Wednesday 12 December 2012

Is there a collaborative way to cut services: the example of East Sussex After School and Holiday Clubs?


 It didn’t surprise me when I heard that East Sussex Children’s Services Department intends to shut down the After School and Holiday Clubs service that they run for disabled children. We set the clubs up over 5 years ago as an extended school initiative based at a number of the county’s special schools. Within a relatively short period the service had grown and by the time it was taken over by East Sussex  County Council had become the county’s largest independent provider of short breaks to disabled children and their families ,offering thousands of hours of play to young people for whom play is too often a rare and scarce opportunity. So although it didn’t surprise me, it did sadden me, as much for the opportunity that the children will lose as for what it cost me to set it up.

But putting my own personal commitment to the clubs to one side, does the decision make sense even in a time of austerity or is it reflective of an approach to service management that should have no place in an inclusive society? Or to put it another way do local politician always have to choose between cutting services for different vulnerable groups – whether they are disabled children, or older citizens with dementia, or is there another way of finding the savings and efficiencies that are required in today’s tough economic climate; because not even I do not think that you should fund clubs for disabled children by cutting services to other vulnerable groups.

Nevertheless, the decision to attempt to save money by cutting an entire service is a poor one, especially when considered in the context of the other changes that are being proposed. It is reflective of a Children’s Services Leadership that is at odds with the principles of public sector reform proposed by all of the major parties. In particular the political party that it serves, and what should concern the County Councillors is that it may be open to legal challenge.

The cuts in services most likely to affect children with SEN and Disabilities:


The closure of the Afterschool and Holiday Club Service has to be viewed in the context of the other proposals within the plan that are likely to affect disabled children. So in addition to closing the After-School and Holiday Club service they are proposing to:

‘Convert a short breaks respite unit to residential care home for up to 6 children (currently in agency placement)’;

Reduce the numbers of children and families supported by the Secondary Behaviour Support service;

Reduce NHS/Children’s Services joint commissioning capacity;

Make further cuts to the Inclusion Support Service including a ‘reduced training offer to parents/carers and multidisciplinary professionals acting in role of Key-Worker Early Support’;

Get rid of the Inclusion Bursary Fund –that supports the inclusion of disabled children in childcare settings.

Identifying the strategic and long term impact of these cuts on disabled children is not that difficult and Short Break Provision and Inclusion are a particular concern.

The Impact on Short Break Provision


We can assume that the After School and Holiday Clubs are providing at least 10000 hours of short breaks a year to the families of children attending the county’s special schools and given the budget it may well be significantly more than that.

We can then add the overnight short break provision that will be lost. If it is the Resource C entre I think it is it has the capacity to provide 7 beds 365 days a year, giving a possible total of 2555 days of overnight short break capacity being lost. It is probable that the centre is not being run at full capacity so assuming 90% occupancy we are probably looking at a more likely figure in the region of 2300 overnight breaks being lost. So taken together this set of proposals will decimate the short break provision being made available to families in East Sussex.

The third element of the proposals likely to have an impact on short break provision is the cutting of the Inclusion Support Bursary. This fund supports the inclusion of children with SEN and Disabilities in childcare settings and whilst Short Breaks are not traditionally referred to as childcare the two are closely linked. When childcare is not available or suitable it is to short breaks that families have to turn. As the plan points out a likely consequence of the proposal is that less effective inclusion in childcare is likely to increase demand for more specialist provision.    

The effect of all three of these proposals on the everyday lives of families will be significant. One of the original motivations for setting up the After School and Holiday Clubs was to help parents’ and carers to be able reclaim some of the ordinary back into their everyday lives. It was hoped that for some it might make work possible or that it would give them the opportunity to do things with their other children.

The impact of the cuts to the overnight short breaks provision is likely to be as significant, if not more so.  This type of service is particularly important for the families of young people who have disrupted sleep patterns. Having a disabled child challenges families in many ways but the impact of disrupted sleep patterns is often over-looked by policy makers. But it is easy to gain an insight into just what these cuts will mean to this group of families. All you have to do is to set your alarm to go off every three hours, every night, for a month and then on the last night of the month give yourself an overnight break for a night. If you do this for a month you will have some idea of what some families have to do for years. Then imagine that your one night a month of short break is being taken away from you. 

The paradox is of course that the overnight short break provision is being cut so that East Sussex can provide its own residential provision and to reduce dependence on out of county residential placements.   So rather than providing overnight short breaks to dozens of families it will provide residential care to seven. The provision for the seven young people may well be needed, but the consequences of the cut in overnight short breaks for those families who use the overnight short breaks service are predictable.     

Inclusion


As some families reel with the impact of the cuts to the County’s Short Break provision; other families, whose children might have less obvious but equally challenging difficulties, will then be hit by the Council’s proposals on Behaviour and Inclusion Support.  These proposals are likely to have an impact on our schools ability to include children and young people with SEN and Disabilities in our mainstream schools.  The extent of that impact will be uncertain but its likelihood is reasonable when you consider the following national statistics on the exclusion of children with SEN.  In 2010/11

2010/11
Number of
exclusions
Percentage of
permanent
exclusions
Percentage of
school population
Pupils with SEN with statements                  
430
8
0.20
Pupils with SEN without statements (9)           
3,360
66
0.25
Pupils with no SEN                                            
1,300
25
0.02
All pupils (10) 
5,080
100
0.07

 

The proposals to cut Inclusion and Behaviour Support to schools are likely to have a detrimental effect on the life chances of this group of young people, who in 2010/11 where 9 times more likely to be excluded from school. 

This withdrawal of support has also got to be seen in the context of the government’s current proposals to restructure the Statutory Assessment Process through ‘Support and Aspiration’ and the Children’s Bill. According to the Council for Disabled Children the implementation of Support Aspiration will make it more difficult for some groups of children and young people to get support. Regardless of whether or not the CDC’s concerns prove to be true, continued cuts to Inclusion Support in the context of the introduction of Support and Aspiration would appear to be a reckless proposal.

Are these proposals in breach of the Equalities Act?


Technically these proposals may be in breach of the Equalities Act, but they are undoubtedly in breach of its principles. East Sussex County Council has adopted a revenue plan for Children’s Services that collectively is likely to have a significant impact on the lives of disabled children. The scale of the changes that are being proposed means that according to the Equalities Act 2010 a proportionate assessment of their impact needs to take place and that assessment should involve the stakeholders likely to be affected by the proposed changes.  As far as I am aware no proportionate assessment of the potential impact was carried out involving the stakeholders who are likely to be affected. The County Councillors were not presented with documentary evidence on the number of short breaks that would be lost and any kind of estimation the impact that this would have on the lives of families. Nor is there any evidence that schools and young people have been involved in discussions on the impact of cuts to Inclusion and Behaviour Support.

East Sussex Children’s Services Department’s public involvement strategy would seem to be to announce slightly more cuts than are actually required, then wait to see which group shouts the loudest and offer a compromise in response to ‘public opinion’. It is an established form of expectation management, but should not be confused with any form of consultation. Whilst David Cameron might wish to get rid of Equalities Impact Assessments and their requirement to consult, at the time that the County Council accepted these proposals they were still a legal requirement. But perhaps the best thing about the Equalities Act is not that it can be used to delay cuts to services (because it can rarely be used to stop them), it is that it requires stakeholders to work together when considering changes to services. Some might think it a bureaucratic waste of time, but it is actually an essential component of an inclusive society and the only way in which services can be protected without damaging those of other vulnerable groups. 

A participatory approach to saving money


If the Children’s Services Department had involved its Children’s Services Stakeholders in its planning, could it have made a difference to the cuts that are being proposed?  The example of the Afterschool and Holiday Clubs illustrates how a collaborative approach to this process might have affected the proposals and mitigated the possible impact of the cuts.  
Operationally the After School and Holiday Clubs are structured in the following way. 


 
The After School and Holiday Clubs were originally set up as an extended school initiative yet have always operated as social care provision within the Community of Families and Schools. The rationale behind this set up, was that it minimises the impact that running the clubs has on the day to day operation of the schools. It means that they are registered as a separate organisation to the school and were they required to do so would be inspected as a separate organisation by Ofsted. This organisation of the clubs does have its disadvantages. It means that it has to have its own management and administrative infrastructure that is distinct from the schools. The core service to families is provided in the schools – by the Club Supervisors and their team of staff. 

If the County Council had adopted a collaborative approach to its need to make savings a number of solutions might have presented themselves. The most obvious of which would have been that each club is taken over by its respective school and that the savings to the local authority are secured not by cutting an entire service but by cutting its management infrastructure.  Including employers contributions this would save something in excess of £80,000 per annum. These savings could be achieved without affecting the service provided to families.

Obviously the feasibility of such an idea would be dependent upon the views of the people concerned. Would the families want the clubs to be run by the schools? Would the schools be able or willing to offer line management to the clubs? Some may, some may not. It is also possible that one school might wish to take over the running of all of the clubs. Then we also need to remember that it is our locally elected politicians who would be funding this service on behalf of the people of East Sussex, most of whom do not have disabled children.  And given that this is a Conservative local authority, it is also possible that the County Councillors might want to make the funding dependent upon the schools with these additional responsibilities having or at least seeking Academy status.

Whilst I have used the example of the After School and Holiday Clubs to illustrate how community engagement could be used to create savings and efficiencies, this process of engaging the community is capable of generating efficiencies and savings across all of our services. What is ironic is that it reflects the inclusive aspirations of the Equalities Act but also interestingly those of David Cameron’s Big Society.