The future of three Youth Centres in Bath & North East Somerset looks secure. After slashing its £1 million Youth Connect budget in half last year, the Council is considering setting up a public service mutual – a charity that would operate independently and gain the authority’s core contract for delivery of youth services.

Bath and North East Somerset Council has been in talks with church workers involving the Peasedown St John Youth Hub and Mentoring Plus about running the city’s Riverside facility.

Councillor Paul May, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, told Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting: “If this is going to be successful, it has to go forward at the current level of funding. Over a number of years, the Council’s budget has been cut and cut and cut. We need to a keep a dedicated youth service that’s targeted to the greatest need.

“We are also working closely with the voluntary sector. The Riverside proposals have moved forward and we’re working very effectively with Mentoring Plus there. Peasedown St John is moving forward in a really positive way with the church.

“The Youth Connect service would be located in Southside. There are viability issues, as it’s a commercial building. We need to move the agenda forward on this and have a scheme up and running by April. We have to make sure we can move forward in a reasonable way.”

Cllr May said the Council wants to support the staff but not at the expense of taxpayers, so there will be “due diligence” checks on whether the mutual is the best way forward.

A report to the Cabinet meeting says: “The public service mutual would have the opportunity to secure additional funding and grow services for young people into the future, thereby gradually becoming less dependent on core Council funding.

“It would enable greater flexibility in how services are delivered and a faster response to young people’s emerging needs. This would strengthen the early help offer to young people in Bath & North East Somerset and reduce the likelihood of them needing to access more expensive and intrusive statutory services.”

One alternative to the mutual would be B&NES Council keeping Youth Connect in-house, but it would have less access to funding like lottery grants under that model. Or, it could bring in an external provider, but this would cause “significant” delays and could impact on the goodwill of staff encouraged to back the mutual model.

Liberal Democrat group leader, Dine Romero, said: “I think this [the mutual] looks like a good proposal, but I’m not convinced. This is being driven first and foremost by the Council’s need to make cuts.

“In doing so, preventative services have been put at risk. The current Government seems to fail to recognise the value these services have. This is a very small service that relies on an unknown source of funding. Will it be got rid of, like the Arts Development Service? Or go to an external provider like Virgin?

“The most vulnerable need protection. The youth services are too important to be run entirely separately from the local authority.”

Cllr Eleanor Jackson added that the Council needs to listen to what young people want, rather than dictating it to them. She said: “They want to learn things. They want to get qualifications. They want to have a meaningful future. We want them to achieve their potential. I think what is proposed, given that austerity still reigns, is the best way forward. I think it is the best of the worst.”

Cllr Karen Warrington, Cabinet member for Transformation and Customer Services, said: “I’m always very keen that people should be able to run their own organisations. We want to support our Youth Connect service.

“My concern is due diligence and not leaving the Council open to potentially a large amount of money in the future. We have a duty to protect the Council for any further spend.

“I hope we are able to go through that process and that it will be positive. I think it’s something that could genuinely work.”

Cabinet members backed the conversion of Youth Connect into a mutual, and officers will carry out due diligence checks on the proposal.

Stephen Sumner