Union leaders launch protest campaign as Derbyshire children centres face closure

Derbyshire County Council’s children services chief has blamed financial pressures and rising costs for the proposed closure of ten Children’s Centres across the region with potentially 132 job cuts to help the authority meet a £3.9m savings target.

The Conservative-led council’s Cabinet will decide upon the proposed changes and new service model for the authority’s Early Help and Children’s Centres at a meeting on Monday, April 29, at County Hall, in Matlock, despite the majority of responses from a recent public consultation voicing opposition to most of the plans.

Public service union UNISON will be launching a campaign to fight the proposed cuts at Low Pavement in Chesterfield at 12pm today. This comes on the same day as Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins is set to debate the funding and governance of Derbyshire County Council in the House of Commons.

UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.