Issue - meetings

(1)    Mr Hill introduced the decision report and stated that the drivers for this were partly the need to make savings, but also to explore other ways of delivering services.  There had been wide consultations with young people, colleagues in Districts and other partners.  Locality Boards, or other Member groups, had been asked for their agreement to the direction of travel at an early stage and following further discussions, each Locality Board or Group of Members had endorsed the plan for their area. He stated that it was intended to do more work at Locality Boards and that the localist approach had worked very well for the development of youth service proposals, although it had been resource-intensive.

(2)    Mr Baker set out the process that had been followed to reach the stage of having a plan for each District which had been endorsed at the local level.  He explained the detailed plans set out in Appendix A and gave examples of a number of changes to the original plans for areas such as Dover, Canterbury and Dartford which had been made following consultation.   In relation to Ramsgate it had been agreed that as part of the commissioning process, providers would be sought to deliver youth services from the existing youth centre in Ramsgate in addition to the directly delivered service that was planned to take place from the existing Quarterdeck Youth Centre in Margate. This kind of adjustment was also taking place in other parts of the county following comments received through local consultation.    Appendix A also included the amount of money allocated to each area from the commissioning budget.  He explained that 80 – 85% of the key principles and outcomes for youth work would be the same for every area with Appendix A setting out the local priorities for each area.   The timeline in the report set out how this would be achieved in advance of implementation on 1 January 2013.

(3)    Mr Hill anticipated taking the decision on 2 May 2012 and there was an extensive communications plan in place to get the message out to the public and stakeholders.  He asked for Members’ assistance to reinforce the message in their areas that the intention was to produce a better youth service across Kent.

(4)    Mr Hill, Ms Honey and Mr Baker answered questions and noted comments from Members which included the following:

·  A Member commended the process of engagement with District Council colleagues and the work done to achieve agreement on the plan for the area. 

·  In relation to a question on how the Locality Boards would be involved in the commissioning process, Mr Baker explained that there would be ongoing engagement with Locality Boards regarding progress with commissioning in their area, which would allow them to assess the outcomes that were being achieved for the money allocated. There was also an internal process for monitoring outcomes from providers which may be reported to this Committee in future. 

·  Mr Baker pointed out that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8