Agenda item

Report of the Director of Children’s Services

The Board received a report and presentation of the Director of Children’s Services regarding Family Hubs and the Start for Life Programme.

Coventry City Council operated 8 Family Hubs to a deliver place-based integrated offer to families across the city, including the offer from the buildings, through an outreach model to communities and a developing digital offer.

Coventry City Council was selected in October 2023 to join the national Family Hub and Start for Life Programme with a financial investment to strengthen its offer to babies, children and families building on the achievements to date. The application was successful and trailblazer status was also awarded on 9.2.3023. Regular reports on this grant and the Family Hub and Start for Life programme were received by the Cabinet Member with responsibility for Children Services, and to the funders.

This programme awarded £4.27 million of grant funding across the 3 years 2022/23 to 2024/25 to deliver the programme objectives. 

Progress to date included:

• A Family Hub transformation programme team has been established as part of the delivery of the Early Help Strategy and a comprehensive delivery plan was in place.

• The Family Hub and Start for Life Programme Board oversees the work of each funded workstream, with workstream leads representing the partnership agencies and teams delivering on this programme.  The Public Health Consultant responsible for inequalities and Children currently attended and supported this board.

• Regular updates and reports were submitted to the Family Hub and Start for Life unit and quarterly data returns submitted on the reach of the programme.

• An outcome framework and logic model were in place, setting out the ambitions for the programme for Coventry and this was the basis of the internal evaluation of its impact.

• Coventry was required to take part in a national evaluation and a series of consultation and surveys were due to take place from January 2024 focusing on family experiences and satisfaction, and the workforce.  There would also be a 2-day case study fieldwork visit early March 2024 to cover 2 hubs including observations of family activities, staff focus group interviews and family interviews.

• Updates to the Children’s Senior leadership team and the Cabinet Member were provided on a regular basis.

• Headline progress was reported to the Early Help Strategic Partnership which was a subgroup of the Coventry Safeguarding Children Partnership and was responsible for the oversight of the Early Help Strategy. Updates had also been provided to a range of partnership forums such as the LMNS, and the Children and Young People System group (Coventry and Warwickshire).

• Due to the level of funding, investment of this programme and the scrutiny that it attracted, it was recommended to review and amend the governance arrangements to ensure all parties that signed the funding application were sighted on progress and could provide support to its ongoing success.

• The programme board currently oversaw operational aspects of the programme however, it had been recognised that a more strategic oversight should be in place to oversee progress and support the sustainability of the offer moving forward.

• Following discussion with senior leaders within the partnership, it was suggested that the governance for the programme could sit with the Health and Wellbeing Board as a partnership board that had the interest of all children in Coventry at its heart.

The proposed timeline for implementation of the new governance structures was the next financial year (2023 – 2024) which would then govern this programme until the end of the funded period which was the end of March 2025.

The Board asked questions, made comments and sought assurances on a number of issues, including performance management and key performance indicators and the need for them to be reported on.

RESOLVED that the Board:

1. Note the progress to date of the Family Hub and Start for Life programme.

Advises that governance proposals would be shared with the Board for review and discussed at the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting