Council to set up charitable foundation to run youth services

Camden Council said the new structure will allow the youth service to partner up with voluntary and community organisations and pull in more funding.

The new organisation, which will be called Camden Young People’s Foundation, will enable the local authority to save £1.6m over the next three years from the £6m youth support service budget. The council said that, across all services, it needs to save £73m by 2018.??

As part of the plans for the future of the youth service, the council has agreed to keep its five main youth centres open for the time being. It had been proposed that two would close and three would be redeveloped. ??

Changes to the original proposals were made after an eight-week consultation launched last year, receiving nearly 500 responses.

The council also agreed to keep the South Camden Youth and Connexions Access Point, which provides support for young people to find education, employment and training, running on an interim basis, while a sustainable model of delivery is explored. ??

However, Camden Council did agree to stop funding an advice centre for under-25s. Instead it will work alongside the voluntary and community sector to provide continued support to young people.??

It also approved plans to stop funding the Choice and Opportunities On-Line project – a scheme that looks to increase participation in positive activities among young people.

??Georgia Gould, lead member for young people and economic growth, said: “We were struck time and again by how highly young people value our youth workers, projects and services.

"We have thought hard about what those who responded – many of them young people – had to say and have looked again to see how we can provide high-quality targeted services and sustain a universal service for all our young people in the face of continuing cuts to our budget by central government.”