Eleventh-hour £650k cash injection brings North Northants nurseries back from the brink at passionate council meeting

As hundreds of people from nurseries across Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough assembled at the Corby Cube yesterday, it was clear to members of the council's executive that their Damoclean choice was always going to end in tears for one side.

One option was to slash the budget of Corby's world-leading Pen Green by 78 per cent - forcing its potential closure - and to hand a bigger slice of the pie to at-risk Croyland, Highfield and Ronald Tree Nurseries.

The other was to cut Pen Green's budget in half, leaving the centre in dire financial straits, and two of the others still at risk of closure next year.

Outside, the two groups of protestors who had been pitted against each other drowned each other out with chants of 'Save Pen Green' and 'All Children Matter'.

But after hearing testimony from 54 passionate advocates for all four of the nurseries - a record for NNC - explain why they were in desperate need of the cash, executive members made the unprecedented move of taking £650,000 from contingency funds to hand to the nurseries to soften the blow of budget cuts.

The meeting heard from those who said their lives had been saved by their local maintained nursery and that their children's futures had been immeasurably improved. Councillors listened as parents told them how they had arrived at the centres in desperate need of help - and had found unquestioning aid.

Some of the county's most experienced educational leaders told councillors that, after years of budget cuts, these nurseries simply couldn't take anymore.

An emotional statement from Tess McQuade was read to the committee by her friend. Ms McQuade is headteacher of Priors Hall Academy in Corby but, at 17, as mum to premature twins, she was supported by Pen Green through her education and teacher training.

She said: "With their support I was able to concentrate on studying, and that's why I am where I am now."

Catherine Draper, Chair of Governors for Croyland and Highfield nurseries said Croyland had £60,000 of debts and that they were struggling to meet their statutory duties while relying on fundraising to keep going.

And Deb Thwaites, head of Ronald Tree Nursery said that she'd had to lose two staff members and cut the hours of others. She said if she didn't speak up for the children at her nursery then she 'wouldn't be able to look at herself in the mirror.'

Head of Croyland and Highfield Nurseries Lyndsey Barnett is also in charge at Camrose in Northampton which has a similar funding model to Pen Green. She said Camrose were exploring other grants to retain their additional services for the year 2023/24. They have not lost any funding during the next two years after West Northants Council found the money to offset the reduction in schools funding.

She said Croyland was 80-years-old and had had to stop funding classroom resources, building repairs and IT. She said there was currently no maintenance manager.

"It's disheartening and dispiriting as we watch parts of our buildings and grounds fall into disrepair," she said.

Chair of Governors at Ronald Tree Nikki Glazebrook said the current funding position was 'nothing short of disastrous', adding: "There are no more cuts we can possibly make."

The issues with funding have arisen because the wealth of extra services Pen Green provided were previously paid for by a separate pot. That was changed in 2017 when the then Northamptonshire County Council was given one grant to divide up between all its maintained nurseries. This was heavily weighted by NCC towards Pen Green as an acknowledgement for the extra work they do and the numbers of children they look after.

But now NNC wants to make the funding more equal so has proposed to cut Pen Green's funding in favour of Croyland, Highfield and Ronald Tree.

Head at Pen Green Angela Prodger said that her nursery and children's centre had always been funded differently because of its unique way of working.

She said: "Sure Start Centres and Children's Centres were based on the Pen Green model. Last week we spoke to the Department for Education and Will Quince, minister for children and families, about funding and they agreed unanimously."

Former Liberal Democrat county councillor Chris Stanbra, who lost his Danesholme seat at last April's election, came up with a potential solution for councillors when he told the meeting that any service that had a shortfall caused by the effects of Covid could be topped-up using cash from the council's £8.77m general reserve fund.

As councillors began to discuss the options available to them, Cllr Andy Mercer said it was 'with deep reluctance' that he had to choose one of them Cllr Lloyd Bunday said that the 'days of bottomless budgets are gone'.

But just as it looked as though councillors would plump for option 2 - to cut Pen Green's budget by £523,000, but raise Croyland's by £60,000, Highfield's by £90,000 and Ronald Tree's by £103,000 - the meeting was paused by leader Cllr Jason Smithers.

After a conflab with senior officers he called his entire executive into a separate meeting room where they spoke for 45 minutes.

And they returned with a new proposal: to withdraw £650,000 from their contingency fund to hand to the nurseries, which was unanimously agreed by councillors alongside option 2.

Pen Green were given, as a one-off grant, £350k which means their budget will only be slashed by £175,000. The other nurseries will get a £100,000 windfall each on top of the extra funds already allocated to them for the coming financial year.

The decision will have to go to full council on Thursday (March 31) to be ratified.

The nurseries were warned that they will need to explore new funding options during this year while their books for the past five years are scrutinised by the council. Following the meeting, Cllr Jason Smithers said: "This is about North Northamptonshire as a whole and we could not have had a situation where three great nurseries were going to come to an end."

Lyndsey Barnett said that the extra money for her nurseries would be spent on clearing deficits and increasing staff numbers.

Representatives from Pen Green were too upset to speak.