AFTER last month’s report that 11 of the remaining 18 youth workers in Wiltshire were to lose their jobs a youth group director has labelled the county council as short sighted and playing with children’s futures.

Director of Bath and Wiltshire Youth for Christ, James Vaughton, believes the cuts will disproportionately affect economically deprived children and are a symptom of Wiltshire Council's undervaluing of youth services.

The recent round of cuts came on top of those made in May 2014 when the council announced that the number of youth workers were to be cut from 144 to just 25.

Mr Vaughton said: “It is a demolition of the youth services in terms of front line youth work.

“It is not good news for young people. I think it is giving those seven youth workers an impossible job. I struggle to see how it is going to work.

“Somebody somewhere must believe in what they have done but what are their hopes for those youth workers?

“From a youth work perspective I think it is demoralising, frustrating and saddening. What does it say to young people?

“Where you spend your money shows what you value. If you spend money then you value it. The public can draw their own conclusions about that.”

The council told staff that the remaining roles of community youth officers were to be scrapped and replaced with just seven staff to be known as locality youth facilitators.

The remaining youth workers now under threat of redundancy have been offered the chance to apply for the new roles but those who do not take up one of the new posts will be offered support to find new positions in the council.

The latest youth worker redundancies are to help enable Wiltshire Council to make £25m of savings across its budget this year.

Mr Vaughton added: “The impact has been huge. I would say that the indicators are that what they are doing is set to affect people from economically poor backgrounds significantly.

“It is short term thinking because if you lose the youth workers you do not know the knock on effects to the community, such as on health services, police or however many other areas.”