Brighton and Hove Council’s Policy and Resources Committee voted last night to call a halt to city council budget proposals to terminate, in March, its Youth Collective contract with six voluntary sector organisations including Allsorts, the LGBT Youth project.
UNDER the Council’s proposals, all Youth Services would have been delivered by the Council’s ‘in-house’ team, without any assessment being made of its relative effectiveness and value for money compared to the voluntary sector providers.
The Notice of Motion, proposed by the Conservative Group Leader, Cllr. Geoffrey Theobald, and seconded by the Coonservative Group Finance Spokesperson, Ann Norman, was supported by the Labour Group and one member of the Green Group.
The Notice of Motion also agreed to ask council officers to find transitional funding for three other voluntary groups who work with young people – Allsorts, BME Young People’s Project and Extratime – whose grant funding runs out at the end of March.
Conservative Group Spokesman for Children and Young People, Andrew Wealls, said: “I believe that this is great news for the City and for the voluntary organisations that make such a vital contribution to the well-being of young people here in Brighton and Hove. We are not disputing the fact that savings need to be made in the Youth Service budget – all we are asking is that a proper commissioning exercise be undertaken by the Council in October, with a genuinely level playing field for all organisations who want to provide youth services in the city.”
Conservative Group Communities Spokesperson, Dee Simson, added: “This whole episode has caused a great deal of unnecessary uncertainty and anxiety in the Youth Collective and among the young people they work with. I hope that we can now all put politics aside and move forward together to make the best use possible of the money that remains in the budget.”
One of the organisations that would have been affected by the budget plans is Allsorts, the LGBT Youth Project which delivers LGBT awareness training to local schools.
Jess Wood, Allsorts Director, said: “We are very grateful to the Conservatives for having listened to the community and voluntary sector and put forward this motion. We are also very pleased to see politicians from other parties supporting them. This kind of cooperation is refreshing. They have put the well-being of our young people over their political differences. We will now have a period of review where all of us together can work out what is best for the future of services for the young people of this city.”
Cllr Warren Morgan, Leader of the Labour and Co-operative group, supported the motion.
He said: “We were happy to support this motion as it fits well with our vision for youth service provision in the city if we win the local elections in May. The Greens have been unwilling to discuss in-house provision despite the excellent record of the voluntary sector, which I know well from five years as a trustee at Whitehawk’s Crew Club, and my recent visit to the Hangleton and Knoll Youth Project with Peter Kyle and Tristram Hunt.”
Of the three Green Councillors who voted, former Green party leader Cllr Bill Randall supported the motion, Cllr Ollie Sykes, the Greens’ finance spokesperson, abstained and Cllr Sue Shanks, Chair of the Children and Young People Committee, voted against.
THE FORUM are holding their first quarterly public meeting in 2015 on Wednesday, February 11, from 7pm at the Queens Hotel, 1-3 King’s Road, Brighton.
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