A Kent County Council decision to end contracts for commissioned family hub services at Millmead and Seashells in Sheerness has been called in to a scrutiny panel in a bid to get it reversed.
Kent County Council launched consultation last year over plans to axe its £222,127 contract with Millmead hub, as well as a further £204,302 with a hub in Sheerness, in a bid to save £426,429 per year.
The aim is for families to use Margate Family Hub (formerly Six Bells), Northdown Road Family Hub (formerly known as Quarterdeck) and Cliftonville Family Hub (formerly Children’s Centre) to access KCC funded services.
This followed a decision in 2023 to implement a Family Hub model across the county with plans for 56 KCC operated Family Hub locations. KCC said Millmead and Seashells were the only two externally commissioned Family Hubs in Kent.
In November the decision on ending commissioned services at Millmead Family Hub was postponed following representations from Cllr Barry Lewis who put forward a recommendation to delay the decision until new government funding was finalised.
Cllr Lewis raised the issue about how sensible the Millmead proposal was, why figures for usage of the other three hubs in Margate and Cliftonville had not been included in the report and that the three KCC hubs ; Margate, Northdown and Cliftonville hubs – were all in close proximity to each other while Millmead, owned by Thanet council, meant closure would not result in a sale of that site putting money in KCC coffers.
Despite the postponement and a one-off £4,1m extra family hub funding award from government, the decision was made to end the contracts. Millmead instead has been awarded Healthy Living Centre funds for public health activities instead.
Millmead Children’s Centre Partnership Limited says the funding amount is £38,000 but KCC says it is £48,000. Neither sum will cover the amount lost from the axing of family hub services.
The call in to scrutiny has been made by Sheerness councillor Mel Dawkins and seconded by Cllr Lewis.
Officers have accepted it on the basis of two grounds cited by the councillors, that of whether the decision represents best value, particularly to the community, and the need for further clarification on the consideration around potential use of Year 4 Family Hub funding.
It will be discussed by Scrutiny committee members tomorrow (January 29) with the options to decide to:
- a) make no comments
- b) express comments but not require reconsideration of the decision
- c) require implementation of the decision to be postponed pending reconsideration of the matter by the Cabinet member
- d) require implementation of the decision to be postponed pending review or scrutiny by full council
Cllr Lewis said: “The report proves Millmead is three times more efficient at providing children’s services than the other family hubs in Thanet.
“75% of people in Margate (who use the services) select Millmead children’s centre with 25% going to Northdown Road family hub, Margate family hub and Cliftonville family hub combined.
“It is ludicrous to inconvenience the vast majority of families who will have to make a three-mile round trip to the other three centres that are clustered together.”
Cllr Lewis says he would like to see the decision sent back to full council to be reconsidered.
The Millmead family hub services which will no longer be commissioned if the decision is not reversed include:
- Baby Massage
- Breastfeeding Clinic
- Breast Pump Hire
- Cygnet
- Healthy Baby Group
- Introducing Solids Workshop
- Little Explorers
- Little Talkers
- Stay and Play
- Triple P Parenting Course*
- You and Your Baby
- 1-2-1 Family Work
District councillors and East Thanet MP Polly Billingtonare s among those calling for the county council to reconsider the decision following the government funding award for family hubs and the Start for Life programme. That funding is aimed at supporting families and children across Kent to access early years support such as help with pregnancy, infant feeding advice, parenting classes and other support.
Ms Billington said: “The centre may no longer be threatened with closure this year, but what Kent is proposing would likely still see vital services including parent and toddler classes, infant feeding support, safeguarding and child protection, housing support, and childcare for adult education students closed for good at Millmead.
“Our new Labour government is reversing fourteen years of Tory cuts to family support services, and is providing Kent with more than £4 million to support family hubs this year. I haven’t changed my view that Kent County Council could save Millmead if they wanted to, and are still choosing not to.”
KCC says the extra family hub funding announcement had ‘insufficient detail’ and was a one-off award that must be spent in the next financial year and so is for “continued transformation not continued funding of existing facilities.”
‘Financial challenges’
A KCC decision document says: “The financial challenges faced by the Council cannot be ignored. The Council has statutory duties to deliver a balanced budget, provide statutory services, including adult social care and children’s services, and secure value for money in all spending decisions. There is a clear financial driver for this decision.
“The second driver of this decision is the current imbalance in the Family Hub delivery model across Kent and the resultant duplication of costs for the Council. Currently there are 50 Family Hub sites across the county, including within Swale and Thanet, which are staffed by KCC Family Hub practitioners. These centres provide Family Hub services for families in Kent staffed and funded from the CYPE base budget.
“By providing Family Hub services from these two independent centres there is an imbalance in the delivery model as these are the only two centres where services are externally commissioned. These centres link in with partners such as Health and VCS organisations.
“However the links to other KCC ICS/Early Help services are not as strong as within the rest of the KCC in-house network. We are also duplicating cost in terms of management (each District in Kent has a KCC District Manager for example), HR, IT and finance support through the commissioning of the two centres.
“The commissioned Family Hub contracts cost the council £426k per annum. Analysis shows that the current Family Hub service delivers 14 hours of activity per week at Seashells and 9 hours of activity per week at Millmead that are directly commissioned under the contract.
“These hours can be accommodated at the alternative sites identified (Sheppey Gateway for Seashells and the three nearby in-house Family Hubs in Margate for Millmead).”
The Scrutiny Committee will discuss the issue at its meeting tomorrow.
A very impressive list of the Sure Start services at Millmeads – for one of the most deprived areas in Kent.
Given the agreed changeover to Unitary authorities in Kent, KCC could show a bit of humanity and save Millmeads and Seashells until it disappears and let the new Unitary authorities make the final decision!
There is Gauche caviar Polly-the MP who after saying how horrendous the two child cap a lot of the people at Surestart are deprived by & how Labour were going to scrap it, then a week later went & voted to keep it in place-to keep the poorest poor, while picking up ‘freebie’ concert tickets from megacorps.
Still, useful publicity/photo op for her. Just like her government with the WASPI women they used for their own purposes, made promises to & then dumped like garbage when they got into power & tried to delete the evidence from their social media platforms they had proudly paraded for years.
Hi Suspended! Did you see Paratrooper Polly on the box yesterday (Politics Live) extolling the virtue of the Capitalist Free Market which will magically produce “Growth” to rejuvenate all of our Public Services! I can remember when Labour were a Democratic Socialist party, now they reckon they can run capitalism better than the Tory’s, Duuurh!
Dumpton , well said
I turn the telly over/off whenever I see any Labour politican now-they turn my stomach. Their latest wheeze is wanting to force people watching streaming services only to pay the BBC licence fee.
Barry and Jan have carried omout a long and highly strategic campaign to try and save the millmead family hub . They are representing the people of Dane Valley who have shown themselves to be concerned citizens who value this service. It is a very well used service. My question is. Why?
Why do we have to fight every level of government to just keep our much valuesd,well used, highly effective, essential services.? It was in 2018 that Dane Valley was denied permission by TDC to be represented when a House of Lords working group visited Thanet. They were looking at the regeneration of coastal towns.The best we could do was to submit written evidence. Thanet has been denied its fair share of resources for long enough
what amazes me is KCC spend stupid money on a scheme to make a single lane for buses and taxis getting into the hospital and causing tailback for anyone else on the straight ahead lane who want to get into qeqm. This is a big total waste of money and whoever thought this was a good scheme should be made to pay for it