BY JACK WELCH

WITH continuing cuts to local authority spending, which has impacted on most, if not all, parts in England, it should come as no shock that Dorset County Council (DCC) have initiated a review into their current youth service provision for the county.

By 2017, the children’s services department estimates around £5 million, and potentially more by 2020, will be cut from their current £57 million budget.

From the first round of reductions, the council are seeking a £1 million saving from their £2.2 million budget of the youth service.

At the moment, they are conducting a survey for the public, leading towards their consultation on planned future delivery.

There will undoubtedly be a very noticeable difference to how these services will look in the county.

As part of their ‘Forward Together’ programme, the council are aiming to work alongside the voluntary sector, education and other public service partners in order to share the load of local authority provision into the hands of the community.

However, as I have found from conversations with some of those individuals who are expected to take more responsibility, the mood is sadly one of great worry.

Many organisations, which also receive grants from DCC cannot simply provide more for less if they have no financial backing for those services.

Beyond youth clubs, the service also addresses support for mental health and substance misuse.

The consequences as such from these savings are still unpredictable and are sometimes not fully appreciated for the vital help which vulnerable young people need to prevent a crisis and intervene early enough so that far more serious problems do not occur in the future.

At present, there are also 22 youth centres in the county, which run with paid staff and enough funding to maintain buildings.

While it is estimated that 10 per cent of Dorset’s young people use those services currently, it would be a terrible deal to those young people in some of the most rural settlements to have effectively nowhere which helps support them beyond school.

Visit dorsetforyou.com/youth-services-survey to have your say.