FIFTY per cent of Bradford Council staff who deal with “prevention and early help” services for young people could lose their jobs as the department faces a £13 million cut in its budget.

By 2020, government reductions to local council budgets will mean around a third of the budget for the department - which helps families deal with young people’s issues such as health, youth offending, school attendance and making sure children are ready for school - will have been cut.

Next week Bradford Council’s cabinet will decide how to move forward in light of these cuts.

Changes could see 240 council posts slashed, and a more community-led approach to the service adopted. The Council says this will make the service more user-friendly for families, giving them a “single point of contact” and bringing them closer to those who need it most.

However, one anti-austerity group has called the proposals a “gamble”.

Services for babies, children and young people would continue through a range of local sites including the existing children’s centre buildings.

The Council executive will meet next Tuesday to discuss the proposals, deciding on which of four options to move forward with. Once they make a decision, there will be a consultation lasting until February. Any changes would then start coming into effect next October, before being fully implemented by 2020.

Other options being discussed by the executive include putting all early help and prevention services out to tender, or reducing up to 60 per cent of the workforce.

The recommended option is for the Council to provide “core teams alongside a number of commissioned services” - an option that will see between 220 and 240 jobs lost.

The Council has also called on the government to ensure that its Autumn Budget recognises the pressures on children’s services and the need to increase investment in early help.

The prevention service works to stop problems before they happen, and often sees council staff working with families from when a child is born. Early help services try to tackle existing problems involving young people before they become worse.

Due to cuts to local government, the budget for prevention and early help will drop from £37.1m in 2016/17 to £23.8m in 2020.

Michael Jameson, strategic director for children’s services, said: “This is generally what we always planned to do in terms of trying to bring services closer to families, at a more local level.

“This shake-up will mean that families have a single conversation, and that services are not duplicated. It will help us work better with partners like police, health visitors and GPs.

“If you have the services at a local level, you can make better use of our local assets.

“As a council, we do quite well at keeping families together, and we have a relatively low number of children in care compared to other authorities.

“The cut from central government is a huge amount, especially considering Bradford has been quite dependent on government funding in the past.”

Referring to the proposed job cuts he said: “This will be very difficult on staff who provide a great service. We want to support staff in this difficult time, including finding new roles for them. We still have to be clear there will be a massive impact on staff, it is around half our staff in this service, but this is the best way to future proof the service. It is no reflection on the skills of our staff.”

The shake-up will also see four new 0-19 Prevention and Early Help Teams created for certain areas - Keighley/Shipley, Bradford East, Bradford West and Bradford South.

Councillor Val Slater, executive for health and wellbeing, said: “We know there are families in some parts of the district that experience many more difficulties than in others, we need to make sure we get the right help towards families in those areas.”

She said there had been “extensive engagement” with groups and council departments over the summer, and there would also be a wide consultation before the final model is adopted.

A spokesman for Bradford People’s Assembly, an anti-austerity group, has called the proposals “a gamble where the losers will be young people and families in the district, as well as the staff who will lose their jobs”.