It’s official – Hampshire and the Isle of Wight will stop working together to provide children’s services on the Island, after a decade-long partnership.
The Isle of Wight Council will now build its own children’s service department, with new leaders, but ‘buy-back’ services from Hampshire County Council to ensure a smooth transition.
Senior Island Councillors agreed on Thursday that the current partnership agreement will end on 31st January 2024 and all parts of the service, including education, will be brought back under the authority’s control.
The joint working began when the Isle of Wight Council’s children’s services offer was rated inadequate by Ofsted, but it has since been rated good. The Council had considered providing all services itself but felt it would not have enough time to set up suitable replacements.
It has not ruled out providing its own services in the future, once stable and robust leadership is in place and it is viable to do so.
The authority spends around £2million delivering its current service and has said it would be able to employ a new leadership team and the ‘buy-back’ services with the same funding envelope.
The ‘buy-back’ services which would come from Hampshire County Council include access to the multi-agency safeguarding hub and school improvement services. It would be for a minimum of 12 months to allow a smooth transition to take place and new arrangements established, providing a ‘stable environment for service delivery’.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Councillor Lora Peacey-Wilcox, council leader and cabinet member for education, thanked the staff for working so quickly, after Hampshire announced its intention in July, giving only 6 months to find solutions.
Cabinet member for children’s education, Cllr Debbie Andre, said the Council was in a stronger position now than it was a decade ago and this was an opportunity to look at the services and shape them to what is right for the Island.
More money wasted on extra staff then and not the facilities that will be needed. Typical hot air from this council. If normal people didn’t have to work all hours they can to even live, there would be riots outside county hall.
Stop the inbreeding.It will save a lot of resources.
“Isle of Wight Council’s children’s services offer was rated inadequate by Ofsted”. That bodes well for the future.
I hope that this council is soon taken over by central government for being utterly unfit for purpose. There is no justifiable reason for paying double the council tax paid in most areas of the country only to receive absolutely terrible services. Where does all of our money go? Is it all stolen by Island Roads for providing abysmal roads? Is it all being squandered on “investment properties” that people of the island do not want their money wasted on? All we want is the adequate provision of basic services in a reliable manner but all we get is dithering and waste.
Much like the NHS you cannot keep throwing money at something so inefficient, needs taking apart and putting back together, get rid of all these people paid huge sums of money and don’t even know what their job is. Get people in that know how to write cost incentivised Contracts so we get value for money (unlike the one with Island Roads).
In children’s services, millions can be spent on one child in its residential care (£5,000 per week x 52 = £260,000 per year for 8 years that’s over £2million while other children struggling with poverty and working poor parents are sent to food banks and B&B when they loose their home as can’t pay rent or mortgage etc. So much for fairness. How many children in residential care ? due to lack of support and poverty forced neglect?.
£5000 per week! You are making it up again Freddie.
I will take a few in for residential care. My garage can fit four easily = £20,000 per week by your reckoning. I can then retire as a a millionaire after a year
Just Google it ” , according to the Competition and Markets Authority. 2021 – Average prices are £4,865 a week for a local Authority child, This is up from about £3,000 in 2016 and prices are rising week by week, councils say, as providers cite the cost of food, petrol and energy…..”
Some are over £10,000 per week. Foster care is around £1200 / £1500 per week. It’s not secret.
Excuse me! I’m a foster carer and we get less than a quarter of that amount. We only get one, 1 hour visit or less per month from a social worker, so God alone knows what the rest is spent on. I’ve been asking politicians this question for years but just get a load of gobbledygook. Foster care does not cost £12-£1500 per week, any idiot can work that out, but that is the amount of our money that is disappearing into mysterious holes. I promise you, the children and their carers don’t see it!
https://www.islandecho.co.uk/lack-of-care-places-on-the-island-sees-vulnerable-kids-sent-as-far-as-scotland/
If you Google it you will see now placement can be £20,000 plus per week now.
My jaw just hit the floor!
Pointless when the Council go bankrupt and the whole lot is taken over by Central Government!