Council cuts will ‘hit disadvantaged young people hardest’, union warns

Bristol City Council has denied trade union claims that huge budget cuts will mean redundancies for youth workers and loss of job security for hundreds of others.

Unison fears that a £400,000 reduction – almost one-fifth – in funding for targeted youth services (TYS), which provide intensive 1-2-1 group sessions and outreach support for thousands of children, will “hit disadvantaged young people the hardest and put jobs at risk in the community sector”.

On top of the cutbacks, the union has also been told the local authority wants to move away from commissioned services to a system of grant funding for the youth sector, which the union “strongly opposes” amid concerns staff could be left on fixed-term contracts as money would be available only for specific projects.

The council says the forthcoming Youth Zone will deliver “world-class services” for many youngsters who already receive support, attract £900,000 a year from outside sources to help run it and add about 100 jobs for youth workers.

TYS is the latest battleground between unions and City Hall in the council’s proposed budget for 2022/23 and beyond, as Unison has now formally raised two collective disputes – over cuts to museums and archives, and reductions to trade union facility time.

In a statement to full council, which is due to meet to set the budget at the second attempt on Wednesday, March 2, Unison said papers to the meeting suggested the £200,000 cuts in 2022/23 and a further £200,000 the following year were only half the story, with a further £400,000 reserved from TYS for the new Bristol Youth Zone.

Area organiser Steve Mills said: “This means the actual value of the contract dropping by nearly 38 per cent and it is impossible to see how that won’t result in redundancies for our members in the organisations that provide the city’s youth services.”

The council says this interpretation is incorrect and that “no further reductions” are proposed to youth support spending beyond the £400,000 by 2023/24 listed.

A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “By seeking to grant fund rather than commission targeted youth services, our intention is to strengthen the resilience of the sector and to work more collaboratively, to establish how funding can develop the workforce who currently deliver support within the community without the benefit of job certainty.

They continued: “The current targeted youth services contract comes to an end in 2023. At this point it is proposed that £400,000 of the funding for this contract will be reallocated to the Youth Zone, which will then deliver world-class services to support many of the young people who have used youth services’ support through the contract.

Residents met last month to discuss a proposed £8.4 million ‘youth zone’ on the border of Knowle West and Hartcliffe – photo: Charlie Watts

But budget papers to full council say: “Reduced budget will mean less capacity within the service, and in all likelihood provider staff redundancies or not filling vacant posts.

“This is likely to affect the generic youth work/wellbeing offer and the service’s ability to accept referrals for 121 support. It may result in more partnership working to deliver group sessions or the stopping of some group sessions.”

Services “impacted by this proposal” include targeted positive youth activities in deprived areas, support for youngsters facing difficulties with health and wellbeing, substance misuse and healthy relationships and support for young people not in education.

Main photo: OnSide

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