Youth services seek advice on setting up mutuals
Neil Puffett
Monday, February 25, 2013
Professionals in 36 youth services across the country have expressed an interest in branching out from local authority control and setting up a mutual, it has emerged.
Latest Cabinet Office figures reveal the demographics of the 109 groups of professionals that received support from the government’s Mutuals Information Service since its launch in December 2011.
The figures show that youth services were the most likely to enquire about becoming a mutual, followed by adult education, which accounted for 11 enquiries, and NHS services, which accounted for seven.
Kevin Ford, managing director of youth service training firm FPM, said the level of interest indicates that youth service mutuals could become an increasingly popular delivery model in the coming years.
“Thirty-six enquiries represents a significant interest in exploring the possibility of becoming a mutual,” he said.
He added that interest in the model is only likely to increase, with a number of youth service mutuals set to launch in the near future.
Kensington and Chelsea Council’s youth service is set to become a mutual in April. Then, in the autumn, the Young Lambeth Co-operative (YLC) mutual will launch, with young people in charge of commissioning £3.7m of services.
Ford said Knowsley Council is exploring the possibility of forming two mutuals for two parts of its youth service – a youth service mutual and a rights and participation services mutual.
“Within six months there will be examples of new ways of working,” he said. “There are some positive signs emerging from what is a pretty bleak environment for open-access youth services.”
Latest council spending figures, published in January, show that local authority spending on youth services dropped by more than 25 per cent between 2010/11 and 2011/12.
