View petition

Details
Response to petition

Title:	Open Tender Process For The Home-Visting Service 2015
Petition Overview:	Ensure that the service currently provided by Home-Start to meet the needs of families facing social isolation, mental health problems, disabilities and other issues that prevent them accessing other statutory services is tendered openly in 2015. County are currently recommending that no funding is made available for a 'Home-Visiting service' meaning many families in Hertfordshire will go unsupported. The recommendation is that the families currently supported by Home-Start and Home-Start volunteers will be absorbed by current statutory services such as Children Centres and Health Visitors who are already working to full capacity. To stop Hertfordshire from losing this vital Home-Visiting service please show your support by signing below
Relevant Area(s):	Not Specified
Opening Date:	26/06/2015
closing Date:	13/07/2015
Signatures:	2315
Petitioner Name:	Home-Start Hertfordshire

In recent years, there has been ongoing development of children’s centres along with the expansion of free nursery education for two, three and four year olds and the expansion of the health visiting service. As a result of this increased support for young children and their families, Hertfordshire County Council (the Council) believes that it is no longer the best use of taxpayers’ money to continue to fund the provision of services in parents’ homes as well. Therefore a recommendation was approved by Cabinet on 15th July 2015 not to retender the current contract for the home visiting service – currently with Home-Start – when it expires in September 2015. The contract provides £391,000 of funding to support 270 families a year – this is £1,448 per family or £16.50 an hour of support. In April 2015 the Council recommissioned its children’s centre programme, retaining all 82 of its original children’s centres. Hertfordshire children’s centres reach over 90% of children aged under five years, and are in contact with over 75% of those families. They offer support to all Hertfordshire families, and they are able to do this for £170 per child, with qualified staff costing approximately £14 an hour. A recent evaluation of families’ key needs has shown that they can be addressed by provision already in place at children’s centres. The partnership agreement between children’s centres and the health visiting service means that regular local meetings identify vulnerable families and agree the appropriate support to meet their needs. As all families are contacted by the universal health visiting service this helps to ensure no family slips through a gap. A further recommendation agreed by Cabinet is for the Council to provide £200,000 of transition funding to Home-Start so that families who are currently receiving support will continue to do so until they reach a suitable point at which they are ready to receive alternative support. This funding will also provide support to the nine Home Start schemes to develop new business models and their volunteer workforce during this transition period. We hope that the Home-Start schemes will still be sustainable, accessing funding from other sources. We are, therefore, confident that families in Hertfordshire will still be able to access support from Home-Start, from their local children’s centre or from other community-based services. The Council fully recognises the contribution of the Home-Start volunteers who provide thousands of hours of their own time to support families in need. We want to retain the existing volunteers and our children’s centres will be encouraged to work with them to explore opportunities for continuing their volunteering work to support local families. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee are reviewing this decision on the 10th August 2015 following a call in by Members.

Name	Type	How we use it	How long we use the information for
ASP.Net_Sessions	Required functionality	An automatic cookie set by our software.	Just for the time you are on our website.
ServerID	Required functionality	An automatic cookie set by our software.	Just for the time you are on our website.
_ga	Required functionality	To track the effectiveness of our website using Google Analytics.	2 years
saved-pages	Performance and feature	To save the pages that you visit by clicking the heart at the top of the page.	1 month
geoPostcode	Performance and feature	This stores your postcode (or partial postcode) when we ask you for your location.	Just for the time you are on our website or 30 days (you choose this).
geoCoordinates	Performance and feature	This stores your location as a pair of latitude / longitude coordinates.	Just for the time you are on our website or 30 days (you choose this).
reckonerName-history	Performance and feature	This keeps a history of all answers submitted to the ready reckoner.	This is set in the control for each ready reckoner. If you haven't interacted with the ready reckoner for the set amount of days, the cookies are deleted.
reckonerName-content	Performance and feature	This keeps a history of what content cards are clicked on when using the ready reckoner.	This is set in the control for each ready reckoner. If you haven't interacted with the ready reckoner for the set amount of days, the cookies are deleted.
SQ_SYSTEM_SESSION	Required functionality	This used to track user sessions on forms hosted on eservices.hertfordshire.gov.uk	Just for the time you are on our website.

Service name	Purpose	More information
Google analytics (_utma/b/c/z)	These are used to compile reports for us on how people use this site. Cookies of the same names are also used for the same purpose by other websites such as Building Futures, Countryside Management Service and Hertfordshire LIS.	Visit the Google Analytics website for more information about the cookies they use. You can prevent data from being collected and used by Google Analytics by installing Google's Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Google Translation - googtrans	This cookie is used to remember which language to translate each page into if you have chosen to do so.	It expires at the end of your browser session.
Bing	We use a Bing cookie to track the success of our marketing campaigns and make them more efficient.	Visit Bing to find out more about their cookies.
Google	We use a Google cookie to track the success of our marketing campaigns and make them more efficient.	Visit Google to find out more about their cookies.
Facebook	We have a number of presences on Facebook, which we may link to. Facebook may set some of its own cookies if you follow these links.	Visit Facebook to find out more about their cookies.
Twitter	We have a number of presences and feeds on Twitter, which you may wish to follow or read from this website. Twitter may set some of its own cookies.	Visit Twitter to find out more about their cookies.
YouTube	We have a YouTube channel, which we may link to. YouTube may set some of its own cookies if you follow those links.	Visit YouTube to find out more about their cookies.
Netloan	This ASP.NET_Sessionid cookie is essential for the Netloan secure online payments website to work, and is set when you arrive to the site. This cookie is deleted when you close your browser.
HotJar	This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels.	Visit HotJar to find out more about their cookies.
Siteimprove	These cookies are set to help us report on how people are using the site so we can improve it.	Visit Siteimprove to learn more about their cookies.

View petition

Rate this page

Cookies

Why do we use cookies?

How do I change my cookie settings?

Cookies we use

Third party cookies