Councils to foot capital youth projects bill after government withdraws funds

Government has halved the youth capital fund - which gives councils money to fund new facilities developed in consultation with young people - to £13m half-way through the final year of the programme.

David Wright, chief executive of the Confederation of Heads of Young People's Services, said many councils have already spent funds in advance to ensure they met deadlines and no money went to waste.

"Councils have started schemes early in anticipation of the funding to ensure they are complete on time," said Wright. "But now there is a risk that youth services will foot the bill and will have to find money from elsewhere when it is already scarce."

One head of youth service, who wished to remain anonymous, told CYP Now he will be asking for significant sums from the youth opportunity fund, which his council is already cutting, to cover the cost of projects already under way and avoid making redundancies.

"As a large local authority, we get quite a lot of youth capital funding and, due to the bureaucracy involved, getting decent projects up and running within 12 months is impossible," he said.

"We allocated the rest of our funds at the end of the last financial year to give everyone 18 months to plan and consult with young people."