
The authority is currently holding a formal public consultation into the future of its youth services after revealing it needs to cut the department’s budget from £5m to £2m a year by 2015/16.
The move, which comes 18 months after the budget was reduced from £12m, is part of the council’s plans to save a total of £215m by 2016/17, which the authority puts down to reduced central government funding and heightened demand for more acute services.
Unite, which represents the majority of Essex’s youth workers, claims the council is considering proposals that could see all 178 of the county’s youth workers lose their jobs, and services all outsourced and delivered by the voluntary sector and other external providers instead.
The union claims another option under consideration by the council involves 172 youth workers losing their jobs, leaving just six for the whole of Essex.
As a result of their concerns, almost 100 union members are expected to demonstrate outside Essex County Council’s base in Chelmsford on Thursday (31 October) in a bid to encourage councillors to seek savings from elsewhere.
Carolyn Simpson, Unite’s regional officer, hopes the demonstration will highlight the impact of the cuts on vulnerable young people.
She said: “We want to drive home the message to councillors that the blinkered and draconian options that they are contemplating will hit young people seeking advice on employment, accommodation and personal issues.
“The council is storing up social problems for the future – which will cost more to fix in the long-term – by adopting this knee-jerk and short-sighted stance.
“We want the people of Essex to put pressure on their county councillors to save this service, which has demonstrated proven and positive results over the years for the council’s young people.”
However, Councillor Ray Gooding, cabinet member for education and lifelong learning at the authority, disputes the union’s claims and says that a decision about the cuts will not be made until feedback from a public consultation has been considered.
He said: “No decisions have yet been made about the future of Essex youth services and the suggestions that Unite is making are simply not true.
“However, it is undeniable that, given the £215m savings that the county council is faced with making, we cannot rule out any measures that are needed to achieve this.
“The purpose of the youth service consultation is to listen to young people to see how we can continue to offer them the services they need in the most effective manner.”
The management of youth centres, youth strategy groups and alternative education currently come under the remit of the council’s youth services, as well as targeted youth advisers and detached youth work projects.
The consultation ends on 20 November.
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