Newport "Excellent" - But Axe Falls Nevertheless | "Hundreds of families being cheated"

12.00.00am GMT Thu 12th Nov 2009

Hundreds of children to lose out in Newport as Welsh Government 'accountancy' rule strikes

Despite being described as "delivering excellent services" Newport City Council faces being penalised by the Minister for Education over its efficient delivery of the praised pioneer support scheme for families with young children. A row over the Flying Start programme has led a local Assembly Member to accuse the Welsh Assembly Government of 'cheating hundreds of children in the City".

In an exchange today in the National Assembly, between Michael German AM and Jane Hutt, Minister for Education , it emerged nearly five hundred children aged four and under will no longer be able to take part in the Flying Start scheme being delivered in the city's most needy areas, described by Mr. German as a 'fantastic scheme'.

The scheme helps families bring up young children in the poorest of areas of Wales by offering part-time childcare, health visits, parenting programmes: focusing on individual needs of each family.

In Newport the City Council and its dedicated teams have provided the supported service package with greater than anticipated efficiency, allowing the Council to extend the pioneering and popular scheme to an extra five hundred more families than expected in the original calculations.

Mr. German, Liberal Democrat Member for South Wales East, asked the Minister to reveal what evidence there was, if any, that Newport had not delivered the Flying Start programme to the Government's required standard. He said, "the Government have told Newport to axe support to an extra 500 children just because the Council have been super efficient. It's providing excellent value for public money, offering services to more children and families for less per head than accountants forecasted in Cardiff Bay".

"This is the worst example of top-down government. Hundreds of parents are being told there's 'no more room at the inn' for absolutely no reason. The Minister should recognise right now that decisions are best taken by the people on the ground in Newport delivering the Flying Start programme. They should be making the choices - not out-of-touch civil servants stuck in Cardiff."

Ed Townsend, Deputy Leader of Newport City Council, commented: "Flying Start makes a big difference to families and children in our communities. Because of an accountant's spreadsheet, Newport is being penalised for getting the most out of public money, exactly the thing Government is telling Councils they must do."

He added, "We've been forced to make a terrible choice for no reason: we had two choices about how to cut back the number of children to benefit from Flying Start: remove families living in the "least most deprived" wards or make a selection based on postcodes. We chose the later. This will mean a family on one side of a road may lose out because their postcode is lumped in with a road that does not qualify - all to satisfy the Government's accountants."