Flintshire children’s services face wave of closures this spring
A cluster of early years support services in Flintshire is closing or cutting provision this spring, a North Wales MS has told the Senedd, warning that vulnerable families will be left without support.
Mark Isherwood MS (Conservative, North Wales) raised the issue during the Senedd’s weekly business statement on Tuesday, naming four organisations affected by what he described as Flintshire County Council’s budget pressures.
“One of my daughters works at Home-Start Flintshire,” he told members.
“They provide indispensable early stage intervention and prevention support for families with at least one child under the age of 11.”
Mr Isherwood said the council is replacing Home-Start’s provision with a council-run crisis service, with Home-Start forced to stop supporting children aged over two.
The council told him the decision was necessary “to ensure they can continue to meet needs within the constraints of available funding.”
The Flintshire families disability service, operated by Action for Children, is also closing on 31 March, he said.
As patron of Your Space (Marches), which provides support for children and young people with autism spectrum conditions and their families, Mr Isherwood said the organisation was forced to close last month.
He also told the Senedd that Cerebral Palsy Cymru is turning away babies “for the first time in their 32-year history.”
Mr Isherwood said the Welsh Government’s Finance Cabinet Secretary had ignored warnings. “The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language ignored warnings that this would happen,” he said. “These families will now be forced to rely on statutory services, escalating to crisis at far higher cost to health and social services.”
Jane Hutt MS, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Trefnydd, said early years investment is essential and pointed to the Flying Start programme. “There is no question that investment in early years is vital,” she said.
She made no reference to any of the services named by Mr Isherwood.
She said the Welsh Government budget “gives more funding to local government to enable them to continue to invest in those services that are so vitally important for our children and young people.” She added that it was “a budget that you didn’t support.”
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