Issue - meetings

 – Nigel Baker, Head of Integrated Youth Services, was in attendance for this item)

(1)       The Cabinet Committee received an update report on the progress made to implement the new model for the delivery of youth work services in the county since January 2013.   The report set out for the Committee a summary of the new delivery model, and provided an analysis of quantitative and qualitative performance for both direct delivery and commissioned services during Quarters 1 and 2 of 2013-14. 

(2)       The Cabinet Committee were also asked to consider and either endorse or make recommendations on the Cabinet Member Decision to proceed with the construction of a new Youth Hub for the Dover District, to be located in Deal.

(3)       The Cabinet Member introduced the report stating that it had been delayed in order to ensure that it took account of the full evidence of the Youth Service Transformation.  He reported that the quantity of services being delivered exceeded targets set and the quality of those services was also good, although it in some areas, work continued toward this end.  He and the Corporate Director had recently visited a number of commissioned services in East Kent and were pleased to report that the work being undertaken was encouraging. 

(4)       Mr Baker spoke to the item and reported the following information to Members:

(i)        The transformation had been launched on 1 January 2013 and had been a joint venture with young people, staff and borough and districts for two years before that.

(ii)       The new service was ‘owned’ by the County Council but with vastly increased commissioning of services.  KCC now delivered fewer services directly but instead, engaged with 23 groups to provide and commission services, all but one of which were Kent based. 

(iii)      KCC delivered a core service which was the same in each district.  There was one hub in each area as well as school based and street based services. In addition county wide services such as Outdoor Education Centres and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards were also provided.  These services were overlayed by a commissioning budget of £1.6m which is not equally distributed throughout the County.  This was now completely awarded.

(iv)      The hubs were usually housed in an existing building, many of which were refurbished, however in one areas (Dover) a new building was commissioned. 

(v)       Street based youth workers now had state of the art mobile facilities to support their work.

(vi)      The services, whether they were directly delivered by KCC or commissioned, were both quality assured in the same way.  Each project had quantitative and qualitative performance targets captured on a single Information Management System.  Observations were carried out by both officers and young people.  Observations were undertaken by visits and currently there had been 106 visits by officers and 28 by young inspectors.  The visits by young people were unannounced and recorded their impressions of the service as a ‘first time’ user, the officer visits provided professional opinion of what the services  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25