Hackney Youth Parliament pleads with cabinet against future cuts

Members of Hackney Youth Parliament were recognised at the recent Young Hackney awards. Photograph: Hackney Council / Sean Pollock

Hackney’s Youth Parliament has put pressure on the council not to make any further cuts to young people’s services.

On Monday, six delegates from the junior political body attended the Town Hall’s cabinet meeting to ask councillors not to take away any more money from its parent organisation, Young Hackney.

Off the back of roughly £2m savings made this financial year, elected member Zoe asked the cabinet: “Following the recent cuts and restructure, can the council guarantee that they will make no further cuts to young people’s services over the next two years?”

The young representatives had criticised the fact that they were not consulted over the decision to slash funding.

They also requested the council updates them on its commitment to double the amount of work experience for Year 10 and 11 students in the borough.

Since 2014, Hackney has offered various work experience opportunities for young people as part of the Hackney 100 programme, though this scheme has had different iterations over the years.

In September, the initative was relaunched as ‘Hackney 100 Skills+’, but was only available for residents aged 25 and up – prompting the teen parliamentarians to quiz the council over whether it would consider lowering the eligibility to 16.

Finance chief Cllr Robert Chapman (Labour) sought to assure the group that “despite challenging financial circumstances, [the council] will not forget our young people”.

Though he noted that Young Hackney had already been forced to make savings towards balancing the council’s budget, Cllr Chapman did not confirm or deny if they would see any further cuts.

Highlighting that the borough continued to face a budget gap of £51m up to 2029, he said: “We will continue to explore creative means to invest in our young people.”

Cllr Carole Williams, the borough’s employment chief, said that although Hackney 100 Skills+ was now only targeting adults over the age of 25, the council was also offering 2 to 4 week work placements for young people as part of its green construction jobs drive.

She added that the council had offered a total of 68 school work experience opportunities in 2023, and this year is on track to deliver “more or less double” the number of placements to 120.

Cabinet member for health, culture and social care, Cllr Chris Kennedy, also told the delegates he wanted their involvement as “the voice of young people” in upcoming meetings, including for a joint panel discussing neurodiversity and the rise in ADHD and autism diagnoses over the last decade.

Deputy mayor Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, Hackney’s lead for education and young people, apologised to young members for failing to make them fully aware of the cuts made to Young Hackney.

“It wasn’t acceptable that you weren’t informed that young people were spoken to, heard and listened to. We will engage with you going forward,” she said.

In November, the Youth Parliament circulated a petition urging the council to reconsider imposing £1.7m worth of cuts, “a third of its operating budget”.

At the time, the group highlighted that an independent review of its services found that more investment was needed.

Speaking to the Citizen, opposition councillor Alastair Binnie-Lubbock (Green) said the young politicians were “fantastic and brave” in bringing their concerns to the cabinet.

“Despite deputy mayor Bramble saying that the Labour administration were listening, it was really disappointing that the cabinet members failed to give straight answers to the questions put by the young people in attendance.

“Specifically, Cllr Chapman failed to give assurance that there would be no further cuts to the service in the future.

“Cllr Williams dodged answering the question of whether the Hackney 100 programme could have the age requirement lowered from 25 plus to 16 plus, restoring access for younger people who may benefit from that support into work.”

Update: this article was amended at 10.55am on 28 March 2025 to clarify that the petition was circulated by the Youth Parliament rather than Young Hackney.