VOTE: Bolton children's services to face £10.5m in cuts (From This Is Lancashire)

VOTE: Bolton children's services to face £10.5m in cuts

9:04am Friday 19th March 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

BOLTON’s director of children’s services has guaranteed young people will not suffer as town hall chiefs look set to controversially sanction multi-million-pounds worth of cuts.

Margaret Asquith said: “I would have implemented these changes to improve outcomes for children and young people even if there wasn’t an efficiency drive.”

As the plans were revealed, Mrs Asquith stressed that streamlining and merging departments would make services more accessible to children and families. She said: “The changes, if the decision is taken to approve them, will integrate services, improve communication and give children and families one point of contact instead of many.”

On Wednesday, councillors are expected to approve the axing of 16.5 full-time equivalent posts across Bolton Council’s children services and embark on an efficiency drive to save £10.5 million over the next five years, with £1.839 million in the next financial year.

There will be no compulsory redundancies.

The director added changes, if recommendations were to be approved, would not take place until September to ensure staff had been trained.

But the plans have been attacked by the trade union Unison, which says children will be put at risk — a claim strongly disputed by council officers.

The department undertook a review of its youth and play services, the Connexions and education social work teams as part of moves to make financial savings and help a local authority budget that was under increasing pressure.

The posts of education social workers (ESW), who deal with children who are at risk of skipping school, are likely be scrapped.

Mrs Asquith said: “We have not acted on a whim, these proposals are evidence-based.

“They have been supported by schools and more than 60 per cent of young people have supported them through the consultation.”

She said key workers would instead be able to monitor children who do not attend school and pass on any information to social workers.

But Andrea Egan, Unison children’s convener, appealed to councillors to postpone their decision on Wednesday.

She said: “We can’t comment if these proposals will improve services because we have not been told how they will work in practice.”

Mrs Egan claimed that the scrapping of ESW posts could lead to children at risk not being identified by the authorities and said “key workers”, the numbers of which will increase, have not been trained for the ESW role.