Meeting documents

To consider this report on revenue budget proposal CAF14b.

The Committee considered this report that set out details of the proposed consultation regarding saving proposal CAF14b. This proposal had been approved at the September meeting of the Cabinet and the Committee had requested more information about the next steps before the scheduled Cabinet decision next February.

It was explained that the purpose of the consultation would be to understand the impact of the Council no longer providing services for children with additional needs (at level 2 of the Effective Support for Children and Families in Somerset guidance), and how best the Council, as the lead agency, could ensure effective early help across the partnership in future.

It was reported that the target audience of the consultation would be partners, staff and families. During the consultation period Officers would provide briefing notes to staff, attend targeted focus groups and attend as many other partner events as possible such as Head teacher briefings, and early years partnership meetings. Paper copies would be made available at all children’s centres and libraries and the consultation would be available online and promoted through social media channels.

The Committee encouraged Officers to ensure that information was provided in as wide a variety of locations as possible to allow for maximum participation and response of service users as not all those using the services would have access to computers/internet.

It was requested that a report be provided at a future meeting and officers also recommended that officers reconsider the length of the proposed consultation period as the 8 weeks included the two weeks of the Christmas holidays.