A decision on the future of Hillingdon Council's children's centre programme will be made at a council meeting next week.

The council will assume management of all children’s centres in Hillingdon from 1 April 2017.

Once all current children’s centre employees have been transferred to the management of the local authority, a decision will be made by Cabinet on whether the children’s centre programme will move to a proposed ‘hub and spoke’ model.

Councillor David Simmonds, cabinet member for education and children’s services, said: “Residents have told us that they want consistent, flexible and coordinated family support, which meets the needs especially of the most vulnerable children and their families, but the current manner in which staff are deployed and organised doesn’t allow for this in all areas.

“We now need to work with programme staff to reorganise the way we deploy staff and resources so that we can best meet and prioritise need.

“The decision on the children’s centre programme delivery model will be made at our next Cabinet meeting on 16 March.”

If agreed, the new proposed children’s centre programme will introduce a new way of delivering and coordinating services with five lead children’s centres coordinating services in five localities areas through 11 linked centres. 

The children’s centre service will be discontinued at Uxbridge College and Hillside in Northwood on 31 March due to failure to progress towards agreement of leases, with the council saying it is still examining ways in which residents can continue to be supported in those areas.

The public consultation on children’s centres received more than 600 responses.

Cabinet members will review the consultation report, petition outcomes and recommendations from officers at a Cabinet meeting in March, and will make a decision on the proposed new ‘hub and spoke’ model.