New direction to meet needs of young people
STEPS TO put a council’s youth services provision back on the path have been backed by the authority’s Cabinet.
A report put together by a panel of some Calderdale Council Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Board members, concluded the service had lost its way and needed a clear strategy and a new direction.
The service needed to make better use of the money it spent on staff, should reduce expenditure on casual staff and contracts for a few hours a week and adopt a more efficient approach to its use of buildings.
The Orangebox centre in Halifax was an asset for all of Calderdale, should be well used all week and needed to provide effective services for children throughout the borough – better use of transport services should ensure this was not a barrier to participation.
But a locality focus needed to be retained where youth workers could partner well with other organisations including the council’s Neighbourhood Officers, the Police other agencies and local councillors.
Cabinet member for Children and Young People’s Services, Coun Adam Wilkinson (Lab, Sowerby Bridge) said it was an excellent piece of work by the scrutiny board and raised some challenges. “It is quite critical in some comments but entirely justified in its findings,” he said.
Coun Raistrick told Cabinet it was important to say the report was not critical about any of the staff or indeed the work ethic.
Leader of the Council, Coun Tim Swift (Lab, Town) said the result of the report would be effective proposals on how youth services will change.
In December when board members made final comments before the report went to Cabinet, Coun Collins said: “We hope officers will look at the service we provide and hope we get more money promised to us by Government to meet the needs across the whole of the authority. But we need to admit there are real difficulties in that service. Some of that is not the fault of the staff but trying to do too much with too little, not meeting children’s needs.” Coun Raistrick added: “The staff are well motivated and working hard – but it’s a scattergun approach.”
MORE LOCAL POLITICS: www. halifaxcourier.co.uk