Consultation Hub

In February 2019 West Sussex County Council SEND Commissioning Team asked you what Short Breaks opportunities you would like to have for young adults in West Sussex. We asked you about this, to help us develop our Short Breaks offer for 18 to 25 year olds.

The team would like to thank the staff, volunteers and young adults at PACSO Job Club, Ashdown Extra (Guildcare), Crawley College, M8s youth group Bognor, Young Voices 4 You and everyone who completed the online survey for your views and comments.

The top three activities you said you liked were

• Going out; from meals out, to local attractions, and further away like trips to theme parks. This included the chance to go out in the evenings.
• Socialising and making friends
• Cooking

The top three skills you said you wanted to build were

• Making friends, and talking to/meeting new people
• Doing more for yourself/life skills
• Team work/being part of a team with other people your own age

You told us that you would like to follow your own interests like art, cooking, go-karting and outdoor adventure activities.

Some of your ideas would make really good Compass Card offers. We are working with Amaze, who run the Compass Card scheme to develop their offers for young adults. You can find out more about the Compass Card scheme here  https://www.compasscard.org.uk/

You said that everyone is different. Travel training might be great for one person but may not work so well for someone else. You said we need to think about different ways that different people can learn to do more for themselves , for example helping out with preparing a meal.

You said that you would like us to develop more opportunities for young adults in this age group to take part in Short Breaks, as you do not feel there is enough available for over 18s.

Michael, Short Breaks Commissioning Manager, has written a short list of ideas for Short Breaks, using the comments and views you gave us.

• Pub or Dinner Club (this could happen once a week)

Activities could include: eating, drinking, buying your own food and drinks, chatting with friends, play pub games (maybe snooker/pool and darts).

• Residential (this could happen maybe once or twice in the year)

A residential break would happen somewhere in West Sussex and would include one or two nights away. You would be with people of a similar age to you and you would have a timetable of events for your break.

Activities could include: eating, drinking, chatting with friends, cooking meals, washing up, shopping on a budget, making your bed, travelling on public transport, going out to do something in the community i.e. cinema, bowling.

• Lifeskills (this could happen once a week)

A course run in West Sussex where you would get to learn some new skills that will help you in your adult life.

Activities could include: cooking, being able to travel on your own on public transport, looking after your money, making friends, staying healthy, coping with stress, having a boyfriend or girlfriend, sex education.

We will work on these ideas with the Young Voices 4 You group, who are our young people’s reference group in West Sussex, to develop one or two of them into new Short Breaks opportunities for young adults.

Information on the progress of these new Short Breaks will be published on the Participation and Short Breaks Wiki webpages , so please check these for any further updates. https://wiki.rixwiki.org/west-sussex-mmm/home/commissioning-team/

https://wiki.rixwiki.org/west-sussex-mmm/home/youth-participation-1

If you, or someone you know aged 14 to 25, would like to join Young Voices 4 You as a youth ambassador, taking part in projects including developing Short Breaks, please contact rachel.sadler@westsussex.gov.uk 07734000401

We asked you to tell us how well informed you felt about the way the Council manages its budget and the type budget-related challenges the council is facing, and whether or not you felt you received enough information about these.

We also asked for your ideas on how we might generate income to help protect as many of our services as possible. 

We received 720 responses to our survey.  The key findings are listed below: 

96% of respondents either agreed (61%) or strongly agreed (35%) with the statement ‘I am interested in the budget decisions made by the Council’.

27% of respondents had previously taken part in our ‘What Matters To You?’ survey - the survey which helps to inform decisions around budget setting and Council Tax levels.

When asked to indicate ‘How informed are you about the challenges the Council faces in balancing the budget?’ on a scale of 1-10 (where 1= not at all informed and 10= very well informed), 46% of respondents indicated a score of 5 or less, whereas 55% indicated a score between 6-10, although the highest number of respondents indicating a 7 (16%). 

Using the same scale (where 1= not at all informed and 10= very well informed), when asked ‘How well informed do you feel about the Council's budget proposals for 2019/2020?’ 72% gave a lower end score of 5 or less, with the highest number of respondents (17%) indicating a score of 3.  16% indicated a score of 1.

70% of respondents either agreed (52%) or strongly agreed (18%) with the statement, ‘I understand the scale of savings that the Council still has to make to their budget over the next few years’.

92% either agreed (47%) or strongly agreed (45%) with the statement   ‘I am aware the Council has received a significant drop in its funding’.

66% indicated they either agreed (49%) or strongly agreed (17%) with the statement ‘I read the information I received about budget spending in my Council Tax letter for 2018/19

55% indicated they received ‘not nearly enough’ information about the Budget, whereas 44% indicated ‘About the right amount of information, and just under 1% indicated ‘Too much information’.

As a result of this survey, we have strengthened our efforts to keep our businesses and residents informed of budget-related information, particularly in relation to the 2019/20 budget.  We have increased our digital and traditional marketing efforts and the way we present our information, including a refresh of the council tax leaflet.

We are currently processing and considering all the ideas and suggestions made in relation to how we might save money or generate income to help protect as many of our services as possible. 

We conducted an online resident survey from 3rd December 2018 to 11th January 2019, asking 11 questions to give a flavour of what our residents currently think about EVs and what they would like the charging infrastructure to look like across the county in the future.

Thank you to all of the people that completed the survey. We received 1339 responses in total.

Some of the highlights are:

• 60% of you would like to own an electric car
• 84% of you want to charge at home
• 60% of you want to charge at destinations
• Lack of public charging is preventing / discouraging 57% of you switching
• Cost of EV cars is  preventing / discouraging 55% of you switching
• 36% of you would be willing to pay more to charge on a public network than at home.

All the results received are being collated and reviewed, and we will use them to inform the next stage of the strategy development.

We are aiming to have a final strategy drafted for approval by November 2019. An additional public consultation on this strategy will take place before this time.