WARRINGTON Borough Council has spelled out how it will spend its share of a £5 million hand out from the government to improve services for vulnerable families across Cheshire.
The new funding – reported by Warrington-Worldwide last week – will be shared with the three other Cheshire councils and the police, fire, health and other services.
The funding will help to tackle the root causes of crisis in families and individuals with complex needs and ensure a shared approach across all agencies. 
The money – obtained following a joint bid to the government – will also be used to:
•Allow staff to build a team around a family to provide the best support
•Provide services which tackle issues such as domestic abuse, unemployment and health issues
•Put in place a new IT system to allow agencies to work together.
Cllr Jean Carter, Warrington’s lead member for children and young people’s services, said: “We are delighted that our bid has been successful and this will fund a ground breaking project that will make a real difference to those families that need our support.
“The funding will enable us to put systems in place so that the family receives an effective response first time and we can provide tailored support to the whole family.
“This would include providing personalised and holistic support to help a family deal with its problems including support for health issues and getting back to work.
“Building a team around a family and giving those staff access to the right information and tools to support their needs is one way we will be able to do this.
“By focussing on proactive identification and prevention of the issues that affect complex families we will be able to reduce costs for public agencies and make a real difference to the lives of children and families.”
The grant will be made available in 2015/16.
When it was announced last week, Local Government Minister Kris Hopkins said: “Cheshire has shown what can be done to improve the services people get and reduce the costs of public services.
“By working with others, local public bodies are eliminating waste and creating services which help people first time – not services which send people from pillar to post to get problems sorted.”
How council will spent its extra cash
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
