Comment on Closure of Children’s Centres

Responding to an enquiry from CYPNOW about the government statistics on the number of children’s centres closures over the last five years, Alison O’Sullivan President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said:

“Reductions in funding have made it necessary for local authorities to find innovative ways of reshaping their children’s centre provision. This includes through smarter commissioning, co-location with other public services and by adopting a ‘hub and spoke’ models of delivery.

“Despite the lack of resources we are faced with it is vital that we work closely with our partners to provide early help services to children and families who need it most. If these services suffer further closures it will seriously impact on our ability to ensure that local needs are met and to provide vital early help to the most vulnerable in our communities leading to longer term cost implications for every local authority. And if we miss the window of opportunity to intervene before problems worsen we will find ourselves as a nation paying a heavy price as a consequence.”

Ends

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) Ltd is the professional leadership association for Directors of Children’s Services and their senior management teams in England.

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