Agenda item

[Mai Gibbons, HeadStart Contracts Manager, to present report]

Mai Gibbons, HeadStart Contracts Manager, presented a briefing based on the findings of the HeadStart Sustainability Consultation report. The HeadStart Contracts Manager outlined the five key sustainability priorities when funding from The Big Lottery ends in 2021.

The HeadStart Contracts Manager advised the panel that as part of sustainability planning work a consultant had been appointed to help determine which parts of the current programme could continue in the future, the challenges in trying to do this and the views from a range of stakeholders about the impact of the work. The briefing includes a summary of the main findings from the local evaluation. A copy of the full final report will be circulated to the Scrutiny Panel members for information.

The HeadStart Contracts Manager advised the panel that Big Lottery have commissioned a formal national evaluation to assess the impact and learning from all six partnerships that have been funded to 2021.

The HeadStart Contracts Manager outlined the five key priorities agreed by members of the HeadStart Partnership Board that would be taken forward as the sustainability plan for HeadStart. The HeadStart Contracts Manager outlined the progress made to date against the key priorities.

The panel queried if any of the local community or voluntary organisations could apply for funding from other lottery funded sources to continue their work. Emma Bennett, Director for Children's Services, advised the panel that discussions have been held with representatives of Big Lottery regionally to consider joining up other funding opportunities. The plan will be to facilitate future funding bids for the voluntary sector rather than applying for individual bids. The panel expressed concern about the progress of consortiums signing agreements and whether they would be ready to submit funding bids to sustain their funding in the future. The Director for Children's Services advised the panel that there was confidence that the necessary progress would be made by the remaining consortiums to have an agreement signed. The panel were advised that smaller organisations would be involved in submitting a funding bid led by larger organisations. This approach would ensure that they would be part of the bid and have specific funding allocated to them if successful.

The panel queried the involvement of schools and expressed concern about the ability of schools to contribute funding to either continue current funding or to apply the learning from the evaluation of the HeadStart programme. The Director for Children's Services advised the panel that the service is aware of the financial challenges facing schools and other options are being considered to build on the work of the programme. Discussions are ongoing with headteachers involved about the development of a toolkit for schools.

The panel thanked HeadStart Contracts Manager for the briefing papers.

Resolved:

1.    The panel welcomed the progress reported and agreed to receive an update on progress against the sustainability priorities in June 2020.

2.    HeadStart Contracts Manager to share a copy of the full HeadStart Sustainability Consultation report with the Scrutiny Panel for information, when published.