had been funded by the Sure Start Scheme. Cllr Griffiths referred to an article on the funding cut in that day’s Cambridge News .

The chair of Home-Start spoke to say that they had fifty four volunteers and many people waiting to become volunteers. She explained that while they had been given notice that their current funding arrangement was stopping, they had been invited to meetings to discuss “transition” arrangements to discuss a return to Local Authority (County Council) funding. She complained that as it had turned out these discussions would have been more aptly named “termination” rather than “transition” meetings. The chair of Home-Start stressed that while home start volunteers weren’t paid, they were well trained, CRB checked and well supervised (Home-Start has paid staff). She said there didn’t appear to be any sense in spending public money on paid staff to do these jobs and I agree.

Cllr Griffiths reported that the Children’s centres were struggling to spend the money they did have and their budgets were underspent.

The county council officer spoke to say that co-operation with the new children’s centres was not good, Home-Start could not even book rooms there for an ongoing period of five years (as required by funding bodies) as the children’s centre thought they had to remain flexible in case government targets changed in the near future.

The county councillors present (Huppert, Wilkins, and Moss-Eccardt) suggested the “Invest to reform ‘pot’” as a potential source of money to ensure the services represented at the meeting continued. They asked the county’s “locality manager” to discuss with them ways of acting on the suggestion.

Cllr Blair spoke to say how the current government repeatedly praises the “3rd sector”, saying: “we’re told it is important, but then we see action like this”. She also thought she would show off her knowledge of Children’s centers and told the committee there were twenty two in the city, she said they were currently just a collection of buildings.

Cllr Ward spoke to complain that while a county council officer had attended the meeting, no cabinet member from the Conservative party who have a majority on the County Council was present to defend their policy decision.

The committee resolved to mandate the Chair, City Councillor Diane Armstrong to write an open letter to Martin Curtis the County Council’s Cabinet Member for Children, inviting him to a future North Area Committee meeting and making representations regarding the loss of funding to the local projects.

Mr Bond, a member of the public was invited to speak, and he said he had been involved in the “peer review” of the area committee system while he had been involved in another local authority. He said he hadn’t supported them at first, but now thought it would be sensible for the County Council to take them more seriously.

Lynn Tumber, project manager of the Meadows Children and Family Wing spoke to say: “Children’s centers throw the baby out with the bath water”, she explained her scheme was not part of the official social services network. She said social services were often delighted to refer people the scheme as it was seen as “us” not “them”. People who were unwilling to have contact with social services were happy to take the help her scheme offered. The county council officer had talked about trying to provide the best service possible. Lynn Tumber asked how “best” was measured, asking if what parents, the users of the service thought was best mattered, she was told: “Best comes down to central government targets, not what parents and service users want”. Lynn Tumber commented that her group was used to meeting targets, and that was a requirement of the sure-start funding.

Cllr Ward complained about the “supine adherence to Government targets by the Conservative County Council”. He said that the City Council took a different approach to targets, and was prepared to not try and meet those which it felt were not right, or not applicable to Cambridge. He said the City Council had not lost any funding by taking such a stance.

Labour councillor Mike Todd-Jones stayed silent, he did not attempt any defence of the Labour Central Government’s position, despite Cllr Pitt drawing attention to his presence.

The county councillors, the “liaison manager” and representatives of the groups left the meeting to continue their discussions in private.