Exeter Councillors criticise children's home plans
Criticisms have been raised by county councillors from Exeter on provisional plans to close the three children’s homes operated by Devon county Council.
Funding for the council’s three homes, Rifford Road, Blossom Hill and Birchen lane has been included in the proposed cuts despite consultation on the issue yet to be carried out; leading some councillors to feel the decision to close the homes has already been made.
Criticisms were also raised over the fate of the youth services and children’s centres which provide a number of services to parents of young children after a document discussing their future appeared on the council website last night.
Cllr Jill Owen asked the cabinet to review these proposals in today’s joint scrutiny meeting: “We know this all about saving money but as Andy [Hannan] has said it’s a bit debatable to how much money in future you would be saving by closing these three homes.
“We are asking you to take very seriously the proposal that we do retain one of those homes [Blossom Corner] and visit that perhaps Cllr Mumford would visit that home to see the very homely and non-institutional environment that happens there.”
Council leader John Hart, responding to questions on the Children’s homes from Exeter councillors Andy Hannan and Jill Owen said: “I’m not going to get into a debate here today about what we’re going to do with children’s homes and that is right.
Until we have a consultation we won’t have an answer the same goes for the youth service on all sides. It was a mistake when one page of working document was left on the website yesterday. Soon as it was realised it was taken off.
“This was a snag unfortunately of IT and all that goes with it. Sometimes somebody pushes the wrong button.”
Two of the homes are already unoccupied and have been for some time with the Birchen Lane home having no child residents due to an ongoing child sex exploitation probe surrounding the home.
the Rifford Road home in Exeter has also been unoccupied since concerns were raised by, Ofsted last August, over the “excessive and inappropriate use of restraint”.
However the Blossom Corner home in Beacon Heath, which was rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted, also faces closure despite concerns that children’s homes provide a vital service to some children for whom fostering would be inappropriate.
It is understood that around 40 staff are involved in all three homes run by the council.
Cllr Jill Owen said: “There has been quite a lot of rhetoric right at the beginning about our valuable staff and about how we appreciate all their efforts and our group would join in with those comments of course but what I would add is that this grim budget that we are now discussing will cause a lot of compulsory redundancies.
“I think this is a very sad day because i know several, of a long list of, highly valuable officers who are now losing their jobs and i hope we’d all join in expressing our regret over this.”
“It’s such a grim budget that its quite difficult to know what to highlight, or low light, because there is so much.”
