page 14


BUDGET // ER Magazine


• Parents are supported to provide a safe, healthy and nurturing environment for their families.


1


• Our young children are healthy, active and included.


• Our young children are safe and cared for. In 2014/15, East Renfrewshire Council is investing


around £14m in giving our youngest and most vulnerable children the best start in life. We will support over 2200 children through our 18 pre-five establishments, in addition to partner providers, at a cost of £6.2m. We are investing a further £7.3m in children and families services including child protection, looked after children, children with disabilities and other children and families who are most in need of support. Through our £800k early years change fund we are continuing to develop a number of leading-edge local projects that connect young families with their wider community, support parents and children to learn and play together, build strong emotional bonds, and ensure young children are happy and healthy and supported to develop the skills needed to succeed at school. Between 2015 and 2018 we intend to make a


total of £1.1m savings in this area. 75% of this will be delivered by changing how we do things internally, through efficiencies such as redesigning our structures and processes, introducing agile working to support social work staff to be more productive, and by reducing internal support services and management costs as well as some minor increases in charges. We are also changing how we procure services such as fostering by growing our own network of foster families here in East Renfrewshire. The main areas where further savings can be made are:


The Early Years Change Fund: £200,000 The Early Years Change Fund was set up to target investment to where it makes the most difference, by supporting prevention and early intervention through local, community based projects. Since 2013/14 we have invested in the Early Years Change Fund to fundamentally change how we support young children and their families, particularly those who are vulnerable. Our investment has funded a number of projects in the Auchenback area of Barrhead, and wider community programmes that promote positive parenting and support health visitor contact with young families. As this work becomes embedded in our core funding we believe we can reduce the development funding by £200k towards the end of the three year budget period.


Provision of Childcare Training and Information: £133,000 Our childcare training and information team is responsible for supporting staff in nurseries and schools (including partner providers) to gain further professional qualifications and for providing childcare information to local parents. We intend to redesign how we will provide childcare information by enhancing our online information resource, and wiith support from our Customer First Team. We will continue to provide our staff with training and guidance through existing senior staff within our pre-five services and partners in Further Education.


Early Years All children in East Renfrewshire experience a stable and secure start to their lives and are supported to succeed.


Supporting Family Learning: £125,000 As part of our preventative work, our Family Friendly approaches in our nurseries and our partnership work with Health Visiting are succeeding in engaging children and their parents to learn and play together. We are proposing to continue to support families through these approaches and reduce the need for intervention by our Family Learning Team.


End of Free Fruit Initiative in Nurseries: £25,000 As part of our focus on encouraging healthy eating, we currently provide free fruit three days per week to all our nursery children. This is a non-statutory service that the council has continued to protect in recent years. It is now our intention to end this service. Some children will receive fruit as part of a nursery lunch and we will continue to work with our nursery providers, parents and local supermarkets with the aim of establishing Fruit Funds in our most deprived areas.


Between 2015 and 2018 we intend to make a total


of £8m of savings in this area. 50% of this saving will be delivered by changing how we do things internally, through efficiencies such as redesigning our internal structures and processes and by reducing the support services that have previously been available to our schools. Further efficiencies will be made through changing how we procure certain services such as specialist therapies and school transport. We are also increasing our charges in line with inflation, with the exception of an additional charge for music tuition and an increase in the charge for Sports Pitch Lets described below. The remaining 50%, almost £3.9m of savings will


be delivered by redesigning our services and by removing some of the services that we currently provide as follows:


Primary School savings


Management and Pupil Support Structures: £446,000 This proposal will redesign how management responsibilities and responsibility for pupil support are absorbed by teaching staff within our primary schools, and will reduce the number of teachers who have these specific responsibilities as part of their role. Whilst this is a significant change, we believe that there is some scope to manage this redesign without a negative impact on how we operate our schools and continue to support both pupils and teachers. We would distribute our remaining promoted staff and additional teaching time allocated for pupil support fairly across our primary schools based on pupil numbers and need.


• Children are confident, effective learners and achieve their full potential.


2


• Children and young people raise their educational attainment and achievement, developing the skills they need during their school years and into adulthood.


• Residents have the skills for employment through increased take up of education and training opportunities.


• Residents are active and optimise their health and wellbeing.


In 2014/15, East Renfrewshire Council is investing


more than £100m in this area. This will include an investment of £33m in Primary Education, £48m in Secondary Education and £5.6m supporting children who need additional support. We will provide education and care for around 16,300 children, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential, building on another record-breaking year of attainment where our schools top the league tables. We will also invest £0.5m in adult and family education. We recognise that education and wellbeing does not end at school and a further £4.5m will be invested in libraries, sports and arts services to make sure we provide a wide range of local cultural and leisure opportunities so that all local people can remain fit and healthy, and enjoy their downtime in East Renfrewshire.


Life, learning and work East Renfrewshire residents are fit and active and have the skills for learning, life and work.


Classroom Assistants: £134,000 Classroom Assistants (Pupil Support Assistant/PSA) were introduced to support teachers in class to help maximise teaching time. Following a nationally-led review into teachers’ terms and conditions, further scope has been identified to enable teachers to undertake additional tasks presently carried out by Classroom Assistants. This will mean the current ratio of 1 assistant to every 125 pupils will increase to 1 to every 150 pupils, reducing the number of Classroom Assistants.


End of Free Fruit Initiative for P1 to P3: £98,000 All children P1 to P3 are to receive a free school lunch from 2015 and this meal will include fruit for each child. On that basis we are proposing to remove the current provision of our free fruit in our primary schools (P1 to P3). The end of the free fruit initiative in P4 to P7 in school session 2014/15 has already been approved.


Breakfast Clubs: £175,000 This saving will involve the removal of the subsidy provided to privately operated providers who include breakfast as part of their service (2 clubs), and will also result in the removal of all council operated breakfast clubs (including the removal of free breakfasts for certain P1-P3 pupils). Breakfast clubs are not uniformly provided across East Renfrewshire and removing the council’s investment will mean that it will be up to private providers to establish if the existing clubs remain viable and if new services can be provided. The breakfast provision element of this saving can be partially mitigated by the introduction of free school meals for all P1 to P3 children.


Outcome


Outcome


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8