Coalition Government fails to engage with black communities

The friends you keep can often reveal more about you than the words you speak. Former Defence Secretary Liam Fox will no doubt be reflecting on such issues following his enforced resignation after his relationship with Adam Werritty.

The Guardian today published a full list of all meetings held by Government. The report states with whom Government and Ministers choose to meet and how often, but equally illuminating is the political inference that can be drawn from whom they choose not to meet. What is stark is the extent to which so few meetings have been held with black and ethnic minority organisations.

Who Government Ministers meet in the course of their work can often speak volumes about their political priorities. I for one along with many others consistently argued that race equality has lost its priority under the current Coalition Government.

This Government has no discernable race and equality strategy to speak of. The Minister for Race Andrew Stunell MP has no commitment or understanding of, the issues facing Britain’s black and ethnic minority communities.  Meetings with him have been reported as “a disaster” and an “utter waste of time”. His grasp on the detail of issues affecting black communities is said to be almost verging on an insulting level of ignorance. The appointment by Government of someone with no interest or commitment to the issue of race is seen as further evidence of the level of disdain that the Prime Minister has for the concept of race equality.

All of the post Stephen Lawrence Report policy and consultative infrastructure right across Government has been all but dismantled. Specific and targeted government funding for black and ethnic minority organisations has virtually ended. We currently have no credible policy consultative forums within Government at a national, departmental and regional level.

Since May 2010, up until the release of the information out of around 3000 meetings with corporate business groups and trade association, think tanks and other interest groups the entire government has had just 15 meetings with UK based black and ethnic minority groups. 

Some of these meetings were roundtable affairs and on the Guardian database are listed as the lead organisation.

The community with the most meetings across all Government departments is the Jewish community. According to the published list Jewish organisations had a total of 7 meetings with David Cameron’s Ministers.

Muslim and Asian community organisations have had a grand total of 5 meetings with Government.

Britain’s black community organisations have had just 3. Two of these were round table affairs organised to simply to wind up the previous government’s Race Equality Fighting Fund. As a result of a range of national black organisations in receipt of funding targeting race equality and social cohesion initiatives have seen their funding from Government disappear.

Those organisations still in receipt of Government funding are largely white dominated “black led” organisations. These types of compliant organisations generally agree with the Government’s colour blind approach to race. This analysis denies the existence of institutional racism in the development of policy and the allocation of resources and services. It discounts the affects of racism on black and ethnic minorities as consequences of individual life choices and believes that 21^st century Britain is a ‘post racist society’. This is their most fundamental and grievous error and one that is not informed by the myriad of facts that prove otherwise but is more worryingly driven by a deep ideological opposition to the very concept of anti racism.

I would have expected the Minster for Race, Stunell and the Minister for Equalities Lynne Featherstone MP and would have had the foresight to recognise the political importance of black and ethnic minority community’s voices being heard in Government. Both have shunned black communities and despite their Ministerial responsibilities have, through ignorance and inaction, conspired to effectively exclude black community organisations from influencing Government policy.

Both are Lib Dem Ministers who to their discredit remain the only mainstream party not to have black MPs in their Parliamentary party. The Lib Dem track record on promoting race equality and engagement with black communities is frankly abysmal. This despite the rhetoric of Deputy PM Nick Clegg and Vince Cable in opposition who promised that race equality was central to their vision of a fair and inclusive multicultural Britain.

This degree of acute political marginalisation across all Government Departments and Ministries reflects the degree by which the issue of race has disappeared from the political agenda. What is true for central Government is doubly true for local Government where the political scene is one of compete devastation and where local black communities are being left to freefall into a social abyss of poverty, absence of opportunity, ill health and crime.

Such marginalisation does not come without cost, both political and economic. If black organisations don’t have the necessary resources to ensure poor communities are empowered to engage in civic society then alienation, cynicism and anger will increase.

The consequences of this discriminatory process are I believe very clear and evident in recent events. The summer riots, the catalyst for which was the issue of black men dying in police custody, could I believe have been prevented, saving lives and millions of pounds: had the Government and Mayor of London not dismantled strategic black police community consultation forums, or discounted the need to ensure that they employed a diverse range policy advisers or civil servants who would have been equipped to respond to these issues and engage with communities.

I described the relationship of police and black communities in London as being at “ boiling point “ at the time of the death in police custody of Smiley Culture (aka David Emmanuel), and warned of such unrest but was duly dismissed as seeking to  “exploit a tragedy for political gain”. This was a particular heinous accusation at the time and as events have shown, rather than seeking to shoot the messenger more time should have been invested in dealing with the collapse of community confidence in the police.

Both the Mayor and Government should have been sighted on these issues and effective community liaison strategies put in place.  Particularly as the backdrop to these events, we saw huge increases in metropolitan areas in the use of the increasingly despised stop and search powers and drastic public sector cuts in some of the most deprived communities in the UK - these factors contributed to a growing feeling of anger and politicisation of black communities.

This Governments lack of interest in race equality and racism more generally may be electorally popular with some in the short term, but it will result in tragedy, increased levels of racism and in the long run will ultimately cost the tax payer and country millions of pounds.

Lee Jasper

The voices of Tottenham are being marginalised - by Stafford Scott

Riot police patrol the streets in Tottenham during the August 2011 riots. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

Slogans and stickers will not help the area recover. Calls for justice must be heard – otherwise we'll see a repeat of the riots

Along Tottenham High Road you cannot help but notice the "I Love Tottenham" stickers emblazoned on every lamppost and in nearly every shop. This is a local-authority-conceived campaign, one that it hopes will bolster community, consumer and investor confidence in the area. As someone who genuinely does love Tottenham I do not wish to undermine the initiative, but it's impossible not to question the goals of the campaign when the logo gives no insight into why I, or anyone else, should believe in this particular area.
What does "I love Tottenham" mean to those people who took part in the events of 7 August, which followed the shooting of Mark Duggan by the police? Do they love Tottenham? Well they might do, if you can love somewhere and hate it at the same time.

For most of those I know who took part, Tottenham is the only home they've ever had; some of them have never strayed far from its borders. Far too many have never been outside London. For them it's where they feel most at ease. But for many it is also a prison. They were born on Tottenham's estates, and see little chance of escaping. These estates can be desperate places to live.

I doubt that the "I Love Tottenham" merchandise will make its way on to the estates in any meaningful way. For the residents know this is yet another cosmetic exercise, similar to the spending of £30m on the Broadwater Farm estate in the 1990s. It's designed to make those who are passing through think that change has occurred when really nothing could be further from the truth. Haringey council and Tottenham's MP David Lammy have done some good work supporting those who have lost their homes and businesses: for this they should be applauded. But they have shied away from engaging with those whose actions placed Tottenham in the media spotlight once again.

It's a reminder of how different it all was in 1985, when Bernie Grant was the leader of Haringey council. Instead of giving the kneejerk reactions we have seen from today's politicians, he sought to provide a different perspective: he spoke to us before speaking to the media, but most importantly he didn't say one thing off camera and another thing on camera. That's why there were no more riots in Tottenham – even after the killings of Joy Gardner in 1993 and Roger Sylvester in 1999 – while Grant was our MP. There was a feeling that someone in authority cared and would represent their views. Those I speak with today feel no one is remotely interested in hearing their stories, much less willing to represent them.

Those who are able to speak about the real reasons Tottenham was set ablaze are now finding themselves ignored by the local authority. One well-known reverend, who used to virtually eat, drink and sleep with the council, is no longer invited into the same room after he had the temerity to state publicly that he believed an injustice was being done. The local authority should be listening to him: he has had a glimpse into the lives of those blighted by their policies.

These actions only add to the sense of isolation and marginalisation that some in Tottenham's black community have endured for decades. It seems that these politicians have learned little from the expensive public inquiries that they paid for, such as Scarman, Gifford and Macpherson.

Lammy has told me that Grant's stance saw Tottenham ostracised by the politicians; but Tottenham had been forgotten long before Bernie became our MP. While he may not have brought the ministerial visits we have seen recently, Lammy shouldn't think he himself brought them here either: the riots did. And Grant brought us something much more profound than ministers: he brought us hope, gave us pride, and provided us with leadership.

Martin Luther King once said that riots gave a voice to the voiceless; but the voices of those who felt moved to take to the streets in August are still very much unheard. The lessons from the 80s should tell us that ignoring them will come at a cost.

These people are the "already marginalised", or the offspring of the "already marginalised": the ones who were excluded from school in disproportionate numbers; who were arrested and convicted under "sus" laws in disproportionate numbers; who are being stopped and searched in disproportionate numbers. They see themselves as victims too: to further marginalise them will only make them feel squeezed between a rock and an even harder place. As far as they are concerned, they are being left with no alternative but to lash out. So telling them that sentences are going to increase is akin to telling someone strapped with a bomb, "Stop or I'll shoot!"

I love Tottenham, but it's the people that make it lovable, not slogans. It will need much more than a sticker campaign if we are to ensure that none of this plays out on our streets again.
Equality, fairness and justice must be on the table, for without this the regeneration of Tottenham High Road will be meaningless to many of its inhabitants, and the likelihood of another riot erupting will remain a distinct possibility.

By Stafford Scott

(First published at: The Guardian  www.guardian.co.uk)

Why I'm marching on the 29th October against deaths in police custody - by Talia Bennett



Talia Bennett - young activist from Nottingham

'At the beginning of this year, I had barely had any knowledge of deaths in police custody.
I knew that they happened, but had been fooled into believing by the lack of media attention and shortage of any kind of information on them that those deaths were rare, and that when they did occur they were dealt with subtly but effectively.

I had no idea that they aren’t dealt with at all, and that a conscious effort is made on the police force’s part to cover them up, scrub them from all records and files, slander the memory of those who have died and twist the story to make the victim seem like a monster who deserved death if they do somehow manage to wriggle their way into the public’s line of sight.

 I wouldn’t have known if not for the Campaign for Justice for Smiley Culture just how many times deaths in police custody have occurred, how hard the police try to hide them, and the kind of passion I feel for it now wouldn’t exist.

It both saddens and angers me to think that there are many out there who, even when faced with evidence that deaths in police custody are constantly happening and that the police are constantly lying and manipulating to cover up their tracks, can still turn their head away and refuse to see it.

Even with the death of Mark Duggan – with the combined forces of skilful story-twisting, carefully weaved ignorance and the exaggerated criminality of the following riots, the interest eventually faded into nothingness: everybody appeared to get caught up in the more interesting details of their own world and the rioting and forget that an innocent man died at the hands of their alleged ‘heroes’.

Knowing what I now know, and being able to see it through eyes that haven’t been sullied by the slander projected by the indifferent powerful authority figures – I can't simply sit back and let myself become swept away by the details of my own world. The same feeling of responsibility and passion for campaigning – the same anger at the impudence of the authorities and the cheek of their barefaced slur towards those who have died at the hands of the police that I felt when I first heard of the death of Smiley Culture – has only been strengthened over the months: although, by the dilution of enthusiasm and care towards the CFJFSC that seems to have occurred, I don’t think the same can be said for every single one of the 9000+  who have liked the CFJFSC Facebook page.

I am marching on the 29th of October in Trafalgar Square because no matter how long we have to fight to be heard, I will never stop caring. I am marching because now matter how long it takes, I refuse to become lost in my own circle. I will continue the fight for justice, for however many months or years it may go on, and I will refuse to stand down.

I will always care.'

By Talia Bennett

The Annual Remembrance Procession Against Deaths in Custody is organised by the United Families & Friends Campaign

All information below is from the event page set up by UFFC: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172866569434620

Silent Procession along Whitehall followed by Noisy Protest at Downing Street!

ALL WELCOME - PLEASE WEAR BLACK - BRING YOUR GROUP’S BANNER

The United Families and Friends Campaign is a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in secure psychiatric hospitals. It includes the families of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard,... Mikey Powell, Jason Mcpherson and Sean Rigg to name but a few. Together we are building a network for collective action to end deaths in custody.

What we believe
• That failure of State officials to ensure the basic right to life is made worse by the failure of the State to ever prosecute those responsible for custody deaths.

• That the failure to prosecute those responsible for deaths in custody sends the message that the State can act with impunity.

What We Demand
• Deaths in police custody must be investigated by a body that is genuinely independent of the police.

• Prison deaths must be subject to a system of properly funded investigation that is completely independent of the Prison Service.

• Officers involved in custody deaths be suspended until investigations are completed.

• Prosecutions should automatically follow 'unlawful killing' verdicts at inquests.

• Police forces are made accountable to the communities that they serve.

• Immediate Legal Aid and full disclosure of information be made to the relatives of the victims for investigations, inquests and subsequent prosecutions.

• Officers responsible for deaths should face criminal charges, even if retired.

• CCTV to be placed in the back of all police vehicles

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Please check these links for further details:

 http://uffc-campaigncentral.net

http://4wardeveruk.org/

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172866569434620


No Justice No Peace!

Video - Lee Jasper - BARAC - Europe Against Austerity Conference

Boris Johnsons London 'Black History Month' competition is derisory.

For Boris de Pfeffle Johnson, Mayor of London, the concept of Black History Month has always be seen as a waste of money and nothing more than political propaganda.  Having slashed the BHM budget by 92% last year, reducing the funding from a respectable £132,000 to a paltry £10,000, his paltry effort this year speaks volumes about the Mayor’s perception of the importance of London’s Black Communities.

Against the backdrop of the summer riots that were ignited in part by the massive increase in the number of black men who suffered suspicious deaths in police custody such as Smiley Culture, Demetre Fraser and Mark Duggan and over the last 3 years a staggering 300% increase in the rate of police stop and search, Boris recognised that he has to be seen to be doing something.

Anger is palpable in London’s Black communities and police black community relations are worse now than I have seen them in the last 30 years. The reason for that is Boris just does not do race. He sees it as an anathema and his strategy on race has been to do the bare minimum with the maximum publicity.

So this year, the year before the Mayoral elections he has launched a Black History Month competition with the London Metro asking Londoners to vote for their most “ Inspirational Black Person” from a long list of assorted media, political and sports stars.

Hilariously and as a result of the acute shortage of senior black staff at city hall his officials were reported to be ringing round black organisations asking for the telephone numbers of long deceased historical figures such as Marcus Garvey and Claudia Jones.

This tawdry effort amounts to nothing more than an inverted mountain of celebrity piffle. Johnson’s calculation is that as a celebrity obsessed community, we will forget about black men being shot dead by police officers on the streets of London and vote like demented lemmings for our celebrity Back History Month idol.

Often cited as controversial politically Johnson is a fake maverick, a deeply conservative right wing one trick pony but nevertheless he is undoubtedly a first class charming and effective communicator. 

Boris has developed the dark art of obfuscation utilising that English Wodehousian bluster, stuffed with historical quotes and finely honed in the raucous Bullingdon Club debates at Eton. This is Johnsons favourite and I have to say, his most effective modus operandi.

He provides proof, if proof were needed, of the validity of a quote by Napoleon Bonaparte “In politics, absurdity is not a handicap.”

Boris is best summed up as personally charming,intellectually funny and politically incompetent.

His outward public approach to black people is best described as  rather charming, benign and patronising, whilst his political decisions reveal his true psychology.  These political decisions include: massive cuts to black employment and cultural projects of all kinds across the capital, the destabilising of Notting Hill Carnival, failure to tackle serious youth crime and failure to ensure that his top team reflects London.

His steadfast refusal to formally acknowledge Trans- Atlantic Slavery Memorial Day on the 23^rd August, despite repeated request that he be seen to recognise both the involvement of London in the slave trade and the huge financial benefit to the capital, is quite simply an outrage.

In my own humble assessment I get the impression that Boris and host team think black people are politically chaotic, easy to please and for the most part emotionally and intellectually naive.

He has the ability to charm an audience and, by and large at those black public events that I have attended, the audience reacts to him with smiles and warm applause. His celebrity and millionaire persona exert a charismatic political alchemy that appeals to poor people seeking to gain political patronage.

Boris is  protected from critical media inquiry or challenge by a largely supine media and in that context, he is well able to deflect criticism by simply refusing to answer the questions or announcing some ill thought out new tokenistic policy solution. 
In this manner he manages to deftly avoid all sustained political attacks.

Boris Johnson’s recent interview with Jeremy Paxman provides a perfect and most recent example. Whilst we can all agree that Paxman has lost his edge, it is quite nauseating to see a politician given such an inexplicably easy ride.

In relation to black communities in London his assessment is that as a community we do not vote in big numbers and he can afford to ignore us.

As a response we need to launch the largest voter registration drive ever seen in the capital in the run up to the next Mayoral election.

If the inner London voter registration and turnout can be increased by around 10% then the political importance and significance attached to those issues that affect our communities will be hugely increased.

London’s Mayor has reduced Black History Month to the status of an X Factor competition; complete and utter drivel. In and of itself not really that important, however taken together with his general political failure to meet the needs of the London’s black communities we can see its real significance.

Lee Jasper

Lets tell Boris what we think of his derisory Black History Month proposals .Post here on the Metro web site:  http://www.metro.co.uk/news/878059-who-should-be-crowned-most-inspirational-black-person

Unity needed to save Notting Hill Carnival

The news reported in the Guardian that the only two directors of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd Chris Boothman and Ancil Barclay have resigned in protest at the chronic lack of funding and political support from Mayor Boris Johnson, Kensington & Chelsea and  Westminster Councils will result in the current company being closed down.

This is a disaster in the run up to the Olympic year where Carnival should have been centre stage celebrating the  hyper diversity that makes London one of the worlds most diverse cities on the face of the planet. Both Mr. Boothman and Mr. Barclay worked incredibly hard to ensure the event was a huge success since their election in 2008. Working as unpaid volunteers they put their heart and soul into the event and remarkably were able to stabilise the event that has had a turbulent history.

The funding bodies including Boris Johnson, Tory London Councils, the Arts Council and the Metropolitan Police have conspired to undermine the efforts of Carnivalists to provide the necessary funding to ensure adequate levels of public safety and enhance the artistic platform that is the essence of Carnival. Boris Johnson is leading a covert strategy in effect a Tory led conspiracy to shut down Notting Hill Carnival.

Despite the Tory penchant for decrying ‘ elf and safety rules”, funding bodies have used this issue and placed more and more demands for strict compliance with a raft of safety legislations without providing the much needed necessary funding. This bureaucratic tactic has left the Carnival unable to meet these completely unreasonable demands.

Carnival generates over £150 million pounds to London’s economy and is the largest Black led street festival in Europe and yet its funding is comparable with a parish garden event. What is absolute clear is that there is determined agenda to allow the Carnival to wither on the vine with year on year reductions in funding and ever increasing demands from the funding bodies. Despite the benefits to the local economies income earned both Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster Councils both have sought to scale Carnival back and constrain it’s obvious potential.

Carnival is Europe’s premier black cultural event and yet its treatment at the hands of the Mayor and local Councils has been one of appalling neglect, racism and hypocrisy.

Compare the way Carnival is treated with that of any other major London festival and the difference becomes clear. USA day, Thames Festival, Lord Mayors Parade, and many others provide examples of acute difference.

Carnival has in the last three years been funded to fail and subject to covert attempts to close the Carnival down. This follows a pattern of cultural marginalisation from the Mayors Office including cutting Africa Day, London’s Black History Season, Trans Atlantic Slavery Memorial Day 23rd August, the Rise Anti Racist Festival and many more have been axed leaving the capital cultural calendar bereft of any major black cultural event that is funded and supported by City Hall. Anywhere else in the world Carnival would be fully supported and endorsed at the highest level. Take a look at Rio Carnival for example well funded, officially endorsed by Government and part of the fabric of Brazilian culture in contrast Notting Hill Carnival is seen as cultural interloper an alien cultural event foreign and agonistic to British culture.

Chris Boothman hit the nail on the head when he said:

"Carnival is not just a free-for-all party. Its roots lie in celebrating the emancipation of slavery and it has high artistic values, but it is a struggle to uphold those values when it is so underfunded."

Ancil Barclay added,

"Carnival has to grow up. Everyone loves carnival, but when it comes to putting the right structures in place there is a total lack of investment."

This disgraceful treatment of Carnival is further evidence is that London’s black communities cultural events are being removed from the cultural landscape of London in an effort to ethnically cleanse the culture of the City prior to the Olympics.

What has not helped is the internecine strife that plagues Notting Hill Carnival Ltd. The old proverb that a house dived among itself must fall and that fact that both Directors were subject to internal criticism and political jockeying contributed to their decision to resign.

The issue of greatest concern this year was the demand by the funders that the Carnival Bands finish early as a result of the recent riots. This is virtually impossible for the Carnival Board to deliver and in my view they were foolish to agree to such demands form the funding bodies as a result they faced a massive internal backlash led by the Steel Bands who were enraged that this had been conceded by board members.

After a heated post-carnival meeting on 21 September the pair wrote to funding bodies stating "it increasingly became obvious that we had lost the level of support required to continue effectively". In effect the Steel Bands stated they wanted Directors who stand up to what they saw as unreasonable demands for the Mayor, the Police and Councils.

The current status of the company is that it has no Directors so will in due course be struck off the Companies House register. Funding bodies are trying to gerrymander the creation of a new Carnival company with their preferred list of Directors as we speak. This is an attempted coup d'état by the funding bodies led by the Mayor and Tory Councils

What happens next will determine the very future of Carnival and without complete solidarity and unity of vision among the Carnivalists themselves both the Mayor and the local Councils will out maneuver them in pursuit of their real agenda and that is and always will be to seek to close the event down.

Protest against cuts to save the youth of today - Lobby at Westminster on 25th October

Picture by Choose Youth

This summer saw the worst civil disturbances seen in Britain in the last 30 years. Despite those being involved being described by the Prime Minister as “purely criminal”, it is widely accepted that a primary cause of the disturbances, a reaction to the shooting of Mark Duggan, was the fact that thousands of young people living in some of the poorest communities in Britain are feeling both alienated and excluded from society. Public sector cuts to youth service are a false economy, and will cost the country more in the long run.

That is why BARAC UK (Black Activist Rise Against Cuts) is supporting the forthcoming Parliamentary lobby of Parliament organised by Choose Youth, an umbrella campaigning alliance of over 30 national youth organisations that are seeking to stop the devastating massacre of youth services taking place across the country.

The Lobby will take place on 25th October at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster from 11am to 4.30pm.

We ask that you join the lobby and help us to convince MPs that the cuts to youth services are short sighted and must stop. Supporters are being asked to arrange to meet with their MP as well as write a letter of support. By visiting the Choose Youth website, supporters can find template letters and guidance in how to lobby your MP and help organise people to attend.

This summer highlighted just how important front line youth services are to communities. Every young person, regardless of their background or where they live, should be entitled to high quality youth work, delivered by trained professionals, as it helps their personal and social development, informal learning, ability to play an active part in their local community, and supports them to have fun in a positive constructive way.

Our youth service, which has historically been a partnership of local authority and voluntary sector providers, is far too good to lose to spending cuts and urgently needs investment to tackle the new challenges that young people in the UK are facing, such as youth unemployment and barriers to further and higher education. As local authorities cease or drastically cut their youth services, in response to spending cuts, a crisis has developed. Not only is the service lost, but years of professional expertise and partnership working and expertise between the statutory and voluntary sectors is also being lost too.

MPs need to take urgent action to stop the modern youth service being pulled apart by the devastating spending cuts being made to youth service provision, the biggest cuts to any public service. The LGA’s own Council Budgets Spending and Saving Survey 2011 reported that one in five councils said that after central services, the service most often targeted for proportionally greater savings in 2011/12 was ‘services for young people.’

A survey by the Confederation of Heads of Young People’s Services in February 2011 found youth service cuts averaged 28%, but some authorities were cutting services by 70%, 80% and even 100%. Spending on youth services in England has fallen from £397.6m in 2006/07 to £350 million in 2009/10; this is equivalent to just £77 per young person aged 13-19 and even this paltry sum is being squeezed. Those areas with high Black and ethnic minority populations are seeing some of the largest percentage cuts.

Cuts to young people’s services are a very false economy and will lead to higher costs elsewhere. These are not just services to meet immediate needs today. They are investment in preventing more costly interventions tomorrow. The Audit Commission estimated that a young person in the criminal justice system costs the taxpayer over £200,000 by the age of 16 but one who is given support to stay out costs less than £50,000.

The Government’s National Citizen’s Service (NCS) six-week initiative will not fill the gap created by youth service cuts. A summer placement for 16 year olds cannot substitute for youth services operating for 365 days a year. Choose Youth believes that existing youth services should take funding priority over new initiatives. We support the Education Select Committee’s recommendation spending cuts to youth services should be proportionate and that the NCS, if retained, must be significantly amended to form accreditation for existing programmes. Moreover, the Government should protect additional funds currently earmarked for the NCS and divert them into year round youth services.

It has been estimated by the Education Select Committee that the cost of the NCS will surpass £350m each year even if only half of 16 year olds take up the scheme. This far outstrips the current cost of all year-round provision. While NCS costs around £1,182 per young person for its six-week stint, spending just £350 a year on each young person would mean all young people could take part in positive leisure time activities.
We are putting out a call for all communities to come together and defend the youth service and ask that you become actively engaged in seeking to support the lobby and lets send a clear and resolute message to our MP’s. The future of our young people is too important to be left to politicians.

Lee Jasper

(Originally posted at OBV www.obv.org.uk)