I’ve submitted a motion about youth services to be considered by Cambridgeshire County Council at its meeting on Tuesday 15 December.

You can read it on Page 5 of the agenda here.

The motion points out that 95 per cent of the Government’s youth services budget is spent on its own National Citizen Service (NCS) scheme. Only one in six eligible young people take part in this, and numbers fell by eight per cent last year. NCS offers just two to four weeks of voluntary activity for 16 and 17-year-olds, but received £1.26 billion in government funding from 2016 to 2020.

Meanwhile spending by councils on youth services nationally has reduced by 69 per cent since 2010/11, from £1.4 billion to £429 million, with the loss of more than 4,500 youth work jobs and the closure of 750 youth centres.

The Government has also not yet released £500 million in Youth Investment Funding which it promised fifteen months ago.

I’m asking the Council to back the Local Government Association, which represents all parties in councils across the country, in calling for the Government to switch funding from its National Citizen Service to supporting youth provision by local councils, and to release the money it promised in September 2019.

I’m very pleased that this motion will be seconded by of the three Independent councillors on the County Council, and hope it will be passed.