Conservative Councillors promote voluntary sector involvement in Youth Service run by Brighton & Hove City Council.
At next week’s Policy & Resources Committee meeting, Group Leader, Cllr. Geoffrey Theobald, will move a Notice of Motion which, if agreed, would call a halt to City Council Budget proposals to terminate its Youth Collective contract in March – 6 months earlier than planned. Under the Council’s plans, all Youth Services would be delivered by the Council’s ‘in-house’ team, without any assessment being made of its relative effectiveness and value for money compared to the rejected voluntary sector providers.
Conservative Group Spokesman for Children & Young People, Cllr Andrew Wealls, said: “
We accept that savings need to be made in the Youth Service but that makes it all the more ridiculous that the Council continues to bury its head in the sand over who provides them. All we are asking is that a proper commissioning exercise be undertaken by the Council, with a genuinely level playing field for all organisations who want to provide youth services in the city. This issue has become totemic for us and is symptomatic of a wider unwillingness by the Green Party – invariably backed by the Labour Party – to accept that Council funded services can be provided more effectively and more cheaply by other organisations in the community, voluntary and independent sectors. Sadly, this unwillingness is based on nothing more than political dogma.”
Deputy Tory Group Leader, Cllr Dee Simson, also added:
“Many councils have stopped funding youth services altogether in recent years but we think that they continue to make a vital contribution to the well-being of young people here in Brighton & Hove. It is, therefore, very sad that the excellent voluntary groups who make up the Youth Collective are being jettisoned by the Council without any assessment of the value of the work they do for the city’s young people.”
