Worcestershire County Council has announced the start of a new contract for providing early help services in the district of Redditch.

Redditch Borough Council has officially taken on early help services in the district, and will now be providing support to families with children aged 0-19.

The authority, in partnership with YMCA, won the contract earlier this year and following a period of contract negotiation they are now able to take on early help services which will include the district's children's centres and family support provision.

The commissioning of early help services has introduced a significant change to how the county council manages relationships with external providers. This change introduces 'payment by results' during the period of the borough council's contract.

This is incentive-based and means that payments are linked to the borough council achieving the targets that the county Council sets them.

Councillor Liz Eyre, teh county's cabinet member for children and families, said: "As with all our commissioned providers, we are holding Redditch Borough Council to account for outcomes in the Redditch area. Instead of telling them what services we would like them to deliver, what is important to us and residents is the impact the services have on improving the lives of the children and families they're working with."

Speaking on behalf the Redditch authority, programme manager Louise Langston said: “Our aim will be to work closely with our partners to create a service that ensures as much stability and continuity for families as possible. We will walk alongside families by developing a team that responds to their and their community’s needs.

“We will continue to develop the six children’s centres to operate as a single point of contact to access Early Help services; to provide a continuum of support for families and communities. The service will have an effective outreach strategy to ensure that interventions are suited to the families in Redditch.”