Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/665/11724
From The Socialist newspaper, 6 April 2011
Save Hackney youth services!
Suzanne Beishon, London Youth Fight for Jobs
Youth workers and young people from Hackney, east London, protested outside the council's Children and Young People's Scrutiny Committee to demand an end to the savage cuts that will decimate the services used by young people in the borough.
Whilst Hackney has one of the highest youth unemployment rates and highest rates of gun and knife crime in the country the council is pushing ahead with plans to merge Hackney Youth Services with the Youth Offending Team, resulting in the loss of 91 posts out of 181.
The merger will mean youth workers are re-named, taking them out of nationally agreed youth worker terms and conditions. Alongside this the council proposes large funding cuts to youth centres across the borough and big cuts in the Connexions youth advice service.
Protesters spoke to a Labour member of the committee before the meeting who claimed to not know the details of the cuts we listed. She said as far as she was aware youth services were protected!
We will be making our case against cuts in the next committee meeting and will present a petition signed by young people and youth workers from across the borough.
The cuts to youth services nationally make up a large proportion of many councils' budget cuts. Young people's futures are under attack through the cutting of EMA student payments, raising university fees, joblessness and attacks on benefits.
At the same time councils are now removing the few insufficient services that help young people find work, develop socially and culturally and give them an alternative to hanging around on the streets.
Why not click here to join the Socialist Party, or click here to donate to the Socialist Party.
In The Socialist 6 April 2011:
Anti-cuts campaign
Bosses prepare for war on public sector workers
Labour Link won't save jobs and services
Housing benefit cuts start to bite
Bristol meeting - The battle of our lives has begun
On the move in London to fight the cuts
Fight the cuts with TUSC: more than just a 'protest vote'
Austerity measures take away the basics
Labour 'campaigning' - casework style
Socialist history
International socialist news and analysis
Ireland's economy on the brink
Jordan: 'Reforms' fail to halt growing opposition
Socialist Party workplace news
Saltend lock-out - Solidarity strike spreads
Call for strikes to stop Ford attack on pensions
Birmingham prison officers determined to fight privatisation
Prison officers fight prison privatisation: Interview with POA assistant secretary, Joe Simpson
Teachers and council workers strike together in Tower Hamlets
Leeds Unison - fighting the cuts
Socialist Party youth and students
School students stage anti-cuts strike in Dundee
Leicester: still angry with Clegg
Home | The Socialist 6 April 2011 | Join the Socialist Party
Join us today!
Printable version
email to friend
