In response to recent media coverage about a blueprint for the future of Liverpool’s 17 Children’s Centres being drawn up, Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson said:
“Liverpool has already many successful collaborations with its Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) where we bring together funding and specialisms to provide services which are better for our people. Joint working in adult social care is a good example, where we have had to reduce our spending because of this government’s 58% cut. But we can stop this costing the NHS more in the future by working with the CCG to jointly buy services which help people now.
“Just like those other areas, there is a lot of sense in us working with the CCG on making health as important a part of our services for children and families as education is.
“But the NHS, like every other part of our public services, is facing austerity. We’re all struggling with cuts passed down from Westminster.
“We want to work with our partners but we also will not put unreasonable pressure on other organisations who are struggling. The Children’s Centres campaigners are good people fighting for a beloved service. But we should remember that the enemy is austerity and the government forcing cuts across the public sector.
“Children’s Centres are a much loved service in Liverpool and we have worked very hard to keep them for as long as we have when other cities have closed them. Two years ago when I met parents and staff, I promised that we would use our council reserves to keep them for two more years while we work on finding a new future for the service.
“Children’s Centres were introduced by my party when they were in national Government, so we will look at every option available to keep the service available to people, and hope to find a solution.”
