Elizabeth Hartley, Assistant Director: Early Help and Prevention introduced the report of the Director for Children, Families and Education providing the Committee with an overview of proposals to implement an equitable, consistent, branded, neighbourhood youth offer for universal, open access provision.

Members were reminded that in Summer 2019 a review of youth provision in Wirral took place, including a consultation in which approximately 3,000 young people took part. A report went to Cabinet in February 2020 where four proposals were approved, the fifth proposal relating to the delivery of youth clubs being deferred for further development, and the report before the Committee presented the revised arrangements for youth clubs for approval.

The report detailed the current youth offer and outlined the strengths of the offer which would be retained in the new model including a mixed economy of provision and a qualified and experienced workforce. The report also detailed the weaknesses of the current that the new offer would need to overcome including an inequitable offer across the borough, impact of staff absence on delivery and lack of consistent brand and quality assurance. Details of the proposed new offer were presented to the committee, which would use the neighbourhood model to provide a consistent offer, developing a service brand and set of standards with young people, using a quality assurance framework to ensure consistency, and introducing a set of key performance indicators for collective impact.

The committee considered several elements within the offer including the Hive outreach work and the role of the Neighbourhood Youth Workers. It was queried whether the offer had been tested with young people to see if would meet their needs, and it was confirmed that the Young People’s Action Group had been engaged during the development of the proposals and were supportive of the approach.

Resolved – That delegated authority be given to the Director of Children’s Services to carry out actions for the delivery of a universal, open access youth provision as set out in Paragraph 3.6, 3.16, 3.18 and Appendix 2 to the report.