Following the delegated decision made by Cllr Abraham last week in relation to the future of Youth Services, this response from the Island Liberal Democrats. In their own words. Ed
After more than four years deliberation the IW Council has now reached the ‘concluding stage’ of its Youth Service Review.
During this time the IW Council run Youth Service has reduced its level of engagement with young people from 16% (2008), which was deemed as unsatisfactory, to 13% currently, hardly a resounding success.
Contracting out proposal withdrawn
It would appear that the proposal to ‘contract out’ the Youth Service has now been withdrawn despite the claims in the June 2011 paper ‘C’ to Cabinet stating that ‘the commissioning out of youth provision offers the opportunity to deliver a wider range of things to do and a greater choice of places to go that are provided more efficiently than the Council is able to do by delivering the service directly’.
Given the further deterioration of the service under this administration it will be interesting to note how the Council can arrive at this decision and on what evidence it is based.
Hard to understand ‘increased opportunities’
The IW Council now proposes to directly deliver a universal service to 20% of young people aged 13 – 19 or 24 years where there are learning disabilities, by April 2014.
The claims in this concluding report that there ‘will be increased opportunities for physically challenging outdoor activities’ are hard to understand when set alongside the withdrawal of funding (£56k) from the Water Activities Centre at Cowes as part of the wider Youth Service budget reduction of £128k.
On a more positive note it is pleasing to see that the future Youth Service will continue to promote and support the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme and seek partnership with the Prince’s Trust. Both these external organisations can do a great deal to enrich the range and diversity of provision for young people on the Island.
Concerns over roles for senior youth workers
Of major concern is the role being determined (paragraph 19 f of the report) for senior youth workers. Youth workers are, by definition, trained to work creatively with young people in a variety of settings.
The role being cast, in this report, is for them to be mainly working with adults: – run the service operationally, deploying staff, budget management, leading teams; encouraging youth participation; developing multi agency partnerships as well as facilitating challenge and accreditation opportunities.
Little time to build relationships
The role leaves little time for skilled youth workers to build relationships and work on a regular basis with young people who have got to know and trust them. It is a good job that senior youth workers are being relieved of their duties to manage buildings but the proposals, as they stand, will leave them little time to work directly with young people on a regular basis.
The roles identified above have usually been undertaken by Service middle managers who, in well managed services, have ensured that skilled youth workers have the space and time to work effectively with young people.
The outcomes
The Service, as is proposed, appears to have one strategic manager, six senior youth workers with operational management duties and part-time staff working directly with young people on a regular basis.
The sum total of this painful four year review then is:
1. Close a significant number of youth centres,
2. remove middle managers altogether,
3. put senior youth workers in place of middle managers (at a lower salary)
4. and put the direct work with young people in the hands of part-time staff.
5. Remove youth workers from national pay scales and conditions of service
6. and declare budget of 3% below the national average.
“Great shame that recent savings made elsewhere”
Commenting on the proposals Leader of the Lib Dem Group, Reg Barry said “Did we really need four years to achieve this and will it really lead to a 54% improvement in performance by April 2014?
“It is a great shame that recent savings made elsewhere in the Council budget could not be used to deliver a better quality of service to the young people of the Island.”
Image: Keith Williamson under CC BY 2.0
