To receive an update on the direction of travel for the review of youth provision and consider how the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Board can contribute towards the review and add value, to include Youth Improvement Fund, youth work including sport, leisure and culture, accessibility to play park and Holiday, Activities and Food (HAF).

Members considered the submitted report which provided an update on youth provision in Torbay.  The Youth Hub within Children’s Services provided the following support to young people:

• Youth Service;
• Young Carers;
• Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF); and
• Community Youth Clubs.

Members were advised that since the report had been written agreement had been made for the Youth Improvement Fund (YIF) for improvements to the Acorn Centre and work was due to start at the Acorn Centre in October 2024.  The Board expressed their thanks and appreciation to everyone involved in securing the YIF money to improve facilities for young people at the Acorn Centre.

The Sub-Board asked a number of questions in relation to £100,000 for Community Youth Clubs and was there an indication on if the Government proposed to continue to fund HAF; Members wanted to look at accessibility to play parks with a review due to be completed by the end of September, what progress had been made on that and would it include a condition report of existing play parks; and a lot of funding streams were coming to an end in March 2025 what action was being taken to mitigate potential loss of future funding, was this the same for all local authorities and was there national work to lobby Government about funding for young people. 

In response to questions around funding, Members were informed that the Council was looking at how we deliver youth services and if we want to deliver the same model for the HAF (which had very prescriptive criteria and outcomes) or if we could work with providers to help them to deliver more services to more young people in a different way.  The Council was already supporting providers to become Ofsted Registered which would open up further opportunities for them including the ability to provide the free child care placements to those families who were eligible.  Tanny Stobbart from Play Torbay welcomed this support and advised that she had been working with the Council towards getting Play Torbay registered.  There had been reasonable feedback from the Government around funding and this was expected to be announced as part of the Budget Statement in October 2024.  This did not allow a lot of time for the Council and partner organisations to plan their activities and to support families and lack of permanent funding does not give the voluntary and community sector a sustainable solution moving forward.  The Council was looking at how it could use the £100,000 within the Children’s Services base budget for youth provision.  There was a lot of lobbying at a national level regarding funding, particularly temporary or one-off funding streams, also in the context of many local authorities struggling with their overall budgets.  The Council was also working with other local authorities to explore the potential to pool budgets to support young people.

Members were advised that there had been a delay to the play park review to enable Participation Officers to engage with young people, which linked to our work with UNICEF to be a Child Friendly Torbay.  UNICEF supported this approach.  The Clerk advised that a timetable for the review had been sent to Members of the Board for the Overview and Scrutiny Board Monthly Briefing meeting on 24 September 2024.  The final report would include a condition report on the existing play parks and had been provisionally added to the Work Programme for 27 January 2025.

Resolved (unanimously):

That the Cabinet be requested to continue to support young people, ensuring young people have a voice and access to support in Torbay, and to ensure that the welfare of Torbay Council staff and the staff teams working with young people in Torbay is considered within decision making, planning and communications going forward.