CROYDON IN CRISIS: While Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor, recommends a pay rise for himself, he’s cutting a youth service in what has been described as a ‘stealthy’ move, one which could have ‘catastrophic’ consequences. By WALTER CRONXITE, political editor
Deeply concerning: Sarah Jones MP is urging the public to support a campaign to save the council’s youth engagement team
Sarah Jones, Labour MP for Croydon West, says that it is “deeply concerning” that Croydon’s Tory Mayor Jason Perry is axing the council’s youth engagement team for an annual saving of £700,000, in a move described by opposition councillors as “stealthy”.
Youth workers have warned that closing the council’s youth engagement service, handing over some of its functions to often under-trained volunteers, could be “catastrophic” for the borough’s young people.
Inside Croydon reported before Christmas that at least 12 council staff working in the youth engagement team have been placed in a 30-day “consultation period”. It is all a foregone conclusion as Mayor Perry is concerned.
iC now understands the moves could affect 14 youth staff.
Exclusive news: how Inside Croydon broke the news before Christmas
The council announced that it is “to change its way of engaging with young people” following a review, with all funding to end in March and the youth engagement team disbanded. Effectively, the council wants to outsource its youth engagement activities to private companies or volunteers.
This at a time when Croydon continues to have troubling levels of youth crime, including violent crime and knife crime.
By axing its youth engagement team, Perry’s council perversely suggests, will “maximise help and support for the young people who most need it, in the most effective way”.
The council wants to replace its youth engagement service with £200,000 in grants – funded by the Home Office and Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit – “to deliver initiatives to help young people stay safe and well”. It wants to outsource the services into a fractured system of well-meaning, but not always professional, groups.
Perry says that said wants to provide youth engagement services in the “most cost-effective way”. So for him, this is all about saving money, and nothing to do with saving lives.
Part-time Mayor Perry, having already closed four public libraries against public wishes, is proposing these youth cuts while, at the same time, recommending that he should get a £2,000 increase on his £82,000 per year council salary. You really couldn’t make it up…
Over the past year, the youth engagement team reached more than 7,000 youngsters, aged between eight and 18, in Croydon primary and secondary schools, community groups and clubs, faith groups and through one-to-one support.
As one insider told Inside Croydon, “The council has stated it cannot afford the £700,000 annual cost of the team. But what will be the long-term costs of overburdening already stretched services or seeing more young people enter the youth justice system?”
They compare, unfavourably, the amount being saved on the youth team to the millions the council is paying to consultants to advise the council on … cost-cutting measures.
The youth engagement team works across the entire borough, and while its staff have options to take other jobs in the council, “the team view their work as more than just a job—it represents years of dedication and passion for building strong relationships”, the insider says.
They say, “Despite reports and consultations being conducted, the team has not had access to these documents, which appear to have formed the basis for the current proposal.”
Seeking more transparency: Labour group leader Stuart King
The youth engagement team’s responsibilities include organising the Croydon Youth Assembly, running targeted girls’ programmes to reduce antisocial behavior in the town centre and supporting the social care team, early help teams and the youth justice service.
“As a local authority-governed team, the youth engagement team adheres to principles and guidelines set by the council and Ofsted. There is concern that the community organisations and voluntary groups which are expected to take over the team’s work may not be bound by the same standards or values.”
In a letter, seen by Inside Croydon, sent to Katherine Kerswell, the council’s £200,000 per year chief executive, Councillor Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group on the council, said, “I am concerned that the council is taking a decision about important youth services in a way that lacks sufficient detail and transparency.”
In his letter, King claimed that no one from the Opposition was informed of the “significant changes”.
“The reliance on a budget saving agreed two and a half years ago seems thin,” King wrote.
King’s letter complained that there had only been a press release on the disbanding of the youth engagement team issued from the propaganda bunker at Fisher’s Folly, which was lacking “any of the detail that a formal report to cabinet or to a delegated decision-maker does”.
King wrote: “In the interests of good governance and the council demonstrating it is meeting its best value duty, we believe that the decision the council has taken should be the subject of a formal decision report, preferably to cabinet where maximum transparency can be applied to it.”
King pointed out that there are three cabinet meetings at which such a discussion might be had in the first six weeks of this year. The first of which is at the Town Hall tonight, when there is nothing on the agenda to discuss the axing of the youth engagement service – although much time will be spent blowing smoke up the arses of piss-poor Perry and CEO Kerswell because, four years after the council’s financial collapse, a few of their mates reckon they are doing a half-decent job.
Sources within the Labour group at the Town Hall suggest that Councillor King has not even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement to his letter from Kerswell. “They are trying to sneak this through. They are being very stealthy about it.”
And now, Croydon MP Jones has given her support to a campaign from the Croydon Youth Assembly to try to save the youth engagement team.
Money man: Mayor Jason Perry (centre) was happy to take a photo op with Croydon Youth Assembly, but threatens its existence with a funding cut
“It’s deeply concerning that Croydon Council’s consultation on its youth engagement team threatens the existence of the Croydon Youth Assembly, with the young people most affected not even being informed or consulted about these decisions,” Jones wrote on social media last night.
“The council must do better by ensuring that the voices of the Croydon Youth Assembly are heard and considered as part of this crucial decision-making process,” Jones said.
Because if Kerswell and Perry won’t allow a discussion on the disbanding of the youth engagement team, a petition can force them to do so: 500 signatures of local people – that is, residents or business-owners based in Croydon – will secure a public petition debate at a full council meeting.
The people behind the petition describe the consequences of shutting down the youth engagement team as “catastrophic for the 90,000 young people in Croydon”. The consultation period for the youth engagement team’s jobs ends on January 21.
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Any campaign on this issue by Sarah Jones and Labour in Croydon lacks credibility, as the last Labour administration in Croydon (2018-22) itself made cuts to essential services.
And nationally today Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer have no policy to reverse cuts to local government funding. These cuts are one of the main causes of the dire state of public services in Croydon and elsewhere.
Wait to you hear what the Labour group, including several Newman Numpties, want to do when it comes to a vote on increasing their allowances by 2.5%, David.
I’d say that you’d never guess. But you will.
Are they going to bravely stand up and abstain?
Kids have always complained that they had nothing to do and were bored. Teenagers have always goaded each other into doing silly and dangerous things. Teds and bikers in the 50s, led the way. My generation behaved badly in the 1960s (mods, rockers, cannabis) as did my sons in the 1980s/90s. Now, though, whether due to lack of suitable role models, broken families or social media, teenagers are exposed to greater risks and threats. Knife culture is among the greatest of social problems today.
I cannot think of a more inappropriate response to this than to remove professional support and help from the very teenagers who are most at risk. Kids discuss problems with each other, perhaps with siblings but not with parents. If the services are removed, parents and kids are all let down. None of us is trained in bringing up children, parentood is bewildering and someteimes terrifying. Life is nothing like TV adverts pretend it to be.
I know Councils are desperately under-funded and have more responsibilities than they can possible handle or fund, but if we remove support for teenagers we let down each generation and the consequences will be dire. Too many sons and daughters have died already, without professional support the death rate may rise. I would not want that on my conscience if I were a Croydon Councillor.
Completely agree. Croydon is one of the worst, if not the worst, boroughs for youth violence. This is such a shortsighted move that penalises kids through no fault of their own.
I find it interesting that we have a council peer reviewed in a kindly way by the LGA but failing in its responsibility to inform, communicate and consult when the same LGA sets out the following good practice guidance
There are also a range of other non-statutory reasons that you might want to run a consultation exercise. These include:
to improve planning, policy and decision making
to make better use of resources
to access new information, ideas and suggestions
to encourage greater participation in the activities of the council
to govern by consent (a full and fair consultation, with careful consideration of all views, can strengthen the legitimacy of the prevailing view among those people not in favour of the final decision)
to measure residents’ satisfaction with the council
to shape council activities around residents’ needs and aspirations
Non-statutory consultations have no legal status but do enable councils to hear from a representative cross-section of the population. A Government Code of Practice on Consultations is available online.
The style here is tone deaf to the needs and interests of our community and a ‘listening’ Mayor that doesn’t.
Perry has selective deafness. He only ‘listens’ to people who agree with him
Unfortunately he is far from alone with this malady!