Agenda item

This paper seeks the approval of the Local Committee for the proposals which Services for Young People is making for changes to how Community Youth Work is delivered in Elmbridge. These changes are designed so that the Community Youth Work Service (CYWS) is able to deliver youth work in areas where there is the greatest need of supporting young people into employability.

The Local Committee resolved to agree:

(i)            The below proposals set out in 3.1 as formal guidance for the Community Youth Work Service.

Reason: These changes are designed to: enable the Community Youth Work Service (CYWS) to better support the Council’s strategic goal of employability for young people; implement a County Council Cabinet steer to allocate more of our resources to the areas of greatest need; and respond positively to an overall funding reduction of 11% for Community Youth Work across Surrey.

Jeremy Crouch, Community Youth Work Service Practice Lead, introduced the report.  The main direction for SCC Services for Young People is to support as many young people as possible into employability. To achieve this aim the service needs to place its resources (youth workers) where there are the most young people who are NEET.   In Elmbridge this means extending the reach of the work and delivering in new places.

The proposals went out to public consultation from 29 June to 21 August 2015.  3 public consultation events were held and an online consultation was available. The service listened to the feedback and made some adjustments. 

Jeremy explained that where less youth work was being proposed this would be a phased approach and places would not be left without any provision. For example in Claygate a long transition, with a staged approach, was planned to mitigate against any lack of support. 

Nick Bragger, Senior Practitioner, explained how the areas of highest need were identified including the data that was used.

At this point Mark Sugden, the Chairman of Claygate Parish Council, was invited to present his petition, detailed in Annex A.  He explained that he had visited the youth club, which currently open 3 evenings per week, a number of times recently and it was always busy, providing an important facility for local young people.

He  added that Elmbridge actually had received an increase of 5% in its budget and yet Claygate was being decimated with a reduction of 9 to nil hours of SCC paid for youth worker provision with a ‘hope’ to work with the VCFS to provide 1 evening per week.  Local residents had expressed extreme concern through the consultation that the young people of Claygate were being neglected in favour of young people elsewhere in the borough and that there was the potential for an increase in ASB.  Mark read out the comments of a two young people and closed by urging the Committee to review the proposal in order to provide a fairer more reasonable provision for Claygate.

The Local Committee Members’ comments included:

·         Agreement with basing the resource allocation on evidence

·         Concern that the ‘hub & spoke’ system was new and hadn’t been tested

·         Request for details of the current youth provision from youth centres in Elmbridge

·         Details of how youth work has been successfully provided by voluntary groups in other areas of the borough

Two Claygate ward councillors were allowed share their concern.

In response to questions Jeremy Crouch confirmed he would circulate the current provision, reassured the new proposals would be monitored and that they would consider different organisations coming together to provide youth work.  He also explained that any group delivering youth work linked to SCC, must remain neutral and cannot be seen to be advancing their cause. In addition SCC would support the transition to provision by other groups, so hopefully there would not be any loss in provision by the time the transition was complete.

Mike Bennison, the SCC Cllr whose division includes Claygate, asked why Claygate should lose out when in fact there was an increase in budget. He suggested that crime costs money and this could lead to an increase in crime. He suggested that transport is offered so the young people can visit other youth clubs and referred to how the travellers were mixing with the community.  He said the proposals were too woolly and wanted a guarantee that 3 youth officers would remain in Claygate until the transition was complete.

Jeremy Crouch assured the Local Committee that the service would keep the communities informed, would be attending the youth task group and would look into the transport provision.  However the service’s responsibility is with those most in need.

5 SCC Councillors, a majority, voted in favour of the recommendation.

The Local Committee resolved to agree:

(i)            The below proposals set out in 3.1 as formal guidance for the Community Youth Work Service.

Reason: These changes are designed to: enable the Community Youth Work Service (CYWS) to better support the Council’s strategic goal of employability for young people; implement a County Council Cabinet steer to allocate more of our resources to the areas of greatest need; and respond positively to an overall funding reduction of 11% for Community Youth Work across Surrey.