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Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Government Plan to the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel.
On behalf of JCSA / Prospect I would like to make the following comments:-
Of greatest concern are the Efficiencies and measures to rebalance expenditure'
CYPES
The proposed loss of a social work position within children's safeguarding and care, is of significant concern, not only could this impact on the care and wellbeing of children, but additional workload placed on remaining staff could also impact both on their wellbeing and the quality of service they can provide. Additionally this could have a knock on effect on recruitment and retention of social workers, an area the GoJ has been struggling with for a number of years.
The proposed savings within Early Intervention and Therapeutic provision, the cost reductions of £280K are clearly going to have a significant impact on the service. A reduced level of service in this area will negatively impact on children and could create longer term issues. I am concerned on the effect on staff if these staff savings are being made by redundancies, and also the effect on remaining members of staff . I don't understand how this is putting children first?
JHA-Prison
Review of Prison target operating model' we have seen no details of this yet so have no idea where the £315K savings will come from. We suspect it could be by redundancies and reduction in the resources available for the rehabilitation of inmates, this could be rather short sighted if it then increases levels of reoffending or increased costs once inmates are released.
JHA- Police
Removal of a number of civilian posts following a staff review and rationalisation process. Responsibilities will be enhanced in other posts to maintain the high levels of service deliver' The Police civilian staff underwent a TOM this year, however it is unclear whether these savings are as a result of this TOM or whether further cuts are planned. The Police civilian staff TOM has left staff morale at an all time low already , there are a number of staff signed off with stress, and recruitment and retention is likely to become problematic. A number of roles have been downgraded, so are unlikely to attract applicants with police backgrounds, as was previously the case. One therefore has to question whether this will impact on crime investigation.
Reduction in learning and development course costs' Without knowing exactly which training courses will be impacted, it is difficult to understand its exact impact. However any reduction in training levels could impact on the quality of service provided by the police, and in turn could impact on staff or the public's safety.
I hope these comments are helpful to the panels review.