Plans for bigger and better youth service
We're unveiling ambitious plans for bigger and better youth services for Derbyshire youngsters.
We held our biggest ever consultation on proposed changes to the way youth activities are offered.
Thousands of people − including youngsters − responded during the ten week consultation, and the views have been fed into the authority's plans for the future of county's services.
A report, planned to go to Cabinet, outlines:
Activities would be available when young people want them at weekends and school holidays, as well as during the week
£250,000 of grant funding would be available for the voluntary and community groups providing youth activities
More young people would be involved in more youth activities at more venues than ever before
No youth centres or activities would be closed without suitable alternatives being provided.
Councillor Barry Lewis, Derbyshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Young People said:
"We're planning the biggest transformation of youth services for over 30 years to offer modern and improved quality services across the county."Young people have told us what they want and we've listened, so in future activities will be offered at weekend and school holidays, as well as during the week.
"We don't have any plans to make redundancies − staff will be offered new contracts so they have the capacity to work more flexibly to respond to young people's needs."
Around 40 full-time youth posts based in the authority's multi-agency teams around the county will continue to provide youth activities.
As part of the consultation voluntary and community groups were asked if they would be interested in developing youth activities and taking over the running of some youth service buildings.
More than 1,300 interests have been logged, from groups including Army Cadets, pre-school playgroups and voluntary youth associations.
Councillor Lewis added:
"We want to work closely with our partners in the voluntary sector as it is already providing about 70 per cent of the youth activities currently on offer."By offering much-needed cash grants we can help them to provide young people services that they enjoy and use.
"We're working for these youngsters so we've asked them in-depth questions about what they want and we plan to involve them in designing services."
The authority spends more than £10 million on services for teenagers annually.
There is no planned reduction in youth service activities budgets for the foreseeable future.
Cabinet will make a decision on the report at the meeting on Tuesday 12 June.