Councillor's concern over shake up for youth services
A senior Tory councillor has voiced his concern over a probable shake-up affecting council services for young people.
Youth services in Bristol are due to be taken over at the end of the month by a number of organisations which have won commissioning contracts from the city council.
But former Tory group leader Richard Eddy fears the radical development is being rushed through and claims that many organisations which have won contracts have insufficient experience or knowledge of working with young people in the neighbourhoods concerned.
He also believes there is a danger of existing facilities being left unused.
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Councillor Eddy (Con, Bishopsworth) said: "In principle, I have no difficulty with the concept of the council commissioning the provision of youth services to outside bodies.
"The difficulty comes when many existing youth groups - such as Young Bristol - were excluded from the successful partner agencies and their services seem to be left to wither on the vine.
"Despite the successful organisations being willing - in theory - to sub-contract work locally to knowledgeable groups, it appears that in
practice, they are proving extremely unwilling to take on board the expertise or facilities of the existing organisations.
"We are in grave danger of young people's provision being thrown into turmoil which is a matter of serious concern."
Mr Eddy said he has written to city mayor George Ferguson urging him to carry out a review of the issue.
Comments
by bromwin
Thursday, January 03 2013, 10:41PM
“The youth service is being systematically dismantled, most of the specialist workers with years of experience and invaluble community links and knowledge have been made redundant, the workforce has been cut back to the very bone, operating a skelaton service with a stretched and demorilised workforce struggling to cope with the demands of there communities . The council run young peoples services, recently renamed bristol youth links has repeatedly stated that they have no plans to close youth centres, this is true only in the sense that they have no plans for the future as they commision the service out. But they known for a long time that they hand over the service to new providers who will not take on responsability for all but one youth centre and none of the adventure playgrounds or city farms. there has to be a better way, we have to invest in young people we have to make sure that young people have a place where they can socilise,learn about life and contribute to there communites and most of all stay safe.”
by bristolreded
Thursday, January 03 2013, 9:08PM
“Why should tax payers pay for so called "youth services"?”
by Richard34
Thursday, January 03 2013, 6:26PM
“Unfortunately there isn't a shake up of youth services, there's more of a desperate race to roll out a product and process which is doomed to fail.
Like Windows Vista, this is being rushed out to areas and George Ferguson will have to pick up the peaces when professional services collapse in early 2014 and other areas see youth crime rise in 2013. Pathetic!”
by DerekRobinson
Thursday, January 03 2013, 4:51PM
“The push thoough is from the Conservaive/LibDem Coalition in Central government, or hadn't you noticed
LibDem / Tory no difference anyway..”
by SCHRIS
Wednesday, January 02 2013, 10:58PM
“Result of Tory policies? I thought it was a Lib Dem council?”
by KBillies
Wednesday, January 02 2013, 10:32PM
“Any one who has met Richard Eddy knows he is not someone to be taken seriously and sophisticated people scoff at him.
Whilst there can be kindness in his behavior his main strength is an innate ability to taunt minority groups and is rarely able to take a coherent position on anything major, and there is good evidence to support this
Whilst his illness makes people reluctant to bash him in any way he is in truth a fool.
Worth repeating.”
by Richard34
Wednesday, January 02 2013, 10:27PM
“Everyone is right to be skeptical about this process becuase essential services which are working in our cities most deprived communities are in threat of closure. The reason things are working in some places is because of existing provision and when these services are taken away we'll suddenly find that issues start at a much younger age than teenagers.
Short sighted, back to the drawing board and start again! The young people are Bristol's future and they have a right to provision and socialisation away from computer games and thrown out to join younger street groups.”
by KBillies
Wednesday, January 02 2013, 6:59PM
“Any one who has met Richard Eddy knows he is not someone to be taken seriously and sophisticated people scoff at him.
Whilst there can be kindness in his behavior his main strength is an innate ability to taunt minority groups and is rarely able to take a coherent position on anything major, and there is good evidence to support this
Whilst his illness makes people reluctant to bash him in any way he is in truth a fool.”
by DerekRobinson
Wednesday, January 02 2013, 3:33PM
“Tory councillor bemoaning the result of Tory policies.
Get Lost !”