Spending on youth services has fallen by over a third in the last two years. Figures released to the BBC following a freedom of information request showed that between the 2010-11 financial year and 2012-13, the amount spent in this area fell by £438m, a reduction of 36 per cent. Some councils cut their funding by over 70 per cent, while only seven out of the 152 areas increased their spending in this period. Some spending is now funded from other budgets, which further confuses the figures.
While youth workers in the statutory sector have been feeling the effect of these cuts for the last few years, these figures shine fresh light on the jobs and services lost in recent years. Conservative MP Tim Loughton, the former Children’s Minister called the cuts to youth services disproportionate’, and that youth policy: ‘Should be back in the Department for Education where you’ve got that clear interface with what young people do in schools. Because they don’t have to statutorily provide youth services they have too often been at the top of the queue when cuts come along.’
Chair of the Local Government Assocation’s children and young people’s board, David Simmonds, said that councils face no easy choices: ‘ [Some councils] have been badly affected by the level of reductions in government funding, and that’s meant we’ve seen some areas where the level of funding going into youth services has gone down really quite substantially. Councils are faced with rapidly rising demand, in particular for child protection services. So in order to fund that we need to look at the things that have a less direct and less immediate impact on the lives of children and young people.’
Fiona Black, chief executive of the National Youth Agency warned that these cuts could lead to long-term problems and costs: ‘We’re going to see more young people in the criminal justice system, more young people who perhaps aren’t engaging in education. The cost of that to taxpayers is enormous compared to the very small investment in youth services.’
