NE Lincolnshire considers youth service overhaul

The authority is consulting on proposals to restructure its youth services, including youth work and youth offending, in a bid to save £920,000 from the department’s £3.6m budget.

Under the proposals, put forward as part of council-wide plans to save £28m by 2016/17, 24 jobs across the range of youth services are expected to go.

The council wants to stop delivering services universally from its youth centres and is encouraging organisations from the community and voluntary sector to take over provision instead.

It is also considering merging its Young and Safe initiative – a police-led early intervention service designed to engage children and young people at risk of becoming involved with crime or drugs and alcohol – with the youth offending service. The aim is to reduce the number of children and young people who are put in custody or placed on referral orders.

In addition, the council wants to create a new transition team whose focus will be on supporting children and young people with special educational needs.

Councillor Ian Lindley, who looks after the authority’s children’s services, justified the proposals by saying: “We have had to make unprecedented savings across the council this year, and in our youth offer, as in other areas, we must look at how we can make the most of the resources we have and explore new ways of working to ensure that we continue to deliver the services that our young people need.

“We could easily achieve these savings by simply withdrawing some of our youth services, but rather than doing that we would rather implement new and leaner ways of working which would not only achieve the required savings, but allow the continued provision of youth services in North East Lincolnshire.”

A consultation on the proposals is being held via the council’s young people’s support services Facebook page.