Council set to cut youth services spending by £1m

The move by Leicester City Council will see its £1.8m youth services budget cut by £983,000, with the number of open-access youth club sessions reduced from 42 to just 12 a week.

Targeted support for groups, including those with disabilities and LGBT young people, will be cut from 325 to 300 a year and one-to-one specialist support is set to be halved, from 145 to 72 sessions.

Documents being presented to the council's children, young people and schools scrutiny commission next week, ahead of final approval later in July by the council's executive, acknowledge there will be "staffing reductions".

A decision on how many of the service's 73 staff will be affected will be made during an "organisational review" over the summer.

The change to the service was one of three options that were subject to a public consultation earlier this year. It was backed by the majority (55 per cent) of the 1,142 people who responded and was the only option whereby the council continued running open-access youth clubs.

An option to hand open-access support over to local voluntary groups received 28 per cent support, while an option to axe all open-access support received backing from only four per cent.

Of those that responded to the consultation, 70 per cent were young people.

"I'm really pleased that we have been able to continue with open youth work and we know from the consultation that young people really value having qualified youth workers working with them, " Sarah Russell, assistant city mayor for young people, said.

"There will be staff reductions. The way our youth service is staffed is a real mix, with [some] full-time and [some] small contracts of a few hours each week.

"Following any decision there will be a proper organisational review where staff are given the opportunity to be asked if they want to continue and then we can look at those roles and how long those contracts are. All staff will be involved in that review."

The cuts to youth services are being made as part of a reduction of £5m in children's services spending as the council looks to save £55m across all departments. This is on top of £100m of savings already made since 2010.

"We are having to look at every area of spend across the council," Russell added.

"We have to protect children's social care and our most vulnerable children. [Youth services] is sadly the next area that we are having to review."