The Connections Bus Project will continue to run four hours a week of youth activities in the village until at least December 2025, after Parish Councillors committed over £18,000 to extend their contract.
Despite concerns being first raised in January 2024 that this service does not offer value for money, a proposal was put to a full Council meeting this week to pay the charity a further £8,695 to extend their activities in the village for four months from April to July 2025, coinciding with the end of the academic year.
But the working party that was due to present a full review of youth provision in the village in June 2024 want more time to assess alternatives and produce a community action plan for youth work.
They have now pledged to report back in June 2025. To give themselves and the charity more time to adjust, and maintain services for young people attending the sessions if the review concludes that new arrangements should be made, the meeting voted to extend the Connections Bus contract until the end of the year.
As the charity have raised their termly fee by 5%, the bill for the work will total £18,261.
Contract issues
During school term time, Connections Bus currently runs a 1.5 hour after-school youth club and a 1 hour ‘mindfulness and yoga’ session at the Rec, plus a 1.5 hour babysitting course at Histon Baptist Church.
The charity has been providing youth work in the village since 2017, when a member of Parish Council staff moved across to them. The Council then contracted Connections Bus to deliver youth services instead of providing them itself.
Councillors couldn’t recall how the original fee to them was set, but thought it was linked to the salary of the person who joined the charity.
However, the contract has been neither formally reviewed nor put out to tender since, and its annual value is now such that for the past two years it has breached the £25,000 ceiling above which all public sector contracts must be advertised through the government’s Contracts Finder service.
To continue paying for any services at this level will require the Council either to put them out for tender, or offer the money as a grant, which places fewer conditions on the recipient. Decisions on whether a service should be offered a grant or a contract will be part of a wider discussion at the next full council meeting in February, where a draft grants policy will also be considered.
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