Sutton Council is to discontinue open access youth and adolescent services in the borough from this June, and develop new ways to provide targeted services for vulnerable young people.

On Thursday, the council’s Children, Family and Education Committee (CFE Committee) approved the changes with a view to providing annual savings of £667,000 from the budget of £1,104,300 the council currently spends per year on youth services.

The proposals for new targeted services will be considered at another CFE Committee in June. The underlying aim of the new targeted services will be to support vulnerable young people in ways which will improve outcomes and will also help reduce costs in other services provided by the council and its partners.

The council is having to reduce the cost of the youth and adolescent services due to unprecedented Government cuts to its annual budget, currently £148.4m. As a result, it has to save £74m from its annual budget between 2010 and 2019. So far £43m has been saved from its annual budget but there is a further £31m to go.

The new restructured service will include:

• Work to support and track those who are NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training). This will include an assessment for hardship allowance, and provide a tracking service to find out where all young people aged 16 to 19 go for their education, employment or training, offering support where needed.

• Ensuring the Department for Education’s requirements of ‘Raising the Participation Age’, where young people need to stay in education or training until they are 18 years old are met in Sutton. It will work with other education services, agencies and providers to ensure there is suitable post-16 provision through apprenticeships, colleges, training providers and Sixth forms.

• The employment of an officer to work with local providers including schools, charities and voluntary groups to promote the development of youth provision.

• The council will work with other services and partners to help develop opportunities for young people to share their views with the decision-makers and shape the services provided in the borough.

Sutton Council will no longer:

• Run a universal open access youth service through Sutton Youth Centre and the Youth Zone @ The Phoenix and Youth FM, whose studio is at the Youth Zone. The Quad Youth Centre will only be retained as a base for youth and adolescent workers.

• Deliver its Youth Engagement programme, which includes the Sutton Youth Parliament, the UK Youth Parliament election programme and the Youth Summit.

• Fund the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award licence which schools use to access the scheme, though the council will support schools.

Cllr Wendy Mathys, Chair of the Children, Families and Education Committee, said:

“I want to thank everyone who took part in this consultation. Our youth and adolescent services are a valuable borough resource and it is with great regret that we have to make some changes

“Unprecedented Government cuts to our budget have meant we have no choice but to reduce the size of the council and the services we offer. We can now work with our partner organisations to find other ways that our young people can receive the support they need.”

The eight-week consultation was through a special youth survey in which 280 young people took part, and through Sutton’s Future, a campaign to involve residents in shaping the future of the borough through the Government cuts, in which a further 144 people took part.

Some of the key findings were:

• In both the Sutton’s Future survey and the Young Person’s survey, the majority of respondents felt the council needed to provide more than just statutory youth services.

• Feedback from young people, adults and stakeholders emphasised the importance of maintaining support available to vulnerable young people

• Partners and service users alike were concerned about the potential additional pressure on other services such as social care, police and welfare support through removing youth services and, as such, the potential increase in service costs elsewhere.

• Schools and Headteachers were concerned at the potential loss of the Council’s support to how they deliver the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme.

• Groups and organisations that hire Sutton Youth Centre were concerned about the potential loss of the venue.

ENDS

For media enquiries, please contact James Tweed at the Sutton Council Press Office on 020 8770 5606 or email .

Notes for editors

To see the full report from the Children, Families and Education Committee click here.

Sutton Council sought to reach as wide a participation in the Sutton’s Future consultation by:

• Notifying all secondary school Headteachers and Duke of Edinburgh’s Award school coordinators of the consultation and inviting them to contribute.

• Writing to building users (e.g. those that currently hire the space) and offering them the opportunity to meet with staff to discuss the proposed option.

• Meeting with the voluntary sector to outline the proposals and invite feedback.

• Inviting other service providers to feed into the consultation (both internal and external services) through the online survey and as required, one-to-one meetings. Responses included feedback from the Leaving Care Team and Limes College.

• Use of existing fora such as the NEET Forum, the Bridging the Gap Parenting Group and the Youth Provider Forum.

• Meeting with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award London Manager to discuss the proposal, as well as discussion with DofE expedition provider.

• Writing to colleagues in health and the Safer Sutton Partnership

• Young people were engaged in the design of the consultation, for instance through feeding back on poster design and developing a video.

• Key service partners (both internal and external) and other stakeholders were invited to contribute to the consultation either through the survey or email, with face-to-face follow-up meetings as appropriate.

Sutton Council used a range of other methods to engage with young people, including:

• An online survey – completed by 280 young people (note that this was a shorter survey than the Sutton’s Future survey to make it more accessible to young people).

• Running 25 focus groups with young people – both service users and non-service users. These were interactive sessions, using games and activities to seek views.

• Use of National Takeover Day where youth service managers are “taken over” by 10 young people, with a discussion on the consultation at the end of the day.

• A range of 1-2-1 interviews with both young people and parents.

• Asking young people to submit #SelfieChoices – pictures with their views in a short caption.