Agenda and minutes

1.1       The following non-pecuniary interests were declared:

Cllr Mallory - Chair, Lee Green Lives, which hosts a youth club

Cllr Hall – Chair of Lewisham Co-operative Party

Cllr Johnston-Franklin – Ward Member for Ladywell where it is proposed to remove youth service provision from one site

Cllr Till – Vice Chair of Rockbourne Youth Centre’s Supporter Group

2.1       The Chair introduced the meeting and made the following points:

·                Putting forward this proposal cannot have been easy for the staff involved.

·                Given the relevant deprivation indices, it was clear that a large number of youngsters in Lewisham were reliant on the youth service; 30 per cent of the borough’s children lived in poverty and 77 out of every 10,000 young people were in care; and nearly 600 children were impacted by severe domestic violence.

·                Whilst the budget situation necessitated savings to be made, it was important that the youth service wasn’t seen as a “Cinderella service” that could be easily cut as youth workers played a vital role in the community and the Council had a responsibility to provide educational and recreational activities for young people, as enshrined in statute.

2.2      Warwick Tomsett gave a presentation on the options for the future of the youth service and the following key points were made:

?          The current Youth Service budget was £3.46m and approximately 85 people were employed.

?          A mixture of direct and commissioned provision was provided.

?          The last Youth Service restructure established a vision that was embedded throughout the service and the savings proposals were not intended to change that.

?          The new structure allowed the collation of more accurate data and the service was getting better at assessing the impact of provision.

?          There were five broad options under consideration:

1)     Reducing the service to providing the statutory minimum, which would generate the savings required immediately but end a lot of the current provision.

2)     Putting a Youth Service contract out to tender and commissioning from the private or voluntary sector, but market testing had suggested that providers were not interested in such a large scale contract and full cost recovery might reduce the savings generated.

3)     Dividing the youth centres and adventure playgrounds, incorporating each individually as a charity and trust, mutual and/or social enterprise and commissioning these separately, which would reduce economies of scale and might end up costing more.

4)     Retaining a full council-run service, which wouldn’t deliver any savings next year, necessitating savings in future years.

5)     Spinning out the Youth Service, establishing a young person and employee-owned mutual, and legally incorporating the enterprise, which would sustain the youth service with fewer resources but which posed a number of risks.

·                An officer appraisal of the options favoured the mutual option, although the results of the current consultation could change the appraisal.

2.3      Mervyn Kaye outlined the reasons why the mutual was the preferred option, which included:

·                Empowering staff and young people

·                The emphasis on income generation

·                Buy in from youth workers and young people

·                Allowing staff to play to their strengths

·                Incentivising staff (who have a ‘stake’ in the business)

·                Potential ‘back office’ savings such as ICT

·                Opportunities to access new funding (such as Children In Need)

·                Interest from partners (such as Millwall)

·                The opportunity to learn from best practice in this area.

2.4      Frankie Sulke reiterated the fact that, whilst the mutual was currently the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

3.1       None.