County Hall

EXCLUSIVE

PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL says it has been working with the local health board to look at how The Emotional Health and Wellbeing Service (EHWS) can be reconfigured to deal with drastic funding cuts.

Suggestions include bolstering in-school services, which are already in place.

The news comes as Hwyel Dda University Health Board says that it will shut the doors on the Sandy Bear child bereavement service next month.

Cllr Sue Perkins

The health board’s move follows last month’s letter from Pembrokeshire County Council explaining to Hywel Dda stating that there were problems with providing funding following “significant” reductions to two grants.

The Sandy Bear service was entirely funded via the council, by the Families First (Welsh Govt) and the Youth Justice (UK Govt) grants.

Cllr Sue Perkins, Cabinet Member for Children and Safeguarding, has been under pressure from colleagues including Cllrs Tudor and Woodham who have expressed surprise and shock that such an “important service” is to close. They have asked for clarification following last week’s Scrutiny Committee meeting.

Speaking last week, Cllr Perkins said that no decision had yet been taken by the council, and that she would be fighting tensure support would still be available to children and young people, even if this had to be in a different form to Sandy Bear.

However, a leaked document – a letter sent by e-mail to all councillors – suggests that Pembrokeshire County Council has already made arrangements for what will replace the service.

Councillors have now been told that officers have been working with the Health Board over the last month – long before any announcement that the Sandy Bear service was to be scrapped.

Cllr Sue Perkins said in the letter: “[We] will continue to offer a bereavement support service, and Pembrokeshire children will receive the same level of bereavement support service as in other parts of the Hywel Dda area.

“We are confident that no child will be disadvantaged as a result of the changes that we will make.

“More work will be done on the proposal, and a detailed and final statement on the shape of bereavement support and wellbeing services in Pembrokeshire will be made in early May, well in advance of any discontinuation of Sandy Bear.

“This will be jointly issued by Pembrokeshire County Council and Hywel Dda Health Board.”

The letter explained to Councillors: “The Youth Justice grant was cut by £45,000 at the beginning of the 2015/16 financial year, and then cut again by £20,000 during the year.  Pembrokeshire Youth has also had to deal with cuts of £49,000 from Families First, and £40,000 from PCC core funding.

“The total reduction in funding to Pembrokeshire Youth over the last 12 months therefore totals £154,000.  We know that the Youth Justice grant will be cut again for the 2016/17 financial year, but we do not yet know how much by – it could be anywhere between £20,000 and £50,000.

“The Families First grant was cut by £170,000 for the 2016/17 financial year.  From April 2017 onwards, the intention of the Welsh Govt is to ‘align’ the Families First funding stream with the Communities First and Supporting people funding streams.  We don’t know at this stage what impact this will have on the total monies available in the County, but we anticipate further reductions.

“As a consequence of these reductions, we have had to give notice to the Health Board that there was a risk to the continued level of funding to the EHWS, and that it was likely that the funding to the service would have to reduce by around £45k.

“This was formally done on the 10 March.”