Youth Services Consultation

Summary

The Parish Council is due to set its 2025/26 budget soon and will need to decide whether to raise the precept (the Parish Council’s portion of Council Tax) to contribute more money to the youth club.

The Totnes and Rural Area Youth Engagement Project (TRAYE) that runs the youth club has said that the club will be at risk of closing if the Parish Council is unable make a larger donation to its annual costs. If TRAYE were to be given the funds it is asking for, it would cost the average Council Tax payer approximately £3.50 more on the annual tax bill next year.

The Parish Council wants to hear what you and other residents in the parish think before making a decision. 

What do you think?

Need more information before forming an opinion?

This page provides information about the youth club, the organisation that runs it, what it costs, how much funding the Parish Council has been asked to provide, what that means for the Parish Council’s budget and information on how much local taxes are spent on the youth club. You can click on the questions in the list below to get taken straight to each section if you like, or read through from top to bottom:

What is the Totnes Rural Area Youth Engagement Project (TRAYE)?

Following a cut in grant funding in 2013, Devon County Council reduced funding for youth services county wide.

Totnes Rural Area Youth Engagement (TRAYE) has been delivering community youth work and developing opportunities for young people in rural communities in South Hams and Teignbridge for the last 8 years. This followed a cut in grant funding in 2013, leading to Devon County Council reducing spending on youth services county wide.

TRAYE was set up as a partnership, supported by Parish Councils in eight parishes, with voluntary trustees that oversee the project.

Whilst TRAYE is overseen by volunteers, the Youth Workers that deliver the sessions are professionally qualified and are trained in Safeguarding, First Aid, Food Safety and Health and Safety at work. TRAYE Youth Workers are also trained in Mental Health, Substance Misuse and Trauma Informed Practice and this ensures that they have an up to date knowledge of what young people are facing in their daily lives.

For more information about what TRAYE does, you can download the organisation’s most recent annual report here.

How did TRAYE get involved in running Harbertonford Youth Club and what does it offer?

Harbertonford Youth Club was run by local volunteers for many years, but in 2017 those volunteers asked the Parish Council to help them get some more professional help. To give the help that was asked for, Harberton Parish Council and Rattery Parish Council made a successful joint bid for funding from South Hams District Council to expand the work that TRAYE was doing in other parishes into Harbertonford (and Rattery) for one year, as a pilot. TRAYE began operating a club from Harbertonford Village Hall every other week since then, and the Parish Council has made a small financial contribution to the club every year.

TRAYE has told the Parish Council that there is now a thriving group regularly coming along; there is a list of 54 active members, with approximately 15-30 young people aged 8+ attending each session. 

Sessions include arts and crafts, singing, dancing, playing games out on the field, team building exercises and activities that focus on health and wellbeing.  Free snacks and drinks are always available, and young people can talk to Youth Workers about things that are on their minds.  Trained Youth Workers can also offer one-to-one support to vulnerable young people and can provide information about other support services available.  Youth Workers have seen relationships develop and friendships blossom between regular attendees, and where there are conflicts can help resolve them through sitting down and having a chat. 

Recently TRAYE has started running sessions in Harberton on some Friday evenings as well as running sessions in Harbertonford on some Thursday evenings.

Why is TRAYE asking for more money to run the youth club?

TRAYE has calculated that it costs approximately £7000 per year for it to run a fortnightly youth club in a parish. This includes some costs for hall hire and food, but most of it is spent on fees for 3 professionally trained Youth Workers and the paid project manager who oversees their work and ensure that safeguarding standards are met. Costs have increased over the years because of safeguarding recommendations on staff to young person ratios. For children between the age 8-10 the ratio is 1 Youth Worker to 8 young people, and a ratio of 1:10 for those over 10 years old

All Parish Councils where youth clubs are run have been asked to contribute 50% of the annual cost of running the youth club. TRAYE trustees fundraise elsewhere for the remaining 50%.

TRAYE trustees have indicated to the Parish Council that if it can’t commit to this level of financial support, then TRAYE can’t continue to run the youth club in Harberton Parish.

How much does the youth club run by TRAYE cost the tax payer?

The Parish Council made a contribution of £1750 to TRAYE in the 2024/25 financial year from the Parish Council’s budget. This was an increase on the £1000 given the year before. The additional £750 given in 2024/25 cost a tax payer living in a Band D property an extra 86p for the year. This

If the the Parish Council had made the full £3500 contribution that TRAYE had requested, the additional £2500 needed from the budget would have cost a tax payer living in a Band D property an extra £4.12 for the year.

These figures are laid out in the table below.

The Parish Council will make a decision on increasing the budget for TRAYE in this coming financial year (April 2025 to March 2026). Until the Parish Council sets its budget in January it is difficult to estimate how much the precept will rise in total, but using Council Tax figures from the 2024/25 financial year, the cost of meeting TRAYE’s request for funding would cost approximately £3 – £4 more a year for the average tax payer (Council Tax Band D household).

There are a couple of factors to bear in mind:

Estimates on increases to Council Tax are difficult to make as the number of households paying Council Tax in the parish can change year on year, and that the actual cost to individual households can go up or down by a few pounds or pence.

It is possible that TRAYE will ask the Parish Council for more money, as salary costs and the costs of materials, refreshments and hall hire also increase. On being asked this, TRAYE indicated an estimated 3% rise in their costs per year.

Contributing to the youth club is one of many projects that the Parish Council supports in a year. The Parish Council may consider making other increases in the 2025/26 budget for other projects that need fund or where costs are expected to increase with inflation. You can find the Parish Council’s 2024/25 budget here if you’d like to see what the Parish Council expected to spend money on this year. This gives an idea of where the Parish Council starts when considering how to set next year’s budget.

An illustration of cost to the local tax payer if a larger contribution were to be made:

ACTUAL 2024/25 figuresIllustrative figures
if TRAYE had received the full amount they requested in 2024/25		Difference
Total precept (the total annual amount the Parish Council receives from Council Tax)£21,364£23,364+£2000
What the Parish Council’s precept cost a Band D Council Tax payer in the year 2024/24£39.73£43.44+£3.71
The Parish Council’s contribution to TRAYE £1750£3500+£1750
The percentage of the Parish Council’s precept donated to TRAYE for the youth club8.2%15%+6.8%
The increase in contribution made to TRAYE, in comparison to the previous financial year (when £1000 was given)£750£2500+£1750
Increases of the annual cost of TRAYE to a Band D Council Tax payer in the year 2024/25 86p£4.12+£3.26

What have people in Harberton Parish already said about the youth club run by TRAYE?

Staff, Youth Workers and trustees working with TRAYE came to a meeting of the Parish Council in February 2024 to advocate for the benefits their activities bring to young people in the parish and to their families. A letter was read out from a single parent family in Harbertonford, who wanted to let the Parish Council know that the club meant a lot to him and his child. The Parish Council was told that other parents of TRAYE regulars had made similar endorsements via TRAYE’s WhatsApp group.

At the Annual Meeting of the Parish held in Harbertonford in May 2024 the floor was opened to hear views about the potential increases in costs to Council Tax to keep the youth club running. The following comments were noted:

  • Harbertonford is a living village where children and young people deserve services.  Not all children in the community are affluent.  The increase to the precept would be negligible.  We need more investment in young people.
  • It would be fantastic to fund it, however it would be good to let the young people know that there is a risk of a loss of the sessions and engage them in fundraising to meet the costs.
  • There has been a decimation of statutory youth services.  The fact that TRAYE and the sessions in Harbertonford exist at all is wonderful and it should be supported. 
  • A couple of attendees that spoke on the subject had been youth workers or worked in youth services in the past and could see the issue that TRAYE faces.  One commented that it is a monumental role that these youth providers have in the community.  The price of the increase to the precept is a couple of coffees per household and they (personally) would wholly support the increase to invest in young people.
  • It was commented that there is no youth club in Harberton any more.  Are parents in Harberton aware of TRAYE?  Can there be more representation from TRAYE?  It was commented by TRAYE’s project manager that there are other parishes with two villages, and the youth club has trialled running sessions in one village for half the year, and in the other village for the other half.  Some kind of arrangement could be considered in Harberton Parish.
  • Looking at the figures, it appears that TRAYE is a bargain and offers good value for money.  We are fantastically fortunate to have this facility and this service.  I have a 13 year old, and knew that TRAYE existed by wasn’t fully aware of the range of activities so hearing about TRAYE this evening has been an eye-opener.  It would be great to have this facility right in the heart of the community. 
  • As a parent I am supportive of TRAYE as my family would benefit, but taking a wider view, not investing in youth is a bit of an ‘own goal’.  Young people need to have healthy, positive activities.  It was commented that a loss of services for young people can result in expressions of anti-social behaviour.

Those people in the community who came to the Annual Parish Meeting appeared to be in unanimous support of raising the precept to support the continuation of youth services.  The Parish Council is keen to canvas views from the community as a whole, before making a final decision on setting its budget.

What do you think?

Do you think the Parish Council should increase financial support to TRAYE?

Do you share the positive opinion of those people who came to the Annual Parish Meeting in May, or have a different perspective?

UPDATE: A short online questionnaire was circulated to collect views and a link was available here on this website. Residents were asked to respond to midnight on Sunday 5th January 2025 in order for their views to be taken into account. The Clerk also invited residents to write to the Clerk as an alternative to using the online questionnaire, or give views by attending the meeting of the Parish Council where the budget will first be discussed, at 7:30pm on Tuesday 10th December 2024, held at Harbertonford Village Hall.

Now that the questionnaire has closed, a summary of the results is published here.