It’s no secret that we’ve made improving Children’s Services our top priority as a council. I’m pleased to say that we are acting on that and I have a few updates I can bring you. This week we opened the first of four Family Hubs. The pilot site, at the Evergreen Space in Kingshurst, is the blueprint for the others that will open next year. Family Hubs will be a vital resource as we bring various council services, along with NHS and charity support, under one roof. There’s a long list of everything on offer in this article, which I won’t repeat here, but the important point is that the hubs will make it easier for families to access the support they need in one place – right in the heart of the communities where they live.
I can’t stress enough how important a child’s early development is for the rest of their life, so I am delighted that NHS maternity and Health Visiting Services will sit alongside parenting programmes and other early years activities and support. By doing this, we’re ensuring that children can get the best possible start in life. We will be running this particular Hub in Kingshurst in association with Colebridge Trust, and that’s a really positive thing, as they have a fantastic record of helping families in this community. We are grateful for the expertise they bring to this project, and I am looking forward to seeing the results of this and the other Family Hubs in Chelmsley Wood, Smith’s Wood and Elmdon when they open in 2024.
Ofsted are regular guests at the moment, and they have just completed their second monitoring visit, as they keep a close eye on how we’re improving Children’s Services. It’s too early to share any specific feedback from that visit, but I can say that there are some signs the improvement plan we have in place is starting to have an impact. Bringing fast paced and significant improvement to what is a very complex and multi-faceted service was never going to be easy, so we know there will be bumps along the road. However, the determination of the new leadership team and the commitment of the staff to make those difficult but necessary changes is unwavering. We’re committed to delivering the high-quality service that children, young people, and families across Solihull deserve.
Inevitably, one of the biggest challenges we face with every service we provide as a council is money. We have started the process of putting together the budget for the next year, although in truth this is part of a much longer-term strategy - our financial planning is broadly done on a three year basis. It’s probably no surprise to anyone that things are pretty tight at the moment; cost of living pressures apply to us as an organisation as well as to individuals and as a council, we are of course not alone in any of this.
Another issue that has been in my thinking a lot recently is youth unemployment, which I have spoken about again at regional meetings including the West Midlands Combined Authority, where a lot of work has been done on skills and training. It pains me to see young people out of work when they should be setting out on rewarding careers. I want to see all our young people taking advantage of the opportunities presented to them, and often the best path for them is apprenticeships. The Solihull Apprenticeship Show will take place next Tuesday (24 October) at Cranmore Park. I mentioned it in last week’s message, but I want to make a second appeal now to go along, or for you to urge anyone you know who could benefit to sign up and go and see where an apprenticeship could take them. I sometimes think the word apprentice just does not do justice to illustrate the wide range of interesting and skilled jobs where training can be available. We are living in a world that is increasingly insecure, but so many skills are in short supply and you can still secure an excellent career with the right training.
As well as the show, we have year round support and advice to help people acquire those skills and get into employment via our Digital Hub and Career Guidance programmes. I was very pleased with the announcement, during Birmingham Tech Week this week, that WMCA are investing £14.7m in skills training for the region’s booming tech sector. Making sure that people have the skills businesses need is also key to continuing to secure inward investment. It is something that is very fresh in my mind, having heard people from major top companies talking at Birmingham Tech Week about the importance of connecting schools and education with employers. They’re not my words, but certainly worth pondering.
Also at Birmingham Tech Week, I was pleased to announce that the new National Telecoms Lab (NTL) will be situated right here in Solihull. The NTL will serve as an entry point for telecoms businesses looking to test and integrate their equipment in order to secure a foothold in the market. The initial development phase will bring 50 new jobs to the borough, but this £80m facility will do far more than that. It will play a fundamental role in shaping the future of telecoms and cybersecurity, here in the UK and across the globe as part of the government’s push to make the UK a science and technology superpower. You’ll be hearing more about this soon, no doubt, but I wanted to get the news out whilst it was fresh. When I have more details, I’ll share them with you here.
Finally, this week saw the publication of the Climate Emergency UK action scorecards. Of course, there’s a degree of disappointment and inevitability around our not maintaining the incredibly lofty position we occupied last year; indeed, the scoring process was always going to lead us in this direction, but I am very proud of the work we do. We focus on practical steps: improving the environment we inhabit through biodiversity and tree planting schemes; installing EV chargers; reducing the Council’s own carbon emissions; air quality measures and amazing work with our schools. There’s a fuller response from my colleague Councillor Andy Mackiewicz in the linked news piece, but I do think that the scorecard is useful and well directed in some ways, as it highlights where we can look to do better, even if it may miss some of the good work we are doing.
Thanks, and have a good weekend. I am told that it is wishful thinking to hope England make the Rugby World Cup final, given the strength of the opposition; but if you’ll be watching, then let’s hope you enjoy a great game!
Councillor Ian Courts