contribution by Anjum Klair

Children and Young People Now reports that Somerset County Council is set to stop funding for 18 youth groups and seven youth centres as part of measures to reduce its spending on youth services by 75 per cent over the next three years.

Out of the 21 council-owned youth centres, seven could be handed over to community groups while 18 community-based groups that are currently supported by council resources could see that funding stopped.

In Northampton, the renowned Pen Green Centre for Children and Families is facing cuts of more than £1m over the next three years under proposals put forward by the Northamptonshire Schools Forum.

Nursery World reports that the proposed cuts, which at £350,000 a year amount to more than 50 per cent of the Corby setting’s core budget, mean that 51 groups for children and families will be cut, along with all after-school provision, year-round services for the youngest children in the nursery, and family support services.

Heather Donoyou, Head of the Pen Green Centre, said,

It is important to know that the budget being cut is not the children’s centre budget that comes direct from Government – it is the social services part of our budget which we have had since the centre first opened. When we became a school, the local authority promised us that this budget would be sustained, and now they are threatening to take away 56 per cent of our funding, which will have huge implications on what we can offer to local people.

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