This briefing updates you on the latest position with the council’s proposals for children’s services and its work with communities to identify local solutions for the delivery of open access services for children.

Children’s Centres & Early Intervention Hub Contract Extension

In February 2016 Cabinet approved the proposals for new arrangements for an integrated children’s social care and early intervention service to support children and families in Oxfordshire. It was recently announced that county council contracts for Oxfordshire’s children’s centres and early intervention hubs have been extended until 31 March 2017. This extension provides time for Cabinet to consider how to allocate an additional £2m that the council agreed not to cut from the early intervention services, when the budget was set in February.

A decision on how the additional £2m will be spent will be taken by Cabinet on 24 May. Information about the proposals is available on our website here, and we will be sending further updates after this decision is taken by Cabinet.

Community Engagement

The extension of contracts will give us more time to continue working with communities to develop the best possible local solutions for the continuation of open access services. We are now planning to host a community engagement event in November 2016, and any new community initiatives will likely be in place in March 2017.

We will shortly be updating our website, draft community framework and FAQs to reflect our new timeline. In the meantime we continue to welcome any enquiries from community groups who would be interested in continuing open access non-statutory services in their area.