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.

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