Agenda item

Since the Select Committee first spoke to you, it has heard much from other contributors about how Extended Services is being delivered and what problems have been encountered.  We have also visited sites at which Extended Services is being delivered in various forms.

We wanted to speak to representatives from KCC Directorates again to talk about our findings and ask further questions which we did not have at the beginning.

There seems to be much duplication of work between the Youth Service and Extended Services providers.  How can we link these two together?

I don’t think there is necessarily any duplication, and we try very hard not to duplicate.  I think they complement each other rather than duplicate.  The Community Youth Tutor (CYT) role is very important in the Extended Services agenda, and will increase in importance in the future, and its role will be extended. 

We also need to ask where the Youth Service is going in the future, and there are choices to be made about how we deploy our resources. There are currently 18 street-based or ‘detached’ projects.  If we discontinue three of these, we could fund four more CYT posts. We have to decide if the CYT is a better use of available funds.

How can we enhance the role of the voluntary sector?

We currently commission £400,000 worth of youth work from the voluntary sector, and in the future development of the Youth Service we need to decide how to shape the service.  There are three options:-

• Collaborate or combine, perhaps with the Youth Offending Service.
• Move to a model similar to that used by the Kent Drug and Alcohol Action Team (KDAAT), which is a commissioned service.  A central team with a budget of £500,000 pulls in £6½ million of commissioned work. This sort of arrangement takes a long time to establish.
• A ‘halfway-house’ between these two options, keeping a hub in each district and a head office team, and commissioning out the balance of the work.

Various models have been tried across the UK, and it is important to make the right choice. We will need a very active voluntary sector to work with us, and plenty of them to maintain high quality provision.  A decision on this will come later in July 2010.

The Select Committee has been shown a suggested model for Extended Services provision, which has been put together as a result of what the Committee has heard from other contributors.  This model would be consortium funded. Could we do the same for the CYTs as we are suggesting doing for Extended Services Co-ordinators?

There are currently 18 CYTs, and there could potentially be 22 in the future. Each is funded partly by the school in which they are hosted, and there is always a risk that the school might have to make cuts in school funds and choose to cancel the CYT post as a saving.  The Head Teacher’s attitude to the CYT role and presence is vital.  I would prefer that the CYTs were 100% funded, but if they were I would not be able to have 18 of them. They are currently funded on and 60/40% split between KCC and the school.I could not take a youth worker away from youth work to place them in a school.

Canterbury High School’s CYT asked me for funding help from my annual Member Community Grant.  It might be a good idea to spread this suggestion as a way of helping with CYT funding.

The Youth Service has been very fortunate in having had much very valuable Member Community Grant support in recent years, and this has made a huge difference to our work.

I am concerned about losing street youth workers.  I am keen to increase Youth provision in Sheppey.  Using some of my Member Community Grant, I help fund the training of volunteer youth workers.  How would training be prioritised in the new commissioning regime?

The proposed commissioning scheme is only one option. If we go for commissioning, it will cover the head office team and a few core services like outdoor education.  The funding left over will be used to commission services via the usual arrangements.  We need an intelligent commissioning model, and I am keen to keep the big hubs that we have.

Will you commission from the voluntary sector?

This is unknown as yet.  We would seek to engage more small voluntary organisations than a few bigger ones, as smaller, more local ones have more local knowledge. So much of our future service delivery model is speculative at this stage.

What can KCC do to promote and strengthen co-operation amongst schools, and between schools and other organisations involved in Extended Services?

I agree with the answer that Marisa White and Sean Carter gave in the previous interview.  You need to test Head Teachers’ commitment to community provision, and this will be different with opted-out schools.  The 12 new local Children’s Trust Boards might have a role in this. This is unknown as yet, but might be an option. Youth Advisory Groups (YAGs) could also be the strategic body to co-ordinate services for 10 – 19 year olds. Schools need to consider and discuss these issues, and for many this will not be a high priority, so it will be a challenge. Local Children’s Trusts and YAGs are both possibilities.

Could the private and independent schools in West Kent be added to the Head Teachers’ groups, and might these bring some new energy?

They could do.  There will be a range of different groups across different areas of the county.  The ‘Friends of…’ charities which exist in local areas could play a useful role.

The ‘Provision of Activities for Young People’ Select Committee covered the problem of transport to help young people access activities, and this impacts on Extended Services. What progress has been made since then to address this issue?

Transport was identified as a major barrier, but much work has gone on with the Environment, Highways and Waste (EHW) Directorate to liaise with transport providers.  Unfortunately we have not been able to make any progress with train companies. We asked them about the possibility of extending the Freedom Pass to include train travel but they were not at all receptive, not even to a localised pass which will cover regular daily journeys between two or three very local stations.  I suggest that the transport providers of Kent are invited to come together with KCC Cabinet Members to explore the possibilities around transport provision.  I don’t see why this sort of meeting should not take place and should not be successful. David Hall is the EHW colleague who was involved in the discussions, and he could provide details of which transport providers were involved.  Some rural communities don’t have a bus service on which to use the Freedom Pass, but it is possible to look up timetables for minibus services on-line.

Does this service include community minibuses or school minibuses?

It includes any bus. Many schools’ minibuses are hardly used after 4.00 pm, so would be available to use to help access to Extended Services.  There is an issue, though, about licensing of minibus drivers, as the rules have changed recently. A teacher or youth worker cannot drive a minibus without an additional, special licence, but a volunteer can. Some schools/Youth Services are now switching to running 9-seat people carriers, as this is the maximum size of vehicle which can be driven by teachers and youth workers without the additional special licence. 

There is also the same argument about extending the Freedom Pass now going on about extending the Leisure Pass.

Would it be possible to join together the Youth Service and Extended Services ‘silos’ and combine jobs to make the best use of limited resources?  Regarding the effectiveness of the CYT role, there are some children who do not want to go to school and so will not benefit from the presence of the CYT.

Much Extended Services is not in the remit of the Youth Service, and I disagree that there are silos.  There are seven Youth Centres on school sites across the county.  Youth workers undergo extensive professional training to work with a particular age group, and you could not transfer a youth worker into a primary school, for example, and ask them to work with an age group for which they are not trained.

Perhaps the two roles could overlap a bit, as the Youth Service works with children as young as 10.

To address the transport issue, could KCC leaders meet with the Minister for Transport? The Select Committee will look into the possibility of doing this.

Are there other authorities in the Country with similar funding and staffing issues, which are being successful in providing effective Extended Services with fewer resources?  Can you give us some examples of best practice?

There are some good examples of Extended Services and Youth Service working around the country, but really they are not doing anything different from what we are doing in Kent.

What role can other KCC teams involved in Extended Service provision - such as the Youth Service – assume, if the Extended Services Team will be severely reduced?

The Communities Directorate would support a broader Extended Servicesagenda.

Can the successful “MIDES” model of Extended Service provision, which has been adopted in the Dover District, be replicated with success in other areas of Kent?

I can tell you a good example of positive engagement from Sevenoaks.  Young people could not afford to pay to go into a Sevenoaks leisure centre, so used to hang around outside. The manager of the centre arranged for them to be admitted at a greatly reduced rate.  By doing this, the young people were able to take part in some positive sports activities and fill their time productively, and the centre removed the potential nuisance of young people hanging around outside.  By taking an enlightened approach, two problems had been solved. As I have said earlier, there is a problem with extending the Leisure Pass to allow this sort of access as a regular arrangement across the county.   However, we mustn’t forget the potential role of leisure centres, and we always need a two-tier approach to youth work.

How could YAGs be involved, and what role could they play?

There is a countywide Kent Community Development Management Group which involves all 12 District Councils.  This is a self-help group, but it would be difficult for the Youth Service to work with it as they have different structures and resources.

Is there a District or Borough Council in Kent from which you could take a good example of joint working?

Canterbury City Council is very good at partnership working on youth issues.  It works well with both the Youth Service and the YAG.

If it was necessary to select and prioritise the delivery of some Extended Services over others, which services would you choose, and on which areas would you focus your attention?

The 10 year Youth Strategy ‘Aiming High’ is a good policy document to use, and the Select Committee already has it.  National performance indicator NI 110, covering positive activities for young people, is also a good reference point, and of course this and the Provision of Activities for Young People Select Committee are very closely linked.  However, the funding allocated to work on the PAYP recommendations is no longer ring-fenced so is in danger of withering on the vine.  There were nine youth workers available to work on the implementation of the recommendations and there are now only four.