CUTS TO DERBY’S CHILDREN’S SERVICES REVEALED

We now know more details of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government’s cuts to local services for children and young people in Derby.

In response to a letter from Labour’s shadow children and education secretary Ed Balls, the coalition government admitted that £311m will be cut this year from education and children’s services provided locally but funded by the government.

The Con/Dem government’s cuts include £55,770 from Derby’s school transport, £158,538 from youth activities and local youth clubs and £33,840 from programmes to cut teenage pregnancy. But the biggest cut of £590,066 will come from the funding for Derby’s Connexions service that helps young people into work.

It’s now clear that the Conservatives and Lib Dems believe that the first candidate for cuts should be services for children and young people in areas like ours.

But these cuts are extremely short-sighted and will save very little in the long run if teenage pregnancy rises. If young people have fewer things to do after school more of them could get drawn into crime or anti-social behaviour and that will also increase costs. And if more young people are left without the support that could help them obtain employment, they will be forced to claim unemployment benefits.”

Just a few weeks ago the Tories and Lib Dems said there would be no cuts to frontline services, but already that promise has been broken.

The new government hopes they can pass the buck. They want local councils to take the rap by cutting the budgets for local councils without specifying where these cuts will fall on support for schools, for vulnerable young people and children.

The full breakdown of the existing grants from which this £311 million will be cut can be found at this link: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/xls/1536588.xls