At the Full Council meeting on 1st October 2009 I put forward a motion on youth services to the council. A copy of the motion can be seen at the end of this blog post.

As is the system at the council, the motion was then referred to the Council’s Executive. The executive met on 15th October 2009 to discuss, among other things, this motion. I attended the executive meeting as in the papers for the meeting an officer of the council had submitted the comment that it would be helpful if I could be invited to address the executive on the over-arching ambition of the motion so that appropriate proposals can be brought forward by Officers for consideration. I attended, although I did not receive any invitation from the executive to do so, in the hope of being invited to speak.  

When I was invited to speak, it became apparent that the executive did not want me to explain the ambition to the motion, but that the executive had taken exception to the motion, especially the wording. As this became clear I explained that I had not come to the meeting to be cross-examined but to explain the ambition of the motion.

The aim of this blog post is to explain and make clear the ambition of the motion and to refute claims and inaccuracies made on Conservative websites. 

Some of the criticism of the motion centres of the first two points, what I consider to be the poor level of youth service provision in Woking and the increasing amount of antisocial behaviour seen in our communities.

Unsurprisingly I disagree with the view that all is well for youth provision in Woking. If we look at the Surrey County Council website and the Woking Borough Council website for information about youth services, it is clear there is a limited range of activities. The Woking Borough Council page has not even been updated since February 2008, but little has improved. The links are: : http://www.woking.gov.uk/community/children/young/out/wwwwokinggovukyouthcentres and http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/SCCWebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Youth+clubs+and+projects+in+Woking?opendocument 

The centres we have in Woking, with the exception of Ypod, are not open most evenings and are not numerous enough for young people to easily attend them.

Looking at anti-social behaviour, it is an issue that comes up time and time again on the door step, but is a type of offence that is not always reported to the police. Crime is generally on the increase in Woking, but I am willing to concede that anti-social behaviour is a difficult type of crime to unpick, as is shown by the graph from the Surrey Police crime map for Woking: http://surrey.crimemapper.co.uk/map/woking/ 

Anti-social behaviour has decreased over the last 3 months, but is that the right time frame to be looking at? If the statistics are looked at over a longer period of time then it shows that anti-social behaviour increased between March and June, decreasing over July until September. It is equally difficult to unpick the youth component of these statistics. Furthermore, regardless of the increase or decrease, the level of anti-social behaviour in Woking is unacceptable. Putting the young people of Woking in a position where they can either stay at home or wander the streets some nights of the week is socially irresponsible. We do not treat our elderly people like this, so why would we consider it for the young. 

From the perspective of my ward Knaphill, if anti-social behaviour was not an issue, I doubt that Sainsbury’s would have gone to the expense of fitting gates to their store car park, recently, to keep young people and their cars out at night. A year ago there were serious issues with anti-social behaviour in Knaphill around the Vyne Field. One of the actions to reduce the problem was carried out by the residents association. The Knaphill Youth Café (now known as the cabin) was created. It was only possible for it to open on a Monday due to availability of council buildings to provide a venue, but it has been a great success. I ask the question though, if it is needed, is Monday enough? Of course it is not, but there simply are not enough volunteers to run it more nights and there is not an offer from the council to give volunteers a venue any other night. The absence of youth workers from Surrey County Council at the Cabin has been stark. 

The motion also notes the lack of opportunities for intergenerational interaction. The ambition of the motion is to create a Woking where young people have places to go near where they live, which give society an informal opportunity to socialise the young people into the behaviours we hope for in our community. The motion is not specifying what exactly young people need and what they want. It is not saying structure is needed. It is not saying cost should come from the residents. It is simply saying that there should be opportunity for the provision – joint working – Woking may have the buildings and Surrey may have the staff (and some buildings) let’s work together with the community for the young people of Woking.  

It is up to the Council officers to investigate the costs and put forward a model, having consulted young people, which will provide a good quality of youth provision and reduce anti-social behaviour. 

Woking currently has less provision in its youth offer than many other parts of Surrey, but Surrey is significantly failing to meet targets that it has set for engaging with young people who are not in education, employment or training. If these young people then have nothing to do and nowhere to go in the evening, it is not surprising if they are involved in anti-social behaviour. On the night of the executive meeting, one Conservative councillor made a point of stressing the importance of family involvement with young people in the evenings. This is totally valid, but for some young people spending the evening in the family home is not a realistic option and local politicians who fail to see that, are failing to fully represent the people in their wards.

Other Liberal Democrat Councillors from all over Woking tell me they have an issue with the lack of provision for young people and complaints of anti-social behaviour from residents and this is why we have put this motion forward. To do something about the problem, to help those who work in the community, rather than to be in denial and do nothing. There are clear differences between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, this is one such issue. 

Youth motion for Full Council on 1^st October  

Noting:         

Poor level of youth service provision in the borough. The increasing amount of antisocial behaviour seen in our communities.The lack of structured activities for young people in the evening outside of uniformed services and church groups.

The lack of opportunities for positive cross generational interaction.

Calling for:

Woking Borough Council to investigate the cost of providing adequate youth service provision in Woking.

Woking Borough Council to approach Surrey County Council with a view to agreeing to run youth service provision in Woking jointly, in liaison with the Local Committee.

Provision to include an accessible youth centre in each county division in Woking, Monday – Saturday each evening.         

Woking Borough Council to support and work with existing local community organisations to enable the fulfilment of this motion.