Short answer, not happy, yes I have a say but options are limited.
Long answer:
YOF – the Youth Opportunity Fund – was money given to us by the last (Labour) government, and in Coventry we decided the best people to decide how that money should be spent were young people themselves. That, I think was real democracy – giving young people the power to make real decisions over real money – and it was used to fund some great things.
The Conservative government that won in May have taken that fund away from us, along with several other funds.
In Coventry the amount of money that was being taken away from us was huge, and we had no choice but to stop the YOF from giving out any more money, simply because the money had been taken away from us and we couldn’t find money anywhere else. In total we had about £4.5million taken away from us.
I didn’t like the YOF budget being cut. I think the government was wrong to do it.
I didn’t have a say in their decision BUT I do have a say in Coventry’s spending decisions.
I can promise you I am looking hard at every aspect of our budget to try to bring back some form of YOF, though even if I can do that it is likely to have a much smaller amount of money to spend.
I am angry about the way that young people are being treated by this Government. In Coventry they have cancelled our plans to rebuild or renovate all the secondary schools that need it, they have taken away the YOF which funded activities and projects for young people, and they are attacking Connexions, which works to give advice and support to young people.
I am fighting hard against these attacks on young people, and will keep fighting against them whether I win this or not.
Coventry councillors have got some very hard decisions to make over the next few months, the reality is that we have to cut services because we as a council will have our grants cut, we don’t know by how much, until 20th October and the comprehensive spending review is released, but between 25 to 40%.
In real money that means more than £30 million pounds.
We have to choose what to cut and by how much and the impact of these cuts will have a huge effect on service users and on council employees as we may have to make redundancies.
Its hard, we want to give the best possible service to everyone. I personally don’t want to cut services for children & youth people but we have to get the balance right for the city so those who are most vulnerable & deprived get supported.
Nobody wants cuts, and it is important to protect services for youngsters who are at any kind of risk.
But one must always be honest. One quarter of Government expenditure now goes on paying the INTEREST on the money we are borrowing from the financial markets. And that does nothing to reduce the actual debt.
The population is getting older- so more need for pensions; medical science is advancing- so more demand for expensive drugs and treatment; there are terrorist threats against our country; so more need for security services of different kinds- i used to be involved in a small way, so know how expensive it all is; more and more families are breaking up; so more need for Social Service help, etc, etc, etc
One could go on and on. But essentially, the country is in a tremedously difficult financial situation. Everyone is going to take a hit for some time yet.
My great relief is that I am not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, trying to sort it out. at national level. My wife and I have enough problems with our own income.
Cutting the YOF budget was the wrong decision by the government, just like many of the other cuts they’ve done are wrong. In Coventry, I had to find money from elsewhere for the Youth Area in the city centre cos of the YOF cut so I was angry about that. The good thing is though that this will still go ahead and shows that Labour want to give money to help young people whereas the Conservatives want to take it away. They should be ashamed of themselves.
The YOF has achieved alot in my community bringing many young people together in a really positive way, working together and being creative, I know for sure that Labour councillors are working extremely hard to ensure the budget cuts are minimised as much as possible, particularly to children and young people.
Unfortunately, the Government are making deep cuts to Council budgets, cuts which have never been done before, such as taking money back from the Council which the Government had previously given.
I always find it interesting that some councillors will try and make out that they had “no choice” or could not do anything else. Yet if you can make no difference why are you in politics? The Council has this year been asked to save about £3.7m by the new government, it has actually chosen to implement a plan aimed at saving £4.5m which you might want to compare with some of the statements being made.
The YOF budget achieved some good things and it was right that the priorities for it were decided by young people themselves. In common with other funding it was due to finish next April when the current government spending plans ran out, although that was brought forward by the new government. The previous Labour Government did not carry out the scheduled review of public spending last year and delayed it until after the election to avoid having to say what they would actually cut under their own deficit reduction plan.
Councillors can make a difference and it is important to look across the budgets we have to see what needs to be a priority and what not. In May the new council said the Safer Routes to Schools project would have to be abandoned in order to fund more road repairs. Yet following opposition from myself and other Councillors a u-turn was performed in September as the additional money could be found without scrapping this work. Over £1.5m was recently found to fund extra work by It Consultants, something I voted against, so it is possible to make a difference even against a background of large savings being made due to the financial mess this country is in.
Short answer, not happy, yes I have a say but options are limited.
Long answer:
YOF – the Youth Opportunity Fund – was money given to us by the last (Labour) government, and in Coventry we decided the best people to decide how that money should be spent were young people themselves. That, I think was real democracy – giving young people the power to make real decisions over real money – and it was used to fund some great things.
The Conservative government that won in May have taken that fund away from us, along with several other funds.
In Coventry the amount of money that was being taken away from us was huge, and we had no choice but to stop the YOF from giving out any more money, simply because the money had been taken away from us and we couldn’t find money anywhere else. In total we had about £4.5million taken away from us.
I didn’t like the YOF budget being cut. I think the government was wrong to do it.
I didn’t have a say in their decision BUT I do have a say in Coventry’s spending decisions.
I can promise you I am looking hard at every aspect of our budget to try to bring back some form of YOF, though even if I can do that it is likely to have a much smaller amount of money to spend.
I am angry about the way that young people are being treated by this Government. In Coventry they have cancelled our plans to rebuild or renovate all the secondary schools that need it, they have taken away the YOF which funded activities and projects for young people, and they are attacking Connexions, which works to give advice and support to young people.
I am fighting hard against these attacks on young people, and will keep fighting against them whether I win this or not.
0
Coventry councillors have got some very hard decisions to make over the next few months, the reality is that we have to cut services because we as a council will have our grants cut, we don’t know by how much, until 20th October and the comprehensive spending review is released, but between 25 to 40%.
In real money that means more than £30 million pounds.
We have to choose what to cut and by how much and the impact of these cuts will have a huge effect on service users and on council employees as we may have to make redundancies.
Its hard, we want to give the best possible service to everyone. I personally don’t want to cut services for children & youth people but we have to get the balance right for the city so those who are most vulnerable & deprived get supported.
0
Nobody wants cuts, and it is important to protect services for youngsters who are at any kind of risk.
But one must always be honest. One quarter of Government expenditure now goes on paying the INTEREST on the money we are borrowing from the financial markets. And that does nothing to reduce the actual debt.
The population is getting older- so more need for pensions; medical science is advancing- so more demand for expensive drugs and treatment; there are terrorist threats against our country; so more need for security services of different kinds- i used to be involved in a small way, so know how expensive it all is; more and more families are breaking up; so more need for Social Service help, etc, etc, etc
One could go on and on. But essentially, the country is in a tremedously difficult financial situation. Everyone is going to take a hit for some time yet.
My great relief is that I am not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, trying to sort it out. at national level. My wife and I have enough problems with our own income.
0
Cutting the YOF budget was the wrong decision by the government, just like many of the other cuts they’ve done are wrong. In Coventry, I had to find money from elsewhere for the Youth Area in the city centre cos of the YOF cut so I was angry about that. The good thing is though that this will still go ahead and shows that Labour want to give money to help young people whereas the Conservatives want to take it away. They should be ashamed of themselves.
0
The YOF has achieved alot in my community bringing many young people together in a really positive way, working together and being creative, I know for sure that Labour councillors are working extremely hard to ensure the budget cuts are minimised as much as possible, particularly to children and young people.
Unfortunately, the Government are making deep cuts to Council budgets, cuts which have never been done before, such as taking money back from the Council which the Government had previously given.
0
I always find it interesting that some councillors will try and make out that they had “no choice” or could not do anything else. Yet if you can make no difference why are you in politics? The Council has this year been asked to save about £3.7m by the new government, it has actually chosen to implement a plan aimed at saving £4.5m which you might want to compare with some of the statements being made.
The YOF budget achieved some good things and it was right that the priorities for it were decided by young people themselves. In common with other funding it was due to finish next April when the current government spending plans ran out, although that was brought forward by the new government. The previous Labour Government did not carry out the scheduled review of public spending last year and delayed it until after the election to avoid having to say what they would actually cut under their own deficit reduction plan.
Councillors can make a difference and it is important to look across the budgets we have to see what needs to be a priority and what not. In May the new council said the Safer Routes to Schools project would have to be abandoned in order to fund more road repairs. Yet following opposition from myself and other Councillors a u-turn was performed in September as the additional money could be found without scrapping this work. Over £1.5m was recently found to fund extra work by It Consultants, something I voted against, so it is possible to make a difference even against a background of large savings being made due to the financial mess this country is in.
0