anticipated, including the need to reduce SCC’s budget by a further £40m in The national austerity programme has seen a significant scaling back of youth services across the country with some closing down altogether. However, SCC has continued to prioritise its services to young people and, whilst these have inevitably reduced since 2010, the council has sought to find innovative ways of protecting its youth provision, particularly for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. At the same time, the council’s responsibilities for young people services have changed. For example the government transferred responsibility for the provision of careers guidance from local authorities to individual schools & colleges in 2012; policy making for youth services transferred first from the Department for Education to Cabinet Office and, more recently, to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the organisation of Youth Justice Services is under review; and DfE has narrowed its focus to one of requiring local authorities to improve the education, employment and training (EET) outcomes for 16-18 year olds in line with their obligations under the Raising of the Age of Participation legislation. As a consequence, the council needs to review how it commissions young people services from 2017. The Council still has a number of statutory duties to provide services to young people, notably: to support people to make a successful transition from school in to further education, training or employment at 16 to make its best efforts to ensure that all teenagers remain in education, training or employment between the ages of 16 and 18 to prevent crime and antisocial behaviour among young people to enable access to positive activities for all young people. What have we done to meet these challenges up to now? Targeted Support to Young People: in response to these financial and policy challenges, the council has, over the last six years, managed down the budget for services to young people by two thirds to a current spend this year of just under £4m. In so doing, SCC has stopped directly commissioning both universal school-based careers advice and universal positive activities and has, instead, increasingly targeted its resources towards vulnerable young people. Community Youth Teams: SCC has, by working with partners and through its contract with Sheffield Futures, created multi-agency Community Youth Teams, which successfully bring together youth workers, youth crime prevention staff and careers advisors, alongside police officers and health workers, to deliver, more efficiently, a range of services to vulnerable and disadvantaged young people.
anticipated, including the need to reduce SCC’s budget by a further £40m in The national austerity programme has seen a significant scaling back of youth services across the country with some closing down altogether. However, SCC has continued to prioritise its services to young people and, whilst these have inevitably reduced since 2010, the council has sought to find innovative ways of protecting its youth provision, particularly for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. At the same time, the council’s responsibilities for young people services have changed. For example the government transferred responsibility for the provision of careers guidance from local authorities to individual schools & colleges in 2012; policy making for youth services transferred first from the Department for Education to Cabinet Office and, more recently, to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the organisation of Youth Justice Services is under review; and DfE has narrowed its focus to one of requiring local authorities to improve the education, employment and training (EET) outcomes for 16-18 year olds in line with their obligations under the Raising of the Age of Participation legislation. As a consequence, the council needs to review how it commissions young people services from 2017. The Council still has a number of statutory duties to provide services to young people, notably: to support people to make a successful transition from school in to further education, training or employment at 16 to make its best efforts to ensure that all teenagers remain in education, training or employment between the ages of 16 and 18 to prevent crime and antisocial behaviour among young people to enable access to positive activities for all young people. What have we done to meet these challenges up to now? Targeted Support to Young People: in response to these financial and policy challenges, the council has, over the last six years, managed down the budget for services to young people by two thirds to a current spend this year of just under £4m. In so doing, SCC has stopped directly commissioning both universal school-based careers advice and universal positive activities and has, instead, increasingly targeted its resources towards vulnerable young people. Community Youth Teams: SCC has, by working with partners and through its contract with Sheffield Futures, created multi-agency Community Youth Teams, which successfully bring together youth workers, youth crime prevention staff and careers advisors, alongside police officers and health workers, to deliver, more efficiently, a range of services to vulnerable and disadvantaged young people.
Investing%20in%20Young%20People%20FINAL%20Consultation%20Document%2028th%20April%202017.docx