OPINION: We must resist cuts to youth services
by Michael Goodier
The Trump protest last night wasn’t the only rally to hit Brighton city centre over the past week. Saturday saw nearly 300 people march through town to voice their opposition to cuts to our city’s youth services: a more concrete aim than ‘screw Trump’, even if more people turned out to oppose the US president.
The situation for Brighton’s youth is dire. From a budget of around £1m, the council plan to axe £800,000 – a cut of 80% which could mean several groups will lose all of their funding. In January’s full meeting, the council pledged to ringfence £100,000, but youth workers estimate this will only keep services running for an additional three months. That is not long enough for Brighton’s young people who depend on their local youth clubs.
The council have also belatedly started a consultation process, asking the cities young how the cuts will affect them. However, the consultation closes on the 12th of February, three days after the policy resources and growth committee decide on the budget recommendations. So the voices of young people will be ignored, again. What is the point on even having a consultation if it’s not going to be taken into consideration.
Young people didn’t vote for our political leaders, and have done nothing to deserve such brutal treatment at the hands of government. Youth clubs provide an irreplaceable service, without which many young people would go on to become a drain on the council’s adult social care budget. An estimated £1 spend on youth work saves £5 down the line.
Brighton and Hove city council are going through difficult times, and have been making cutbacks to a vast array of services in an attempt to save money. These include cuts to support services for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. The council are even looking to privatise the city’s tennis courts. These are desperate measures indeed for a Labour council, but it is our national Conservative government that must ultimately shoulder the blame, as it is they who have cut local funding so severely.
The brunt of the cuts are falling on services that the council don’t have a statutory obligation to provide, such as youth services and abuse support. However, as youth worker Ben Glazebrook pointed out to me during Saturday’s protest, this is a risky move that could end up making the council redundant. After all, what is the point in local democracy if anything and everything that they do is required by law anyway? What difference does one administration make to another if they only provide the bare minimum? We could replace councillors with a board of administrators to simply enact statute.
In this sense, the cutting back of youth services is a symptom of a much larger issue that affects local government everywhere. These national cutbacks not only affect our city’s young, but strike at the very heart of our democracy. The council must do everything they can to resist them.
