Vye: Our Young People Are Being Treated Badly (Faversham and Mid Kent Liberal Democrats)

Faversham and Mid Kent Liberal Democrats <info@libdems.org.uk>

Vye: Our Young People Are Being Treated Badly

October 21, 2011 3:04 PM
Originally published by Liberal Democrats on Kent County Council

Martin Vye, Liberal Democrat County Councillor for Canterbury, is angry and concerned about the proposed cuts in the Kent Youth Service. Youth Service cuts were discussed at a meeting of Kent County Council on 20th October, with the Conservative run authority seeking to cut Youth Service funding by almost one-third and "outsourcing" much current provision.

Liberal Democrat Kent Ediucation Spokeman Martin Vye said:

"Cutting £900,000 will not go a long way towards the savings the county has to make but it is a massive blow to this valuable service. The Conservative administration should never have considered doing this. Our youth workers are second to none but even when times were good the service was never funded as it should have been, and there are gaping holes in provision of youth facilities in the county anyway."

He accused the Conservatives of bungling the consultation process.

Martin said:

"They talk of using KCC funds to commission the voluntary sector to take over youth services in the Centre they are going to vacate but surely this should have been planned and negotiated well in advance, so that young people do not go into next year not knowing whether their Centre will be open. The administration is adopting a high-risk strategy, as the social cost of getting this wrong is immense.

"This is the wrong service to cut. But if they are hell-bent on doing it, I call upon the authorities to get their act together and get voluntary and community sector groups, district councils and Adult Education, round a table and hammer out an agreement that will keep Centres open. If they don't act now young people will be left after December not knowing whether there are going to be services for them"