Newham Council is launching a consultation to help decide how to best direct vital resources within the children and young people’s budget to provide the best offer for its young people.
The Mayor’s aspiration is that every child and young person in Newham should have the opportunity to discover and develop their talents, to achieve personal growth and excellence, and have access to a rich variety of cultural and creative experiences.
The current cultural offer to young people delivered through the Every Child programme incorporates music, theatre-going, sport and chess.
The council also delivers the Eat for Free programme, which ensures that all the borough’s primary school children have access to a free hot lunch.
Currently the council spends £2.5m on the Every Child programme, of which the vast majority (90 per cent) is spent on the Every Child a Musician (ECaM) element.
Additional to the curriculum, it provides free musical provision in Newham’s primary schools. It reaches around 12,500 children per year. It also gifts a free musical instrument for each child in Year 6.
The council faces a major challenge to deliver the Mayor’s aspiration of a broad and inclusive cultural offer to young people.
Since 2010, Newham has had to continually find savings as funding from central government has been reduced.
- In 2016/17 Newham received £172.7million from government
- In 2019/20 that will fall to £145.8 million - a reduction of £26.9million, or 15.6 per cent
- This means the council has to find £14.5m savings in the next year (2019/20) to achieve a balanced budget, rising to £27m in savings by 2022.
In the face of continued budget pressure, the council must make sure that its services are delivering its stated aspirations whilst ensuring programmes are delivering the best value for money.
Cllr Julianne Marriott, cabinet member for education said: “We have to balance priorities at a time of extreme cuts to council budgets. We must make sure every pound we spend has the maximum impact and best outcomes for all our young people. There is more evidence that a universal offer of a free hot meal has a huge impact of children’s learning, physical health as well as tackling poverty. There isn’t the same evidence base for ECaM.
“This consultation is a real opportunity for our schools, young people, parents and education professionals to shape what our new cultural offer is so that it really meets the needs of our children and young people.
“I would encourage people to take part in this consultation so we can hear as many views as possible.”
Council services are made up of statutory duties, which it legally has to provide, and discretionary services, which the council is not required by law to provide, but deliver additional benefits to residents.
Every Child is a discretionary service, which is provided in addition to education provision in Newham.
Research by University College London has highlighted that although stakeholders (children, tutors, parents, and some head teachers) were positive about their experiences with ECaM, there did not appear to be a link to educational attainment and there was also no significant relationship to children’s wider sense of happiness and wellbeing.
Research evidence and feedback from schools (including a working group) on the Every Child a Musician programme indicates that while it delivers some benefits, it is not achieving the best outcomes for children and costs over £2m a year.
With that in mind, the council is proposing to prioritise those programmes where there is stronger evidence of the benefits, including the Eat for Free programme.
An additional £1.2m is needed for the Eat for Free programme for 2019/20 and £1.3m for 2020/21 to continue delivering for pupils in its current form.
The additional funding is required to reverse a £1m budget reduction introduced in the 2017/18 budget, and make provision for the growing numbers of eligible children.
An evaluation of the Eat for Free programme conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and research institute NatCen showed clear developmental gains for children, in particular the most deprived pupils.
This is why the council is proposing to make changes to the Every Child Programme, with the aim of targeting services which have the greatest benefit for families and our most vulnerable children. The council also believes the current ECaM programme does not provide value for money or meet the council’s aspirations.
The council will begin consulting with residents to cease the current programme and deliver a new initiative aimed at enhancing schools’ current enrichment programmes and giving schools the flexibility of choosing from a menu of activities in line with the needs and desires of pupils.
This proposal would not affect statutory music provision provided by schools and the council will continue to work with music organisations, including Newham Music Trust, which receives £574k per year funding from the Arts Council, to support music education.
At this stage the proposal is exactly that and it’s why the council has decided to open a five week consultation to invite the views of parents and carers, young people, teachers, headteachers and school governors.
The consultation will take the form of an online survey and open response (a paper version will be made available on request). The consultation will run until Sunday 20 January.
Visit www.newham.gov.uk/EveryChildConsultation to complete the online survey or call 020 3373 0267 for a paper copy of the consultation.
Notes to Editors:
The current Every Child programme annual budget is just over £2.5m for 2018/19 with plans to reduce the funding to £2.35m in 2019/20, and a further reduction to just over £2.2m in 2020/1
Elements of the ECaM programme have changed over time. In 2016/17 a one-off payment of £400k was included in the programme budget to expand musical education to Years 3 and 4.
Every Child a Musician
The Every Child a Musician Programme (ECaM) provides free musical provision in Newham’s primary schools. Years 3 and 4 are taught as a whole class and Years 5 and 6 receive small group tuition (approximately 5 children per group). It reaches around 12,500 children per year. The scheme began in 2010.
Every Child a Sports Person
This programme offers the opportunity to try 20 different sports. Annually around 4,000 children from year 7 from 18 different secondary schools participate in the Every Child a Sportsperson programme.
Every Child a Theatre Goer
Newham’s Every Child a Theatre Goer Programme provides opportunities for around 16,000 young people annually (in year 6 and in secondary school) to attend theatre productions by the Council’s funding of the block purchase of discounted tickets, which enables students to attend theatrical productions free of charge.
Every Child a Chess Player
This programme aims to give children in Newham in years 2 to 5 the opportunity to learn how to play chess which helps them develop their skills outside of traditional learning (up to 1,700 children participate every week).