Youth and Adolescent Services Consultation

Overview

Unprecedented reductions in funding for local authority budgets mean we have to save £74m between 2010 and 2019. That’s almost half our current annual budget. So far the council has saved £43m from the annual budget, £11m of this has been saved with your help since we launched Sutton’s Future in July 2014. We now have £31m more to save.

Just over £9 million of this saving is to be made from Children’s Services. As a result, the Youth and Adolescent Service has had to identify possible changes to contribute towards the savings. In the past few years changes have been made to the service, such as reducing the number of staff and services, however it has continued to provide a service that all young people in the borough can access, if they wish. As further savings are required, the Youth and Adolescent Service has had to review the services provided.

A number of options have been identified for the future of Youth and Adolescent Services, which are as follows:

• Option 1 - Keep the Youth and Adolescent Services as they currently are
• Option 2 - Reduce the services that all young people can access, with resources focussed to support vulnerable young people
• Option 3 - Stop providing the services that all young people can access and reduce the support for vulnerable young people
• Option 4 - Only provide services required by law plus some extra support for vulnerable young people
• Option 5 - Only provide services required by law
• Option 6 - Stop providing all Youth and Adolescent Services, including those that are required by law 

(Please note, option 6 was rejected as the council is required to provide a level of service for children and young people. Further details about these services can be found below in Appendix C)

The current recommended option is Option 5 - to only provide the services required by law. This includes meeting the council’s duties to encourage enable and assist young people to participate effectively in education and training and to provide so far as reasonably practicable a local offer of positive leisure time activities for young people that is sufficient to meet local needs and improve young people’s well-being and personal and social development.

Why your views matter

We would like to hear your views about the proposed options and the ways in which we could make savings while continuing to provide a youth service for children, young people and their families.

The questionnaire should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete. Responses to the questionnaire are anonymous and will not be passed on to third parties.

The Council is also making a significant effort to encourage young people to take part. This work includes 25 focus groups; 300 surveys from young people; a series of short films for young people on what the impact of the choices being made will mean for them; 80 selfie images showing the choices young people are making; and one-to-one interviews with individuals across the borough.

If you are a young person wanting to take part in our activities, please email info@participationpeople.com