Slough Conservatives face criticism over future of children's centres

Conservative cabinet members in Slough faced criticism from the Labour opposition as councillors voted on the future of children’s centres in the town.

At the first cabinet meeting of Slough Borough Council’s new administration on Wednesday, the opposition said the Conservatives had ‘lied’ and broken their manifesto pledge when deciding on how many children’s centres to retain and close.

Following a consultation on children’s centres between Friday, February 3 and Friday, March 17, it was

recommended that cabinet agrees to retain Chalvey Grove, Penn Road and Romsey Close as children’s centres with early years provision and for the Monksfield Way and Yew Tree Road centres to provide early years provision only.

Under the recommendation the five other sites would close from September.

At the meeting Cllr Paul Kelly (Con, Haymill) , the cabinet member for children’s services, welcomed the recommendation, and said: “The remodelling of the children’s centre services provides better value provision to our residents [and] increases the number of the centres now being kept open.

“[It is] a much better outcome for parents than what my predecessor originally proposed.

“This proposal also puts children at the centre of every decision that we make moving forward.

“In my opinion, the proposal tonight supports the results of the consultation that ran from early February through to the middle of March.”

The previous recommended option was to create a three-centre model by shutting seven of the 10 existing children’s centres.

Labour leader Cllr Pavitar K. Mann (Lab, Britwell) questioned the decision to retain childcare, but close the children’s centre in Britwell ‘given the high levels of need’ in the ward.

Both Cllr Mann and Cllr Christine Hulme (Lab, Herschel Park) criticised the council, stating the Conservatives were breaking their manifesto pledge to not close 70 per cent of children centres.

“This paper is closing 70 per cent of your children’s centres to retain two childcare provision centres, so at least let the electorate be clear. You’ve actually lied in your first election pledge,” Cllr Hulme said.

Cllr Iftakhar Ahmed (Con, Wexham Court) said: “It was their idea [Labour] that they would close down seven children’s centres out of 10 that we had.

“I think I’m fed up, the town as a whole is extremely concerned. We cannot take lectures from those people who have put us in this position in the first place and trying to lecture us that they know better than us.

“If they knew better then surely they wouldn’t have accumulated such a large sum of debt, hence the government has appointed three commissioners to oversee.”

Through this recommendation, full year savings of £462,000 are expected to be delivered from 2024/25 onwards.

Cabinet members voted unanimously in favour of the recommendation.