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Section 1 - LA Details

LA Name

Gloucestershire County Council

LA HAF Co-Ordinator

Helen Black

External HAF Co-Ordinator details (if applicable)

We commission six district lead organisations to develop the programme with us and deliver the programme with a range of providers.

These are:

  • Gloucester City – The Venture Community Hub
  • Cheltenham – Cheltenham Borough Council
  • Cotswolds – World Jungle
  • Stroud – Stroud District Council
  • Forest of Dean – Forest Voluntary Action Forum
  • Tewkesbury – Young Gloucestershire

How did you market / promote your HAF programme?

We use a number of approaches to market and promote the HAF programme in Gloucestershire. 

We have established webpages on the County Council website, which we maintain throughout the year and update for each HAF holiday.  When online bookings are open, the main website links to six District landing pages, which following a review during the year will be updated with a standard template, to provide consistency across the county and help parents and carers and young people to understand and navigate the offer more easily.

We have a parent and carer newsletter which we established in 2021 and now have 2,811 on the distribution list.  This newsletter alerts parents to key dates and promotes activities as well as providing a route to share our parents survey after each HAF holiday.

We have two routes into schools centrally at a county level these are the Heads Up Bulletin, and direct emails to their preferred address. We also ensure communications are shared with our colleague who supports those families who are homeschooling. We use these routes to share advance details of the forthcoming HAF holiday following feedback that schools would welcome earlier notification.

We also share our communications with our stakeholders, the VCS Alliance and the social care teams in Gloucestershire.

We target families with children with SEND by sharing communications through Active Impact  (community provider of inclusive activities) and our statutory partner the Parent Carer forum.

We feature articles on GCC bulletins such as Talk Smart, Families First and Families in Partnership and also have weekly social media posts via the GCC accounts during the HAF online bookings and activity delivery.

At each HAF delivery, we commission a videographer to capture footage and sometimes interviews, which with consent we then use as a trailer for the next HAF delivery. You can find all of our videos so far through this Youtube playlist.

Each District Lead Organisation also has their own communications plan and avenues to reach their local families, HAF providers also promote their opportunities locally.

Were there any challenges in delivering the programme?

As Gloucestershire is predominantly a rural county with the City of Gloucester and Cheltenham being the main urban centres, transport and access to services can often be a challenge particularly for those families that the programme aims to reach.

To overcome the geographical challenges of delivering the Holiday Activity and Food Programme in Gloucestershire, the Council works in partnership with six District Lead Organisations who work with us to to develop and deliver the programme.  

These organisations were initially commissioned via grants, and in June 2022, following the submission of successful bids, as part of the new HAF Framework, they secured contracts until 31st March 2025.

These organisations are based in the local area, and have relationships with a range of local partners, including the local voluntary sector many of whom deliver acitivites as part of the HAF programme. During the year they began to develop closer relationships with their local schools and develop parents’ forums to co-produce the programme in

their district. This approach is also important to the Council as by funding community-based stakeholder organisations, it brings added value to the programme.

During the pilot year the Council invested in a booking system, and we are pleased that 62% of families in Gloucestershire with children and young people eligible for benefits related Free School Meals have an account.  As with all systems of this nature, there have been some challenges and we have established a super user group to oversee the system, tracking that issues are resolved. 

To remove barriers and ensure that all families are able to access the HAF programme, we have also commissioned a HAF Community Connector Service, in each District.  This service reaches out to families, offers support to book activities and to create an account with the booking system so that they will be able to continue to book activities in the future .  The Community Connectors also have access to a transport budget, so that they can support families reach the activities that they would like to attend. 

During 2023 – 2024 the aim is to increase the number of families with an account on the booking system. With the expectation for the service in each District to reach 20% of children and young people eligible for benefits related Free School Meals, and 20% BAME children and young people and 20% of those with an ECHP.

Who made up your steering group?

We are pleased that a diverse range of key stakeholders in the county have been able to give time and commitment to support the success of the HAF programme in the Gloucestershire.

These stakeholders include voluntary sector colleagues supporting; equalities and diversity, food and physical exercise, play, providing a voice for parents and carers with disabled children and a champion of Disabled people and those with mental ill health and local grant funder.

Statutory sector stakeholders include colleagues from Schools, health, GCC teams including Short Breaks, Early Years and Public Health, ensurng that we can idenfity linkages with other key programmes and strategic priorities for the county.

In Gloucestershire as part of the work with the Steering Group we are developing a Theory of Change for the programme. This aims to establish and bring together stakeholders priorities for the programme, to increase awareness of the value of the programme and support additional investment to the programme alongside that made by the DFE and Council  This is already having an impact as two of the Integrated Locality Partnerships invested in funding holiday activities during the February

2023 half term, delivered by HAF providers.

Steering Group members 2022 – 2023

  • Active Impact
  • Active Gloucestershire
  • Feeding Gloucetershire
  • Gloucester City Council representing District Lead Organistions
  • Gloucestershire County Council:
    • Early Years
    • Public Health
    • Short Breaks
    • Virtual School
  • Gloucestershire NHS:
    • Children’s Mental Health
    • Children’s Weight Management
  • Gloucestershire Office of the Police Crime Commissioner
  • Gloucestershire Parent Carer Forum
  • Play Gloucestershire
  • Primary School place currently seeking a replacement Head to join the group.
  • Secondary Schools (Gloucester Academy)
  • Special Schools (Belmont School)
  • The Barnwood Trust

Did you receive any extra funding, support, resources, food, etc. If so, who from?

Gloucestershire County Council, committed an additional £400,000 funding to enable us to the run the popular Holiday Activity Programme (HAP) for those children not eligible for benefits related Free School Meals. 

This ensured that children and young people could attend a range of events and activities alongside their peers during the holidays.

Meaning in Gloucestershire we were able to provide a fully inclusive programme for all.

The overall funding you have spent on the HAF programme

In total we spent £2,071,880 during the financial year 2022 – 2023. 

This included our original grant from the DFE (£1,594,880) plus the additional funding we were eligible to apply for prior to the Winter HAF (£77,000) plus the additional funding received from the Council £400,000.

The proportion of the funding that was spent on administration and a breakdown of how this was spent

The portion of funding spent on administration was 10% of the original grant from the DFE which was £159,488 and this was used to fund the following posts within the Gloucestershire County Council HAF Team:

Senior Commissioning Manager – Programme Lead

Two Commissioning Officers, one overseeing project coordination including the HAF Framework and one overseeing the CRM (CABS) and the Budget. 

A part time Commissioning Support Officer to provide project support, including for meetings, provider training and Due Diligence.

How many unique children you have reached in each holiday period

15,566 unique children and young people attending sessions across the county.

The proportion of primary age and secondary age children who have participated in your programme

73% Primary School

17% Secondary School

The ages of the remaining children and young people were not captured as they attended on the day rather than booking onto the activity through the booking system. 

We are reviewing our walk in register so that we can collect this information during the year.

© Crown copyright 2023

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