This is an opportunity for the Committee to question officers from Cherwell District Council and Oxfordshire County Council who are involved in the provision of youth services and specifically in activities which promote the democratic engagement of young people.
Representatives from the UK Youth Parliament and Banbury School pupils taking part in the Councillor Shadowing programme have also been invited to attend the meeting.
There will be a private briefing session for members of the Committee to prepare for this agenda item starting at 6.00pm. Members are reminded that they are asked to forward any questions or specific topics that they wish to raise in the discussion to the Scrutiny Officer in advance of the meeting.
Minutes:
The Chairman explained that this was an opportunity for the Committee to question officers from Cherwell District Council and Oxfordshire County Council who were involved in the provision of youth services and specifically in activities which promote the democratic engagement of young people. He welcomed the following guests:
The Chairman also welcomed the two pupils from Banbury School, a pupil and teacher from Frank Wise School and Councillor Carol Steward. The pupils were all members of their respective school youth councils and, together with Councillor Steward, were participating in the Local Councillor Shadowing programme.
The Chairman began by asking the representatives from Oxfordshire County Council to outline their roles.
Francesca Heffernan explained that her post involved engaging young people in north Oxfordshire in three distinct areas: Integrated Youth Support Services (IYSS); Connexions; and, the youth offending service. Ms. Heffernan advised the Committee that there were three funds available to support youth projects, youth groups, activities and facilities in Oxfordshire: the Chill Out Fund; Youth Opportunities; and, the Youth Capital Fund. Ms. Heffernan worked within the Participation Team which helped young people get involved in the decision-making process for the latter two funds. The Committee was advised that the Participation Workers also supported and helped build up the youth forums in the district.
Emily Little explained that her post included coordinating and facilitating the Oxfordshire Youth Parliament and coordinating and supporting the annual cycle of UK Youth Parliament elections across the county. In addition, she supported the Members and Deputy Members of the Youth Parliament during their term of office.
In the course of the discussion and questioning the following points emerged:
Youth Forums/Councils
Francesca Heffernan explained that at present in Cherwell there was an established youth council in Bicester, a youth forum in Banbury and a newly formed youth forum in Kidlington. Work was currently underway to establish a North Youth Forum which would be held three times a year and bring together the youth forums in the north and west of the county.
Members were interested to learn about how the outcomes and impact of the youth forums/parliament were measured and monitored. The Oxfordshire County Council representatives reported that there were many successful outcomes however acknowledged it was difficult to monitor the impact. They reported that from the perspective of the young people, success could be measured by their achievements and cited the examples of the Bicester Youth Council who had led the introduction of a recycling initiative in schools in the town; the manifesto of the UK Youth Parliament which had included promoting positive images of young people and had led to the production of a DVD entitled “the youth of today” which explored the reasons for the negative images of young people and highlighted the positive work of young people.
In response to questions, the Decision Making and Young People Worker explained that in the long term she hoped that more young people would be represented and given a voice in the issues that affected them. This would be achieved through greater partnership working between the county, district and town/parish councils together with schools and voluntary organisations.
School Councils
The Committee was interested to learn about how the school councils functioned. The Frank Wise pupil explained that he was the Chairman of his school council which included four senior and four junior pupils. A suggestion box was available in which any student could submit an item for discussion by the school council. The teacher from Frank Wise School explained that the school council had been running for a few years and that there were links to various groups to ensure that there were opportunities for young people with special needs and also access to mainstream activities.
The Banbury School pupils explained that there were three levels at their school: year group councils; a lower and an upper school council; and, a school parliament. The pupils explained that their School Parliament had limited decision making powers but gave the members an opportunity to have an understanding of democracy and how it works.
Activities and Communication
The Involvement Officer informed the Committee that there were currently two county-wide websites which hold information in regard to young people and include information on what is available in the district. Youth Activator boards had recently been fitted in all secondary schools (Warriner / Kidlington / North Oxfordshire Academy and Banbury School) and would be fitted in all schools by Easter 2010. The boards hold information for young people on what's going on in their area. The boards were updated monthly, so hold up to date information in the areas of Physical Activities / Arts & Culture / Health & Info and Youth Clubs.
The Banbury School pupils advised the Committee that they were not aware of the boards in their school and had not heard of the county-wide websites. Furthermore, one of the pupils explained that not all young people have frequent access to the internet as access at school was limited and not all homes have an internet connection so it was important to use a variety of means of communication.
The pupils suggested a number of ways to improve communication with young people: school websites could host links to other websites; school newspapers/magazines could contain information on general activities, the activities of youth forums and events organised by the Council such as Local Democracy Week; information could be made available to parents at parents evening; the students themselves could disseminate information submitted to the school council through year representatives to class representatives; the Council could publicise events in the local media including newspapers and radio.
The teacher from Frank Wise School reported that the school had good and frequent contact with the Involvement Officer who provided support and information on activities in the district. However, he acknowledged that not all of the information was disseminated through the school and was an area he would be addressing.
The Committee agreed that it was important to ask young people about the activities they want and the mechanism for doing this should incorporate a wide range of young people, not only those who are involved in youth/school councils. In response to the Committee’s question regarding what the Council could do to improve and promote the engagement of young people in local democracy, the pupils explained that they felt it was important to ask their views about activities and to make information and activities more widely available.
Conclusions
The Chairman thanked the representatives of Oxfordshire County Council, Banbury School, Frank Wise School and Cherwell District Council for attending the meeting and making a valuable contribution to the scrutiny review. He asked the Board to reflect on the evidence presented at the meeting, on the information obtained from the earlier briefing documents, discussions with officers at the Committee’s previous four meetings and on the draft report that had been circulated to Members.
The Committee agreed that based on the evidence submitted they felt that a single all encompassing recommendation that the Council should introduce a formal policy for youth engagement would be sufficient.