Ambition boss: Chyps merger 'will improve youth service quality'

Helen Marshall said that, if successful, the merger will enable the organisations to pool their resources to ensure services remained of a high standard despite funding cuts.

Speaking at the Chyps convention during a debate chaired by CYP Now editor-in-chief Ravi Chandiramani, she said: “It’s the quality of youth services that make a difference and it’s the intervention of a good quality, trained professional at a local level.

“Whether that’s a local authority delivering that or whether that is the voluntary sector, we know that there are limited resources and those resources are going to get more and more limited.

“It’s about how we best use those collectively, and it will be at a local level, to determine what that [quality] looks like.”

Marshall told Chyps members that the merger would also enable the organisations to have a stronger voice on youth issues.

“Both organisations are involved in influencing and campaigning and sit on the same kind of groups, and actually, if we can have a stronger voice and are influencing what happens, I can only think that’s a good thing,” she said.

“I actually think it makes sense as a sector that we try to do that more together.”

In a joint statement last month, Chyps and Ambition announced that they are in talks to merge their activities from April 2015, following due diligence.

Michael O’Brien, head of commissioning education and lifelong learning at Essex County Council, stepped down as chair of Integrated Youth Services East – a Chyps regional forum – following the announcement.

He told CYP Now that he was disappointed with the way the organisation has handled the plans and that, as a result, no longer wants to be a member.