- Conference
- 2011 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 21 October 2010
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes the disproportionate effects the cuts on public services will have on women, in particular cuts to Sure Start. Users of the services are almost exclusively women as are the staff employed.
Sure Start provides vital services such as Early Years play and development, family bonding, speech and language and family support services to families in their local areas.
Sure Start was originally aimed at the most deprived communities but in the last two years has become available to all families. This has meant that children and families from very different backgrounds have had the opportunity to integrate with each other which in turn has had a positive impact on the communities they live and work in and on their home life.
In the coalition document it stated that ‘We will take Sure Start back to its original purpose of early intervention, increase its focus on the neediest families. We will refocus funding from Sure Start peripatetic outreach services, and from the Department of Health budget, to pay for four thousand two hundred extra Sure Start health visitors’.
These two factors will have a huge detrimental effect on the families who use Sure Start services not to mention the impact it will have on public sector staff.
At present outreach services provide hand holding services, integration into communities and enable families to build confidence in themselves and access other services such as health, education and employment. This is a very different role to that offered by Health visitors and whilst we acknowledge the importance of the role of the health visitors and support the additional funding offered to increase the much needed increase in health visitors this should not replace that ouf the outreach worker it should be in addition to.
Whilst these two services work closely together they are two distinct services to integrate the role would be detrimental to the services provided.
In Newcastle of the local authority funded Sure Starts, there are fifty seven staff employed, fifty three of whom are women. Any proposed cuts would directly affect women, in additional to this six thousand, nine hundred and sixteen carers accessed the cities five Sure Start areas in the last year six thousand one hundred and forty one of those were women. Therefore any changes to the provision of Sure Start will have a huge impact on women.
The cuts to public services is a direct attack on women by the coalition government which is evidenced quite clearly in the above statistics. This coupled with the reform of the benefits system will leave our women members in a very vulnerable position.
Conference calls on the National Women’s Committee to:
1)Oppose the suggested changes to Sure Start
2)Promote and engage in the Shout out for a Sure Start campaign
3)Encourage branches and regions to support their local Sure Starts and engage with their members who work in these services
4)Liaise with Labour Link to raise this issue with sympathetic MPs
5)Encourage branches and regions to work with local community groups, local councillors and MPs to promote Sure Start services through local Public Services Alliances