Youth work 'staff mutual' gets councillors' backing

Thurrock Council has proposed to transfer all youth services and workers to a new staff mutual organisation called “Inspire”. This would include the transfer of the 70-acre outdoor education centre Grangewaters.

The council said increased pressures on its £1.3m youth services budget had forced it to look at new ways of working.

A spokeswoman for the Essex council said the youth service is working to a continually shrinking budget like many departments across the country.

“Thurrock Council is always on the lookout for creative solutions to increase revenue or reduce spend yet maintain services where possible, and the staff mutual is just one example of doing this,” she said.
 
“The council is committed to ensuring Thurrock’s young people are properly equipped and supported to take advantage of the large number of opportunities opening up locally from the borough’s wide-ranging, exciting and successful regeneration and job-creation schemes.”

Members of the children’s services overview and scrutiny committee agreed to support the "spinning out" of the service and recommend that the council’s cabinet backs the proposals when it looks into them later this year.

The committee also said they supported the transfer of Grangewaters into the planned staff mutual and that a four-year contract with a break clause in year three for renegotiation should help launch the scheme.

They heard that the plans had been discussed in detail with the Cabinet Office, which expressed interest “in the range of services Thurrock Council was considering” and the “engagement that had taken place with young people”.  

James Halden, chair of the children’s services overview and scrutiny committee, said: “There were some concerns – about governance and sustainability – which I think we have answered, but overall this seems like a brilliant piece of work which is both exciting and innovative.

“There is still a lot of work to be done, but creating a staff mutual charity organisation opens up many different and new funding opportunities that the council itself is unable to access.”

If approved, the organisation will look to begin operating on 1 September 2016.