Plan a Growing Space in Church End Saturday 20th January

 

Today's local Black Lives Matter events - Kilburn Grange, Roundwood and Gladstone parks

Local events were organised at short notice for local people who could not attend the event in Central London. I have picked up these pictures via social media. Thanks to original posters,

Kilburn Grange Park (@Shelleb17)

Roundwood Park (@PukkahPunjabi)

Roundwood Park (Anita Whittaker)

Gladstone Park (via email)

Dawn Butler's speech at Roundwood Park  on Facebook LINK

Brent tells Youth Parliament, never mind the cuts - we've got a nice logo

Over the year Wembley Matters has catalogued the gradual disappearance of Brent's Youth Service. As concern over gangs and knife crime mounts the Council's answer to a question from the Youth Parliament seems incredibly complacent - they are basically told there are more cuts on the way and they must rely on the voluntary sector.

Question from Brent Youth Parliament to Councillor Mili Patel, Lead Member for Children’s Safeguarding, Early Help and Social Care:

What has the Council put in place for young people in response to the severe cuts to Youth Services?

Response:

Since 2015 the focus of services for young people has been in the voluntary sector through the Young Brent Foundation. However the Council continues to run regular universal youth activities from the Roundwood Youth Centre in Harlesden. Alongside this the site provides education, employment and training support for young people through Connexions services. 

To help enable all young people in Brent to connect with other providers of youth activities and services the Council has recently launched the ‘Brent Youth Zone’, a new, distinctive and mobile friendly website. A ‘search’ facility is a major feature of the website, together with information pages about health, ‘things to do’, personal safety, and employment advice. Many of the activities and services are inclusive, welcoming young people with SEND. Young people have been included in the development of the website. The logo was inspired by designs from a young person who entered a Brent-wide competition to brand the Brent Youth Zone. The website can be found at: www.brentyouthzone.org.uk

 

The Council as a whole must take further difficult decisions as part of the next phase of budget planning for the 2019/20 – 2020/21 financial years. In Children and Young People’s Services there are a limited number of services that could be considered for future savings and our continuing youth offer is an area therefore where consideration of resource savings need to be made. 

There are proposals to change the use of the Roundwood Youth Centre that will build on the current arrangements. If agreed, the site would be used during school term time for an Alternative Provision school setting, with evening and weekend youth activities being provided by the voluntary sector. This will help meet the need in the borough for local places and preventing permanent school exclusions. Currently a number of young people temporarily excluded from their secondary school setting attend alternative provision out of borough and this will be one solution to this issue. 

We are working with the voluntary sector through the Young Brent Foundation to make sure that services to young people continue from the Roundwood site and also that the broader Youth Offer across the borough is comprehensive, updated and secures charitable funding.

Risks involved in Brent Youth Service changes include £5m loss on Roundwood Youth Centre

The Cabinet on June 1st will consider a paper on the future of Brent Youth Service. LINK The Council has committed to cuts of 71%: £100k in 2016-17 and a massive £900k in 2016-17. This will result in a cut of  £1m compared to 2015 on net expenditure (£414,394 in 2016-17 compared with £1,414,34 in 2014-15).

They propose a 'third sector;' solution through the setting up of an independent organisation - 'The Young Brent Foundation' which would have charitable status. The Foundation would work with a range of voluntary organisations, social enterprises and charities and attempt to draw in support from grants and sponsorship.

The John Lyon Trust has told the Council it will welcome an application for a three grant of  £100k per annum to support core funding costs while the paper suggests running costs will be £177k per annum.

Although replete with vision and priorities based on the needs of the most vulnerable the paper does not disguise the risks inherent in the strategy.

The paper states that the running costs of the four youth centres (Granville, Poplar Grove, Roundwood and Wembley) cannot be met. They suggest a community asset transfer for Roundwood and activities by different providers under licenses or short-term occupation at the other centres.

They state: 'If no opportunities are identified for the Granville and Wembley youth centres, the Youth Service will have to consider vacating the premises as there will be no funding available within the budget envelope to pay for the running costs.'

Following discussion of the 'risks and delivery issues' associated with community asset transfers the report states:

In the case of the Roundwood Centre current restrictions on the hours and type of use will also limit commercial opportunities for any new provider. An obvious implication is that there is a risk that youth centre provision at Roundwood would cease from April 2016 if a transfer was not achieved.

...If the Council is not able to fund or secure an alternative provider to run youth provision at Roundwood, the Council could also be required to repay, in full or in part, the National Lottery grant of £4.997m which was used to support the development of the centre.

Readers will remember that the closure of Stonebridge Adventure Playground also involves a payback to the National Lottery.

The paper proposes the continuation of the Brent Youth Parliament at a cost of £60k per annum  because of its 'valuable role in within the Council's decision making process'  with its transfer to the corporate team in the Chief Operating Officer's department.

This is an interesting move as one would expect the Youth Parliament to be at the forefront of a campaign to save the youth service and thus assert its independence, while at the same time the proposals ensure the YP's own survival.

The Youth Parliament, if the Cabinet accepts the proposals, will be part of a consultation on the proposals that start this month and will culminate in the strategy for the future of the service to go to Cabinet in October 2015.  The paper notes that a Full Council decision may be required.

In the budget discussions earlier this year the Council managed to deflect concerns about the future of the youth service, which initially seemed to entail the total closure of the service, through this review. Although they will argue that this does not amount to total closure it clearly may eventually result in something very close to that.

The proposals that could wipe out Youth Provision in Brent

The possible cuts in the Youth Service in Brent are causing great concern.  As you can see above there are two alternatives but in essence the first (CYP3)  postpones most of the cuts until 2015-17 and the second (CYP17) make them in 2015-16.

The report (below) suggests looking for alternative sources of funding but this would need to be fully explored to ensure that it is sustainable and would make up for the Council's cuts. (Unlikely in my view)

THE PROPOSALS

Proposed savings (cuts)

CYP3: The first tranche of savings (£100k) would be achieved for 15/16 by deleting a managerial post and an operational post as well a s reducing the budgets which support activities, such as printing and publicity. From November also the Youth  Service is part of a Cabinet Office ‘Delivering Differently for Young People’ Programme. This funds a rapid process of developing a set of options for a new delivery model. In particular, officers have proposed exploring through this programme the development of a ‘youth trust’ for Brent which could access funding which currently neither the council nor Brent’s you h voluntary sector organisations are able to access. This could put Brent’s youth provision on a more sustainable footing, with the ‘youth trust’ able to act as a consortium lead and enabler for local organisations as well as being a delivery vehicle, using the expertise of Brent’s experienced and skilled youth workers. As part of this process, alternative funding sources could be identified to mitigate the loss of services from the budget reduction of £900k in 16/17.

CYP17:This option terminates all Youth Service spend for 15/16. This would involve making all the staff redundant (full time and sessional workers as well as managers). The services terminated would be: 

Outreach and Detached Team and Youth Bus – which has a key preventative role in relation to youth disorder and gang violence Poplar Grove Youth Club – year round provision targeting young people from Chalkhill and surrounding areas. 

Mosaic LGBT Project – award winning provision for a key group of young people

liable to risk and discrimination Duke of Edinburgh Award – Brent is a very successful provider with a high success rate

Granville Youth Arts Centre – youth arts provision which supports re engagement in education and work 

Brent in Summer – the youth contribution to this programme has good attendance

Brent Youth Parliament

Wembley Youth Centre – high quality provision 

Funded with £5m from the Big Lottery - opened November 2012

Roundwood Youth Centre LINK would have to be transferred to an organisation willing to meet all running costs and TUPE relevant staff since closure would require very large scale repayment of government grant.  Some of the above services have partial external funding and with alternative funding sources being found, some provision could remain and officers would work with partners to ensure this. 


The council has a statutory duty to provide sufficient activities for young people but does not have to provide them itself. Some councils have almost terminated their youth offer and simply put a signposting page on their website. 

How would this affect users of this service?   

Young people in Brent experience high levels of deprivation, high levels of gang and serious youth violence, high levels of youth offending (especially more serious offences), high levels of mortality in the under 17 age group and high levels of sexually transmitted diseases. 

The current youth provision is located in areas of highest deprivation and is able to target crime hotspots, including key estates. It also supports young people who have arrived as unaccompanied minors, LGBT young people who are at risk of mental health issues and homelessness as well as young people who are at risk of radicalisation and involvement in gangs. There is significant work with young Afghani males and young males from Somali communities. There are also programmes targeting young females.

Young people involved in our provision, especially the Duke of Edinburgh award, contribute at least 5,000 hours of volunteering to the local community. 

The loss of Brent Youth Parliament would reduce young people in Brent’s opportunity to participate not just locally but nationally through the UK Youth Parliament.

Key milestones 

CYP3:

Consult on staff reorganisation in December 2014 to deliver savings for April 2015 Options appraisal from Delivering Differently for Young People – February 2015, with report to Cabinet on proposed option for future delivery of youth provision – March or April 2015.

CYP17:

Consult with local communities (especially Brent Youth Parliament) on cessation of youth services/closure of youth facilities – January and February at the same time as consulting staff on redundancy/redeployment. 

Approach schools and other organisations for buy back of youth services

Key consultations 

Whatever option is taken forward, there will need t o be extensive consultation with young people and service users including groups who may be particularly affected. 

Young people, especially those from BME groups, will be disproportionately affected as well as LGBT young people and young people with special educational needs.

Key risks and mitigations 

The council will need to be mindful of the November2013 ruling by the Court of Appeal that North Somerset Council acted unlawfully when it cut its youth service budget by 72 per cent. The learning from this is that there must be adequate consultation and consideration (through equality impact assessment etc) of the needs of vulnerable users. 

Youth services are essentially part of the council’ s ‘early help’ offer and therefore contribute to preventing young people causing spending down the line through crime, anti social behaviour, social care, poor mental health etc. 

There is also potential for ‘capital clawback’ on certain buildings e.g. Roundwood Youth Centre was built with Big Lottery funding.  

The Council Equality Impact Screening lists the following groups  to have a 'disproportionate adverse impact' From the proposals:

Disabled people, particular ethnic groups, men or women, people of particular sexual orientation, people undergoing gender reassignment, particular age groups and those with particular faiths or beliefs.

The proposal go first to Cabinet on December 15th and then follow the timetable set out in the side panel