Agenda and decisions

Salford City Council - Record of Decision

I, Councillor Cammell, Lead Member for Children’s Services, in exercise of the powers contained within the City Council Constitution do hereby approve: The grant allocation spend for Salford CVS, Northern Care Alliance, Manchester Foundation Trust and Trafford & Salford Home Start to support Salford’s Family Hubs Start for Life Delivery Plan.

The Reasons are:

·         In the summer 2022, Salford was confirmed as one of the 75 upper tier Local Authorities (LA) selected to be eligible for funding to deliver the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme.

·         The programme is jointly overseen by the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and aims to enable LAs to transform services into a Family Hub model. It also includes new investment for essential services in the crucial Start for Life period from conception to age two, and services which support parents to care for and interact with their children

·         In October 2022, DfE confirmed Salford’s inclusion in the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme and a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was completed on the 13^th October 2022.

·         Salford is eligible for up to £3.79m funding between 2022-2025, to support delivery through the main Family Hubs and Start for Life programme

·         In December 2022, DfE confirmed that Salford was selected as a trailblazer in the areas of perinatal mental health and parent, infant relationships, infant feeding, and parenting support. Trailblazer status meant an additional funding allocation of £183k on top of our existing funding allocation for the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme.

·         The total funding available to Salford to support the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme and Trailblazer activity is £3.97m over the period 2022-2025.

Options considered and rejected were:Not Applicable

Assessment of Risk:

Due to change in government ministers there has already been significant delays in the funding being allocated and received by Salford City Council. 

Challenges in identifying the most appropriate governance to manage the draw-down of the ring-fenced grant and allocate to relevant partners have resulted in further delays. This means there is risk that delivery for children, young people and their families is delayed and unspent DfE grant funding may be clawed back.

This creates a risk is that Salford will not be able to deliver the Family Hubs Start for Life program as per agreed plan and Salford children, young people and their families.

The source of funding is: DfE Family Hubs & Start for Life Grant

Equality Impact Assessment: N/A

Legal Advice obtained:Claire Incledon – Interim Head of Governance

The decision is for SCC to agree to manage the draw-down of ring-fenced grants under the DfE family hub funding programme for delivery partners.

None of the allocations suggest that the Council will be incurring significant expenditure from its budget lines, and following the legal advice therefore these are not key decisions. As non-key decisions the financial threshold is not applicable  ...  view the full decision text for item 3a