While the Lib Dem council isn't closing any of its 21 centres, staffing and provision look set to be decimated
Sure Start children's centres Hull Cut 50% (£9m to £4.4m)
At his party's conference earlier this month, Nick Clegg won a 10-second round of applause after telling of his pride that no Liberal Democrat-led council would be closing any children's centres.
Parents in Hull, where staff numbers and provision is being slashed, may be less quick to congratulate him. True, none of the city's 21 children's centres will shut its doors. But at the end of next week 14 of them will fall victim to such drastic cuts that many are likely to end up being staffed by just a receptionist and a cleaner, according to union officials.
Of 244 workers across all the centres, some employed by the Lib Dem council and others by social enterprises contracted to run them, only 46 are likely to be kept on, according to Unison's estimates.
The 14 threatened centres, which will become "satellite" centres, were previously open full-time, offering services including toddler play, child development and parenting skills courses, job advice and access to family support workers, who give practical and emotional help to parents.
From next month, services will be provided mainly on a peripatetic basis by workers from the seven "hub" centres, where provision will remain unchanged. What's on offer at the satellites will be vastly reduced, staff say.
One of them, Bricknell children's centre, was officially opened only last month. Unison has accused the city council of effectively mothballing the centres; the council denies the claim, insisting that keeping them open but offering less is the best way to ensure they can be beefed up again when the financial climate improves.
But staff and those who use the centres say the cuts will inevitably leave parents in severely deprived areas without crucial support. Mother-of-three Sally Pattison, 30, starting using the Little Stars centre in east Hull after her second child, now five, was born. She has done courses in child development and first aid, taken her children to toddler groups and gained new skills and confidence from volunteering there.
"The centre was a lifeline for me," Pattison says. "I had severe postnatal depression when I had my first child. I didn't have any support and I didn't leave the house.
"I had postnatal depression with my other children, too, but because by then I was able to use the children's centre it was totally different. I knew I could go there and spend the day if I needed to, without feeling paranoid that people were judging me.
"People worry that if they ask a midwife or health visitor what seems like a stupid question, they're going to say: 'What are you doing having a child if you don't know that?'. But you know a family support worker won't judge you, so you're more likely to open up to them.
"Children are going to be taken away from toddler groups and taken away from their friends. It's just not on. And without these services, so many more children are going to end up in care, or worse, because these centres are really the front line. These cuts are an absolute disgrace. There's so much anger about it."Staff at the centres are having to reapply for their jobs. But sources said some may have chosen not to in part because they fear individual workers will be left with too much accountability.
"If people can't access centres on an open-house basis they might get missed," one staff member said. "We catch problems early on. Without that intervention families can jump from low-level concerns to really serious problems that will end up costing more down the line.
"And with less access to these centres more children will end up starting school at a disadvantage."
The leader of the council, Carl Minns, insisted services would still be available at the satellites. Discussions were ongoing and it was too early to say that the only permanent staff would be receptionists and cleaners, he said.
He rejected the idea that more children could slip through the net, saying research showed children's centres did not benefit the hardest to reach families.
But one worker said: "It's disgusting what they've done – they've just pulled the plug totally. I feel it's an accident waiting to happen."