Annex 2: Visit to Blackpool’s A Better Start Programme
Background
In November, the Committee visited the Blackpool Better Start project, run by the NSPCC and funded by the Big Lottery Fund.
Blackpool is one of five sites in England (Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham and Southend) participating in a ten-year National Lottery funded programme focused on improving the life chances of babies and young children from pregnancy and in the first three years of life. The Big Lottery Fund has invested a total of £215 million into the five sites (around £45 million to Blackpool) over 10 years. The focus of the programme in Blackpool is on reducing pressures on families from common risk factors associated with adverse experiences in childhood: drugs, alcohol, mental ill health, domestic abuse and social isolation. Four years into the programme, the Committee wanted to see how Big Lottery Fund’s investment is being used locally and what lessons the programme might have for policy and practice in England.
What the Committee did
In the morning, the Committee held workshops with staff and parents at a local children’s centre. It heard how having a “one-stop shop” for families helped to provide seamless support and ensure professionals can build relationships with other and share information. It visited repurposed community spaces across Blackpool, including a library and an local park, both of which had been transformed by members of the local community to make them more suitable for families with young children. In the afternoon, a roundtable discussion took place with senior health and local authority leaders from across Blackpool about the benefits and challenges of the Big Lottery Fund’s investment.
What the Committee learnt
Local councils and the NHS are operating in a financially constrained climate. Hearing from local leaders in Blackpool highlighted the value of relatively small sums of money giving services the headspace to engage in transformation. The Big Lottery Fund’s investment helped:
- provide extra time, capacity and expertise to redesign local services, which Blackpool would not have otherwise had.
- foster strong partnership working between local services, made up of the local council, NHS commissioners and providers, the voluntary sector and the police.
- protect resources from being directed away from service transformation and towards the more short-term challenges in Blackpool.
Published: 26 February 2019