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| Cllr Erin Hill - Cabinet Member, Child Support & Family Protection |
Kirklees is no different to many other Northern councils in
that we have experienced a sustained and dramatic cut in our budget since 2010.
By 2020 we will have £170m less than we did in 2010. We still have £63m of cuts
left to make.
The Labour Administration has done our best to meet this
challenge, because we have a duty to the residents and taxpayers of Kirklees to
use what dwindling resources we have effectively. We have a duty of care to the
vulnerable children and adults we care for, to prioritise them and their needs.
We have a duty to make Kirklees a place where people can live and work happily.
Our Children’s Centres have made life better for countless
families since their introduction by a Labour government. They have been a
major factor in turning around some of our most deprived areas, but have also
been a lifeline for families from diverse backgrounds who just needed someone
to talk to. Children who might have been consigned to a second-class life
instead went to school with good social skills, better health, and a loving
relationship with fulfilled and happy parents.
This undeniable success meant that any government with sense
would have invested in Children’s Centres, renewed them, and appreciated their
importance to our economy and the fabric of our society.
But, since 2010, the sustained and brutal attack on families
by Conservative and Lib Dem governments has created a perfect storm of
increasing demand and plummeting budgets. A damning report from the London
School of Economics concluded that families with a baby had been
disproportionately harmed by government policy.
The same report expressed deep concern about the next
generation if subsequent governments continued down this path. But since the
publication of that report, the challenge has if anything intensified.
A report carried out by Oxford University into the impact of
Children’s Centres was published the day Parliament went into Christmas recess,
along with nearly two hundred other reports, successfully ensuring that it did
not see the light of day. When the researchers sought to continue, their
funding was denied.
The emerging picture is grim. In Kirklees our budget is
nearly half of what it was in 2010, yet demand for our services has never been
higher. We have never needed “Early Help” services more – and we have never
been more starved of the funding required to deliver them.
The Labour Administration in Kirklees is fully committed to
children and families. We will prioritise helping families as early as
possible, before problems become crises. This is what our proposals are
designed to achieve – despite the government’s brutal onslaught on our budget. This
is a difficult decision, with far-reaching consequences. But we will not shy
away from it.
- We will do more outreach work, to work with families who have not previously engaged with our services.
- We will base our services in the community, to enable us to use resources we might have spent on buildings on frontline work instead.
- We will work with schools, health, and the police, to make sure that no children fall through the gaps.
- We will put children first.
