Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member Housing and Safety

The Cabinet Member Housing and Safety introduced the report. This provided an update to members on the commissioning approach for allocation of the one-off sum of £50,000 allocated by Council to support the sustainable development of additional capacity and expertise in providers of community-based youth work in Cheltenham.

Four expressions of interest had been received and these had been reviewed by members of the Social and Community Overview and Scrutiny Committee and also at a meeting with the chair of the Cheltenham Children and Young People’s Partnership. That meeting had provided a number of useful comments on the information contained in the appendix. The next stage was to ask for more detail on the proposals and encourage potential providers to work together.

She highlighted that this was a separate process to the allocation of the residual Gloucestershire County Council county funding of £50,000 per district in 2011/12 for youth provision. The districts had just received the criteria from the county on how this money should be spent. All the districts were now working up their own criteria which following agreement by the county would be used to initiate a small bidding process. This funding would be available from July and the only limiting factor was how quickly the bidding process could be completed.

The Leader welcomed the work that was being done by the council to help groups who may be struggling as a result of the cuts in youth provision.