170 Youth Worker Job Losses Condemned

Plans by Devon County Council to press ahead with up to 170 youth worker job losses were condemned today by Unite, the country's largest union.

Unite said that its members were being made 'scapegoats' for a critical Ofsted report on the authority's children social care service – though youth workers were not even part of that review.

Last month, Unite warned that youth services that help more than 12,500 young people annually in Devon will become 'a postcode lottery', if the county council is allowed to slash the service's budget.

Unite said that the county council is pressing ahead with proposals that could see all 34 of its youth centres close, which would mean up to 170 youth work jobs being axed, with the handful of youth workers remaining being deployed entirely into social work.

Unite regional officer Mark Richards said: "What I find most disturbing about these cuts to a vital community service is the lack of transparency and the constant reference to the damning Ofsted report on children's social care.

"The council is failing to tell the public that the youth service was not even part of the Ofsted review. Our members are being made scapegoats for the increasing cost of social work; itself made worse by coalition's austerity measures."

Unite said that the authority needed to find over £100m savings, yet it is paying out new bonuses to retain demoralised social work managers, alongside paying huge amounts to private agencies to provide fill-in social workers.

(CD/JP)