Two of the borough council’s 13 children’s centres will stop providing these services and instead focus on nursery provision for deprived two-year-olds.
The council says that the proposals would save £280,000 in 2012-2013 and £445,000 over two years.
The reorganisation of children's centres will be completed by July 2012, if the plan goes ahead.
The council will spend £200,000 on providing extra daycare provision to expand the free entitlement for deprived two-year-olds at Little Treasures in Westcliff and Cockleshells at Southend’s Adult Community College.
The remaining 11 centres would have their management structures re-organised so that they would share management teams across sites, with possible redundancies.
Under the plans, nurseries at the two centres will stay open and increase their capacity to offer extra two-year-old places.
These children will then have a seamless transition into accessing the free entitelemnt for three and four-year-olds.
Currently Southend has 230 two-year-olds accessing the funding and is on course to meet the 20 per cent target, which will be offered to 300 two-year-olds, the council said.
Mark Flewitt , executive councillor for children and learning, said, ‘These are difficult financial times and, put simply, we will not be able to continue what we have done before.
‘These proposals ensure that every family can access a children’s centre local to their home, a situation that is far better than families are experiencing elsewhere in the country.
‘There are no easy decisions here. I appreciate that people wish children’s services to be protected. That is what we are doing. We have more provision than we need across the town.’
He added, ‘There are no simple answers. There is not, as some have suggested, a way of "finding the money elsewhere".’
