Children's centres
Children's Centres offer services for children and families, providing early years education and childcare, health services and family support, all under one roof.
They are a service hub within the community for parents and providers of childcare services for children of all ages - offering a base for childminder networks and a link to other day care provision, out of school clubs and extended schools.
They provide a warm, welcoming atmosphere where families are provided with services that help them: be healthy; stay safe; enjoy and achieve; make a positive contribution; achieve economic well being.
Children's Centres also have links with local training and education providers, Jobcentre Plus and Families' Information Services.
Children's Centres Commissioning
There are some changes happening in the way that Children's Centres are managed. Calderdale Council Members have said that they want to keep the current number of Centres and outreach centres, but that independent organisations should have a chance to bid to run these from 2013 onwards
This will give providers more flexibility to create and innovate, and this might help the centres to become outstanding in the future.
Commissioning the centres this way will help deliver better value for money and maintain quality services in the current difficult financial climate.
It will mean that the Council is in line with good practice about giving local organisations the chance to bid to deliver services they think they could run better than the Council, building on the new rights that local organisations have under the Localism Act 2011|
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The new commissioned arrangements will be in place by October 2013.
For more information about the process, and answers to Frequently Asked Questions, please see the Children's Centres Commissioning Leaflet [PDF file 350KB]|
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The Council is currently inviting any organisations interested in bidding to deliver Children's Centres services to express an interest. If you are interested in bidding, then you will need to complete a Pre Qualification Questionnaire, which must be requested by emailing tony.loughman@calderdale.gov.uk.
Please note that the deadline for returning Pre Qualification Questionnaires is 12.00 noon, Friday 8 February 2013.
Thank you very much to everyone who took part in this consultation. The consultation has now closed. The views that people gave, along with the results of previous consultations carried out by the Centres themselves, are being analysed.
A report on the consultation will be available on this site. This will give a summary of what people said, and how this information has been used.
Change of timescale
There is now a delay in the procurement process for the Calderdale Children's Centres. The Council needs to ensure that the specification required for inclusion in the subsequent tender documents is comprehensive and deals adequately with the Council's requirements.
To allow for this, the timescales of the Children's Centres commissioning are being reviewed. The invitation to tender will not now be issued by the end of March 2013, and this might mean changes to other parts of the schedule.
The revised timescales will be published here when they are available.
For more information about this process, please contact:
- Name:
- Sarah Manfredi
- Email:
- sarah.manfredi@calderdale.gov.uk
- Telephone:
- 01422 392555
- Mobile:
- 07540 669488
- Address:
- Children and Young People's Services
Calderdale Council
Northgate House
Halifax HX1 1UN
The information leaflet is available in large print and as a Word document.
