Agenda item

This report provides an update to the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee on the delivery of performance, outcomes and opportunities identified since the implementation of the Brent Youth Strategy 2021-2023 and outlines the proposed plan for the Brent Youth Strategy refresh (2024-2027).

Councillor Gwen Grahl (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools) provided some political context to the report which detailed Brent’s revised Youth Strategy. She highlighted that youth services had faced challenges over the past 14 years as a result of austerity programmes which had caused a reduction in funding for youth services. The report highlighted the specific situation in Brent where most youth centres closed in 2015 following a cut of £900k to provision. The national charity, UK Youth, had found that more than 4,500 youth worker jobs had disappeared, 760 youth centres had closed, and over £1billion per year had been lost from the sector in the past decade. Alongside this, the government had implemented updated  statutory guidance for local authority responsibilities in relation to youth services in September 2023.

In continuing to introduce the report, Councillor Grahl detailed that there was a big demand for youth services across the borough, and the Council benefited from partnering with the Young Brent Foundation (YBF), who helped Brent to deliver a meaningful offer by co-ordinating opportunities for youth provision with many different community and voluntary sector organisations. She felt that YBF had been innovative in finding different sources of funding and had developed some outstanding initiatives over the years. The Children and Young People Department had also applied for other sources of funding available to them, such as the Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) and the Mayor of London’s Disproportionality Project. The refreshed Youth Strategy aimed to strengthen some of those partnerships and opportunities, and had ambitious aims around public health and tackling the climate crisis. In concluding, Councillor Grahl highlighted that, too often, youth services were spoken about in the context of tackling violent crime, and she wanted to discourage that approach so that youth services were seen as a vital source of wellbeing, creativity and connection for young people, and which delivered a range of outcomes that could be a lifeline for some of the poorest children in the borough.

Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director for Children and Young People, Brent Council) added that, in the absence of a funded youth offer, the Council’s Youth Strategy focused on partnership with the local community and voluntary sector. The report detailed the progress made from the previous strategy and how the Council aimed to move into the next phase with the voluntary and community sector, using the voice of young people.

The Chair thanked colleagues for their introduction and invited Chris Murray (CEO, YBF) to contribute to the introduction. Chris Murray began by highlighting the collaboration between the local authority and voluntary and community sector, which had been growing each year. YBF had supported a My Endz programme to be funded through the Violence Reduction Unit called ‘One Flow, One Brent’ which had brought in just under £1m to the borough. YBF was currently looking at a Youth Futures Foundation programme around youth employment, or under-employment, for young people under 25, to help children flourish in their abilities to find employment.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member and officers for their introduction and invited comments and questions from the Committee, with the following issues raised:

The Committee highlighted that the report detailed a number of deliverables but did not include success metrics or indications as to how successful delivery had been. They asked officers how the Committee could be assured that delivery was successful. Nigel Chapman highlighted that a number of activities outlined in the report were funded programmes which required reporting on outcomes and progress, which were targeted measures. These had not been included in the report but he was confident they had been successful, particularly the ‘One Flow, One Brent’ programme and the work done with the Violence Reduction Unit. Within the Youth Strategy, the themes identified were around young people feeling they had a voice, feeling they had places for them and facilities to experience activities, that they could develop more skills and opportunities and that their mental health and wellbeing improved. Those measures were not solely contained within the Youth Strategy and would be reported in other places. For example, the performance around young people in education, employment or training would be reported within the Council’s Corporate Performance Scorecard. It was agreed that the Committee could be provided with some data that reinforced some of those outcomes. In addition, any piece of work that YBF brought into the borough required KPI reporting within the contract, and those reports were available on the YBF website.

In further responding to requests for success or outcome data, Councillor Grahl highlighted that community organisations, which were now the primary delivery mechanism for youth services, were not necessarily set up to collect data in the same way the Council could. However, community and voluntary sector organisations had enormous benefits and could reach different parts of the community that the Council did not reach as easily. She highlighted the deputation made by Roundwood Youth Club in demonstrating how important youth services were to young people.

The Committee asked what the impact of funding cuts had been in terms of who had been most impacted. In terms of funding, Councillor Grahl highlighted that the Council now no longer directly funded youth services and relied on the voluntary and community sector to provide services. YBF helped to find funding for community programmes and the Council could make small pots of funding available where possible. The Mayor of London had also started to make more funding available for youth provision. Due to the Council no longer directly funding services, it was difficult to measure the impact of funding cuts. Nigel Chapman highlighted that, while it was not possible to directly measure the impact of cuts, the Council could see that demand had grown for services in other areas, such as demand for support in Family Wellbeing Centres, which might point to a connection between lack of universal services and an increase in more targeted support required. On the other hand, the Youth Justice Service had seen a reduction in the number of cases they supported, so there was not always a direct causal link between reducing universal services and increases in demand elsewhere. There was also national data available on the impact of youth services by the charity UK Youth, which showed that youth services were worth a lot in terms of the money they saved local authorities, NHS services and education. For example, youth services could have an impact across the board on public health and education outcomes, and politicians were now recognising that youth services helped reduce the vulnerability some young people had to violent crime.

The Committee highlighted section 5.3 of the report which stated that Brent did not meet the funding requirements for government capital youth centre funding in 2023. Nigel Chapman confirmed that only two London boroughs had been eligible to bid for that funding at the time, and the allocation of that was determined by central government.  

The Committee asked how aware of Family Wellbeing Centres young people were, and whether they made use of them. Serita Kwofie (Head of Early Help, Brent Council) explained that the Council was developing the youth offer across the 8 Family Wellbeing Centres (FWCs) in Brent and there were a number of young people who used the centres. Initially, there had been less of a desire to attend by young people as they saw FWCs as a space for their younger siblings, but the Council had worked on changing that perception and broadening the offer for young people to make sure it was targeted to what young people wanted. The FWCs were now becoming more well attended and offered after school activities, holiday activities, and engaged with young people to understand what they wanted from the FWCs to tailor services to their demand. FWCs also worked with YBF.

The Committee asked how the Children and Young People Department would ensure the Youth Strategy aligned with the Brent Black Community Action Plan (BCAP). Serita Kwofie explained that there were a number of strategies that the department wanted to align the strategy with so that it was not a standalone strategy and it correlated with the aims and goals for the Council’s other strategies. This would enable a collaborative approach to youth provision across the Council.

Continuing to discuss FWCs, the Committee asked what support they offered children and young people with mental health issues and for future reports to include that information. Councillor Grahl explained that FWCs were hubs where families in need could access many different services and could signpost to psychological services if needed. They also had a number of services operating within the centres themselves predominantly tied in with the Early Help Programme. The model for FWCs had proved very successful and as such been expanded due to the evidence showing their benefits.

The Committee highlighted concerns that some communities were able to service youth provision in their own communities financially while other communities could not, which was leading to inequalities. They hoped the new strategy would identify those inequalities and consider ways of tackling those.

The Committee asked whether sufficient consultation took place with young people to understand their views about youth services. Nigel Chapman highlighted that 500 young people contributed to the first Brent Youth Strategy, with 300 responses to the survey as detailed in the report. The Council intended to go back out to consult young people, and had committed to that as part of the borough plan. The Committee hoped the Council would also engage with parents and carers.

The Committee was joined by representatives from Brent Youth Parliament, and the Chair invited them to contribute to the meeting at this stage. They asked officers how young people would be able to make their contributions to the Youth Strategy and which young people in particular would be engaged. Councillor Grahl responded that the Council was happy to work with many of the organisations it currently did through the voluntary and community sector and the organisations that had benefited from funding in the past. The YBF had good connections with all groups of young people so the Council was keen for them to be at the heart of the Strategy, and the Council would be engaging with Brent Youth Parliament as well. Serita Kwofie added that the Council was trying to engage with social media more to ensure it was reaching out to young people and accessing their views. Brent Youth Parliament highlighted that the Brent Youth Strategy Survey had garnered 300 completed surveys, but there were over 100,000 young people in Brent. They felt it was clear that there were many young people in Brent who were not aware of the youth provision that existed or that there was the opportunity to contribute to the Youth Strategy. They asked how the Council planned to make these opportunities more accessible to young people. Serita Kwofie responded that this was part of the communications strategy and included engaging with social media, schools, alternative provision, and youth provision. The Council was not aiming to do this on the scale done previously but instead aimed to broaden the reach to get a representative voice.

BYP noted that £2m had been made available for youth provision buildings. They asked why the Council did not direct that funding towards provisions already in place instead, as put forward by Roundwood Youth Club during their deputation. Nigel Chapman explained that the £2m available was capital funding, not revenue which could be used for running services. The Leader of the Council provided further context, explaining that it was Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy (SCIL) funding which was negotiated and agreed by Planning Committee and Planning Officers for use on capital project infrastructure, which could only be used to build new buildings or invest in localities where there would be long term improvement. As such, the Council was working on a programme to determine which organisations would benefit from building infrastructure improvements.

The Committee noted that the report had detailed an opportunity to explore a Youth Zone in Brent with the national charity OnSide, and asked whether the Council could explore that opportunity further. Nigel Chapman explained that there had been a number of meetings in relation to this with both OnSide and the Leader of the Council, where the main challenge had been finding a suitable site for OnSide. The Council had available sites but OnSide felt they were not sites they wanted to take forward, so the Council made the decision to not actively pursue the option. The capital funding had been earmarked so it was important to make use of that money, so the Council had made the decision to look at making the £2m capital funding work for youth buildings across the borough rather than one individual space. Having said that, the Council had not closed the door to OnSide and OnSide could come back to the Council in the future.

The Chair thanked those present for their contributions and drew the item to a close. He invited the Committee to make recommendations, with the following RESOLVED:

i)              To recommend that young people were represented as part of the Youth Strategy Steering Group. As part of this, the Committee recommended there was representation from across the sector and geographical areas in the borough so that all areas were represented.

ii)             To recommend that a more specific engagement target was set for the number of young people reached when developing the strategy.

iii)           To recommend that officers continue to think creatively about solutions to funding of current provision.

iv)           To recommend that the Council communicates its communications strategy publicly so that it is widely available to young people.

Several information requests were also made throughout the discussion as noted below:

i)              For future reports to detail performance data so that the committee could compare how well the Council was doing in this area.

ii)             For future reports to be clearer about the impact of cuts and how the department mitigates against them to ensure good youth provision.

As the Chair drew this item to a close and waited for colleagues to join the meeting, he asked for an update regarding the fire on Elm Road, Wembley which happened on 29 January 2024, and the safety and security of the school on Park Lane. Nigel Chapman updated the Committee that, to the best of the Council’s knowledge, the school had been open as normal. There had been no direct impact on Park Lane Primary School as a result of the fire, but he was aware there were some pupils who attended a different nearby primary school had not been in school that day but had been supported well by their primary school. The Council continued to monitor the situation and provide support wherever possible.